Did Trump help Canadian Liberals avoid election disaster?

The Canadian Liberal Party secured a dramatic comeback on Monday after President Donald Trump flipped the country’s political mood with tariffs and talk of annexation.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took the helm from his unpopular predecessor, Justin Trudeau, in March, led Liberals back from the brink of disaster to win 43.5% of the vote in the federal election against the Conservative Party of Pierre Poilievre, which received just over 41%.

The turnaround was remarkable.

In the weeks after Trudeau announced his resignation, Conservatives were ahead in the polls by more than 25 percentage points, with Liberals staring down an unprecedentedly bad beating at the ballot box and Poilievre projected to win a historic majority.

Then Trump entered office. Before the end of January, he had made Canada one of the earliest targets of his new tariff regime and doubled down on suggestions that the U.S. could use economic force to make Canada the 51st state.

What did Trump say about Canada?

Over the past few months, Trump repeatedly stated he did not care if he inadvertently helped to tip the Canadian election, going so far as reiterating his aim to incorporate America’s northern neighbor on election day.

“...ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st (sic) State of the United States of America,” Trump said Monday in a post on Truth Social. “Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE!”

Whether he cared or not, Trump’s comments had a direct effect on Canadian voters, according to Fen Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ontario.

Poilievre’s focus on affordability, once the dominant issue for Canadian voters, became overshadowed by what many considered an “existential” threat to Canadian sovereignty, Hampson told the Deseret News.

“The perception of the U.S. president as the bogeyman drove voters to Mark Carney,” Hampson said. “That’s because he was playing the fear factor.”

In his victory speech on Monday night, Carney, an economist who ran on his resume as a “crisis manager” for the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, said Trump had brought an end to the global economic order that Canada had relied on since World War II.

Now that the country had recovered from “the shock of the American betrayal,” Carney said it was time to carve out a new Canadian future independent of its long-time ally.

“President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us,” Carney said. “That will never ever happen.”

What happened to Poilievre?

Poilievre conceded the race on Monday night before election results were confirmed, having also lost his own seat in the Canadian House of Commons which he had held since 2004.

A career politician known for his aggressive rhetoric, Poilievre had been barreling to victory with a strategy of skewering Trudeau as the source of Canada’s ballooning debt, stagnating economy and burdensome carbon tax.

But with Trudeau gone and Carney framing him, and his “Canada First” slogan, as soft on Trump, Poilievre struggled to pivot from his cost-of-living campaign, said Charles Bernard, the lead policy adviser for Impact Public Affairs, one of Canada’s top political consulting firms.

“Every word counts when the goal is to make sure that people do not perceive you as a smaller version of Donald Trump,” Bernard said. “And I think Poilievre got that message too late.”

Despite the disappointing outcome for Poilievre, Conservatives actually gained ground in electorally important areas in Ontario and Quebec.

Conservatives’ share of the popular vote was the highest it had been in several election cycles and their success will likely prevent the Liberal Party from forming a government without third-party support.

Why did the Canadian Conservatives lose?

The key to the Liberal’s upset victory was not reducing the Conservative’s vote share — which increased by nearly 8 percentage points compared to 2021.

It was the total “collapse” of support for the socialist New Democratic Party which shifted to Carney, Hampson pointed out.

The percentage of the vote received by the New Democratic Party — led by Jagmeet Singh, who also lost his seat in parliament — fell by nearly 12 percentage points compared to 2021, while the Liberal vote share increased by 11 points.

In normal times, Poilievre’s 41% would have handed him a victory. But these are not normal times, according to Hampson.

Upon forming a government, Hampson said Carney’s first order of business will be trying to renegotiate the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement that Trump made during his first term, and to roll back the tariffs pressuring Canadian industries.

On Saturday, Trump’s 25% tariff on vehicles and auto parts will kick in, disproportionately affecting Canada, despite carve outs for products that fall under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

“His tariffs may make life miserable, but he’s not about to invade,” Hampson said. “He’s never talked about invasion, but Canadians have always been nervous.”