Why the Liberals’ Hopes Aren’t Dead Yet

Is it possible for the beleaguered Liberal Party of Canada to make a comeback?

The short answer is yes. But that takes a little explaining.

Just a few weeks ago, the answer would have been a resounding no.

For more than a year, Pierre Poilievre appeared to be on a glide path to winning an overwhelming Conservative majority government. He still is, at least for now.

The Conservatives have held consistent, double-digit leads in the polls, while the Liberals were seen as being led by a listless and unpopular leader in Justin Trudeau. After nearly 10 years in office, the shiny pony had lost his sheen. The party was also saddled with a deeply unpopular consumer tax on carbon, amplified many times by Poilievre’s grievance machine.

According to Poilievre, Trudeau wasn’t “worth the cost” and “everything is broken,” from immigration and the border to the country’s finances. Poilievre’s answer was to elect a “common sense” Conservative government that would “axe the tax.”

Poilievre’s relentless bumper-sticker politics allowed him to achieve one of the most important goals in competitive politics: he was able to successfully define his opponent.

Trudeau was not the guy who saved thousands of lives during COVID, backed Ukraine in its war with Russian invaders, lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty with the Canada child benefit, introduced $10-a-day daycare, or provided dental assistance for those who couldn’t afford it.

Instead, he was reduced to the feckless, entitled son of the establishment, Prince of Woke, who had ruined the country.

And it also looked like Poilievre was going to realize another invaluable political goal — setting the ballot question in what he has constantly called the upcoming “carbon tax election.”

And then the federal political landscape underwent a sudden and seismic change. The first tremor came from outside the country. U.S. President Donald Trump began a harm offensive rather than a charm offensive against some of his closest allies, including Canada.

Trump threatened catastrophic tariffs on all goods coming into the United States from this country. He mocked Prime Minister Trudeau as the governor of the 51st state. He even suggested a successor to Trudeau, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, who no longer even lives in Canada. Talk about being offside.

Then Trudeau’s resignation added to the churn. Not that his stepping down came as much of a surprise. Trudeau was tanking in the polls and under siege from his own caucus.

The only thing that was a little surprising was the venomous tenor of much of the “good riddance” commentary that followed his resignation. No one expects bouquets in politics on the way out the door. But the road from Kid Charisma to Trump’s Chump ended in a caustic dead end.

The Liberal leadership race is just getting started in earnest, now that the two major candidates, Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland, have announced their runs.

But even at this early stage, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England and the former Canadian finance minister have made a huge change on the political chessboard.

Freeland has said that she would scrap the consumer tax on carbon, and Carney has strongly hinted Canadians need something better. Citing unnamed sources, Althia Raj of the Toronto Star published a story saying that both candidates will in fact drop the carbon tax.

Why does this matter? Because in one fell swoop, Poilievre has lost his whipping boy and his biggest issue. If Carney follows suit with Freeland, that means Poilievre will no longer be setting the ballot question. There will be no “carbon tax” election, after years of the Conservatives betting that it would be their winning issue.

The more likely ballot question will now be who is best suited to deal with Donald Trump, should the bully in the bully pulpit proceed with tariffs that could put over a million Canadian jobs at risk.

And it also means that Poilievre will be facing a new opponent. If that opponent turns out to be Mark Carney, who has never been a member of the Trudeau government, trashing the former PM will not work.

Nor will the idle claim that no matter who the Liberals choose, they will all be clones of Trudeau. Poilievre would be merely shadowboxing with ghosts.

He would be better advised to come up with a strategy for facing a man who guided Canada through the financial crisis of 2008 as governor of the Bank of Canada, and who navigated the United Kingdom through the mess of Brexit.

With Trump declaring war, the Liberals were quick to rally around the flag, denounce the president and commit to a robust response should he proceed with his threat of a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods entering the United States. And with the exception of Alberta, which seems to be playing on Team Trump, the provinces locked arms with the federal government to present a unified front to this new and massive tariff threat.

Seasoned politicians quickly sensed the emotion and the opportunity in the air created by Trump’s threats. Former PM Jean Chrétien spoke out in the Globe and Mail, saying that Canada needed to go not only on defence against Trump, but on offence as well. Canadians, he said, would never give up the best country in the world to join the United States.

Former Liberal cabinet minister and ambassador to the United Nations Allan Rock put it bluntly when it comes to Trump: “Enough is enough.” Rock warned that although Canadians are slow to anger, they could be pushed to a “righteous rage” if Trump continues to mock, bully, insult and threaten this country.

