Conservatives Pivot to "Canada First" as Federal Race Tightens
With Trump's unpredictability shaking up the race, election day is anything but certain.
On February 15th, Pierre Poilievre gave a cornerstone speech with a new message centered around “Canada First”, a plan to accelerate jobs, grow investment by reducing taxes and reduce regulations to unleash a free enterprise economy. The threat of US tariffs was presented as a “wake up call” driving Canada to get its house in order to become wealthy and self-reliant.
But after four weeks of polls showing Liberals steadily gaining support, as the Conservatives’ 25% lead shrank to 5-10% (there is even a recent poll showing the Liberals leading) the question many Conservatives are asking is will it be enough?
Firstly, every pollster expected the race to tighten following the departure of Justin Trudeau. Last summer, polling showed that without Trudeau, the pool of voters that would consider voting Liberal immediately increased by 14%. Conservative pollsters note that the governing liberals were down 20% when Pierre Elliott Trudeau stepped down in 1984, but the arrival of John Turner erased that gap overnight.
Secondly, because we are still in the early stage of the pre-campaign, Mr. Carney has yet to release specifics on any of his policies. He promises to spend more on infrastructure, green technology and defence, to bring in tax cuts, AND to balance the budget. His environment plan promises to replace taxes with incentives and to make polluters pay more. His answer to every question about specifics is to zoom out to his impressive resume and how well he can handle crises. As such, voters can project their preferences onto the vague Mr. Carney. Want tax cuts? Check, Carney is your guy. Want urgent action on climate? Oh yes, he can do that too.
But the third and most important factor driving polls is President Trump’s inflammatory statements and the threat to impose tariffs that have left Canadians feeling betrayed and angry. Most Americans think Trump’s “51st state” rhetoric is a negotiating tactic or the President trolling Justin Trudeau, but Canadians take it very seriously.
Polling from Ipsos shows that nearly half of Canadians are feeling anxious about annexation because “Canada’s future as an independent country is in jeopardy.” And it is changing Canadians’ behaviour. Angus Reid finds 85% of Canadians stating that they are changing their habits to buy more Canadian good to replace U.S. products. Three in five are boycotting US products. Try getting 80%+ of Canadians to agree on anything.
Read more about the Conservatives' agenda, bold moves, and Trump's influence here.