The surest sign that the Conservative party smells smoke in the barn with all these developments is that both Poilievre and former prime minister Stephen Harper have come out strongly against Trump and his threatened tariffs. Neither is known for vigorous critiques of their American political cousins.

The issues are suddenly nationalism and navigating very complicated trade and financial matters. After years of thinking they had the game plan in place to win power, the Conservatives now face a pivot and new ballot questions.

Who can best defend Canada against U.S. interference in our politics, including by economic coercion? And who can best lead the country through the difficult economic times ahead?

Here the Liberals have an advantage. During the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Freeland was widely considered to have hung tough, coming up with a better deal than Trump wanted to give.

Accordingly, Trump has no fond memories of Freeland. When she recently resigned as finance minister, Trump said her presence in the NAFTA negotiations was toxic and that no one would miss her. High praise for any Canadian politician.

Trump has made no secret of his disdain for Trudeau, or his desire to see him replaced. And that is also a potential problem for the Conservatives.

Poilievre says he has the brains and backbone to stand up to Trump.

Perhaps he does. But he also has significant baggage, including embarrassing extreme-right endorsements that raise legitimate questions about just how tough he would be with MAGA America. The fact is the Conservatives are ideologically much closer to MAGA than the Liberals are, and now that suddenly matters.

Poilievre was overjoyed with his recent interview with conservative media personality and psychologist Jordan Peterson. Peterson is one of a host of Trump supporters who have personally bent the knee to the president at Mar-a-Lago.

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has openly endorsed Poilievre. Jones was the podcaster who claimed that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax carried out by actors. Jones claimed it was all to create a pretext to justify taking guns away from Americans. A court subsequently ordered this prize jackass to pay $1 billion to the families of the 26 people who died in the shooting, including 20 children.

Most telling of all, Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire buddy who has seemingly taken up residence at Mar-a-Lago, has repeatedly declared his support for Poilievre. It should be noted that Musk has also endorsed Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party, whose members include Nazi sympathizers.

Trump’s interference in Canadian politics, Trudeau’s resignation and the readiness of top contenders for the party leadership to drop the consumer tax on carbon add up to an unexpected chance for the Liberals to get up off the floor and redefine themselves.

This is their last chance, and the odds are still against them. It is troubling that this leadership contest will take place without a Quebec cabinet minister vying for the top job.

A disturbing number of cabinet ministers, including Sean Fraser, Anita Anand and Seamus O’Regan, resigned and don’t plan to run again. With such a short election campaign looming, it will be difficult for the party to recruit star candidates to replace them.

Finally, getting a credible national campaign up and running before the next election will be a challenge. The new leader is set to be announced on March 9. That person will be prime minister for only a matter of weeks before the Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and NDP bring the government down.

The Liberal government’s chance to make a comeback all comes down to who emerges from this very short transition period as the new leader. Although there are a handful of candidates either contemplating running or already in, the stage is set. This will come down to a contest between two people: insider Chrystia Freeland or outsider Mark Carney.

Both of them face the same challenge. How, in an election where Canadians want something new, can representatives of the incumbent party persuade voters that they represent change?

For Freeland, that is a near impossible task. As talented and able as she has shown herself to be throughout her political career, no one has been more closely associated with Trudeau. She delivered four budgets for the government and was Trudeau’s “minister of everything” during her career. Trudeau himself personally recruited her to enter politics.

Changing her mind on the consumer carbon tax will help. But it will create as many problems for her as it might solve. If she would do away with it now, why not years earlier, instead of vigorously defending it in the House of Commons?

Notwithstanding her dramatic resignation from the Trudeau cabinet, if Liberals choose Freeland, Poilievre would have a ready-made case that she is just Trudeau in a dress. That could prove to be as big a loser at the polls as the prime minister himself.

Mark Carney would be a much harder figure to attack as just another Trudeau clone. For starters, he has never served in the Trudeau government. And although he briefly advised it, Carney has no political baggage. Instead, he has something that Poilievre does not; a resumé with more than one job on it.

Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair summed up another Carney advantage.

“Trudeau couldn’t explain management strategies or planning; he didn’t know a thing about either,” he wrote. “Carney has been solving monumental management issues for decades and that’s the skill set Canadians are desperately looking for. Perhaps the best moment of his launch was when he derided Poilievre as the rank amateur that he is, but Canadians don’t know that yet, and Carney has to continue to use his excellent teaching skills to drive that home.”

The big question is whether there is enough time on the clock for a political newbie like Carney to do that, should he win in March. After all, one appearance on The Daily Show does not a star make.

But given where the Liberals were headed a few short weeks ago, it’s a start.