It’s Been Canada’s Weirdest Federal Election

The weirdest federal election in Canadian history is entering the home stretch, presenting a binary choice to voters in just a week’s time.

According to virtually all the polling, that choice is between Liberal Mark Carney and Conservative Pierre Poilievre. One wants to bring back fiscal prudence; the other, plastic straws.

Remarkably, the Liberals have held a five-to-seven-point lead in the polls from the beginning of the campaign, which they carry into the last, mad dash to the finish line.

In fact, according to the latest Nanos Research survey, Carney now leads Poilievre by six points. Several other polls, including on 338Canada, CBC/The Writ and Mainstreet Research, project a Liberal majority government of between 178 and 189 seats.

How weird is that, given that just a few months ago the Conservatives enjoyed a 25-point lead over the hapless Liberals? If the latest Nanos numbers hold up, that would represent a 31-point collapse in support for the Conservative Party of Canada over a very short period of time.

Just as weird as the meltdown in Conservative support is how the campaigns of the two front-runners have scarcely engaged with each other.

Why? Because they campaigned on essentially different ballot questions.

Carney offered a steady, experienced financial hand on the tiller during what he calls the “worst crisis” of our history — standing up to a belligerent U.S. president who has declared economic war on Canada, even threatening annexation.

In stark contrast, although Poilievre vowed to stand against Donald Trump’s tariff war, his emphasis has been on all the bad things that happened under the Liberals. Poilievre continued to make Justin Trudeau’s record the centrepiece of his pitch to become prime minister, including at the recent leadership debates, where he attempted to tie Mark Carney to the Trudeau era.

In the English-language debate, Poilievre asked the Liberal leader to look into the camera and apologize to Canadians for all the pain that he and Trudeau inflicted on the country.

Which party best defined the stakes?

What does it all mean? It means the winner of the election will be the one who has the ballot question right.

Carney’s pitch boils down to decisive and forceful actions in the here and now, aimed at standing up to Trump and transforming Canada. Counter-tariffs, protecting vulnerable workers and industries, free trade within Canada and finding new partners abroad.

It is big-picture thinking at a time of national angst over how far this rogue president is prepared to go in his assault on Canada’s economy and sovereignty. It also amounts to colossal, unprecedented change.

Poilievre’s appeal is for Canadians to remember all the things they hated about Justin Trudeau, and to deny the Liberals a fourth term on the basis of that record. Affordability, including of housing, groceries and energy, is his preferred topic.

It is small-picture politics as usual, with an emphasis on the past and a promise of change from the alleged bad old days of the “lost Liberal decade.”

In this battle of the ballot questions, Mark Carney has so far gotten the big shapes right.

Not only does the polling clearly show that Canadians have been deeply shaken over Trump’s treacherous attack on Canada; the surveys also make clear by a large majority that voters believe Mark Carney is best qualified to handle trade and tariff negotiations with the United States.

Here’s how Nik Nanos, the chief data scientist at Nanos Research, framed it before the election was called:

“Not only do they think he is more qualified but he has a significant advantage [on this] over Pierre Poilievre. This is significant because our next election will probably be a referendum on who is best able to manage the relationship with Donald Trump.”

How the Conservatives got Trumped

The Poilievre campaign is betting the farm that the tariff issue will fade as the campaign moves on, giving way to kitchen-table issues where the Conservatives have a clear advantage.

So far, that hasn’t happened, nor is it likely to with just a week to go in the election. One of the reasons tariffs remain top of mind is that Trump reminds Canadians every day of just how serious he is about his radical deconstruction of U.S. democracy and geopolitical alliances, including NATO.

Trump has attacked, undermined and diminished nearly every national institution in the United States.

He has used executive orders to attack the judiciary, the free press, First Amendment rights of students and the legal right to due process of people targeted for deportation.

He has even ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate individual citizens he has deemed to be his enemies.

The point of mentioning all that? It reminds Canadians that if Trump is ready to cut steaks out of every sacred cow in American society, including ignoring court orders and usurping the powers of Congress, would he really flinch at destroying our economy? Or taking over our country?

The best chance that Poilievre and the Conservatives had to turn the polling around was the televised leaders’ debates. But the fact is, as is usually the case despite all the media hype, the debates did not change the trajectory of where pollsters say this contest is going.

The leader-versus-leader contest between Poilievre and Carney was a wash. As the Globe and Mail headline put it, “no clear winner.” Both leaders did well with their base, but no one landed a telling blow.

That would not have been so important for the Conservatives without another unexpected turn of events. Part of the formula Poilievre needs to win this election is a strong NDP. That would divide the progressive vote. Instead, Jagmeet Singh and his party have seen their vote appear to collapse.

The NDP is in danger of losing party status, and losing some very effective MPs. The party is caught in a familiar crossfire.

With the election coming down to an either-or choice between Carney and Poilievre, people who would normally vote NDP are parking their votes with Carney. The goal is simple; to prevent the Conservatives from forming government. The more competitive the Conservatives become, the more NDP votes will migrate to the Liberals.

A pattern of Conservative no-shows

When the post-mortem of Election 2025 is done, Trump, Trudeau’s resignation and the end of the carbon tax will all be important considerations. So too will Carney’s ascension to the leadership.

But one of the other points of focus will be how the Liberals and the Conservatives approached the media and the public in the campaign.

Despite his inexperience in retail politics, Carney has had an open-door policy with the press. His policy announcements always included taking questions and followups from the journalists covering him. Carney didn’t always come away unscathed, but he didn’t duck the press or public scrutiny.

It was a very different story for the Conservatives. Poilievre avoided as much scrutiny from the press as possible. He banned reporters from his campaign plane. He didn’t, for example, take part in the public debate in his own riding of Carleton, and skipped an all-candidates event there as well, according to his Liberal opponent Bruce Fanjoy.

A number of Conservative candidates are playing follow-the-leader when it comes to public dialogue. Barbara Baird, who lives in the riding of Courtenay-Alberni in B.C., told The Tyee that her local Conservative candidate, Kris McNichol, “has been ducking interviews and public events.”

Tyee reporter Andrew MacLeod attended a recent candidates’ event at the University of Victoria that covered three federal ridings.

Representatives of the NDP, the Liberals and the Greens and even one Communist party candidate were there. “None of the Conservatives turned up,” MacLeod noted. And that was despite an offer from organizers to move the event to a more convenient time.

Some observers see a deliberate policy choice in these no-shows. Harrison Lowman, managing editor of the conservative-leaning Hub, reports that Conservative candidates have been “unofficially” forbidden from participating in debates in their ridings.

Lowman denounces this long and “(un)proud” Conservative tradition of avoiding their own voters. “It’s a mistake that I believe is objectionable, electorally harmful, and flies in the face of a new conservative movement that is not afraid to fight on the battlefield of ideas.... Conservatives should stop hiding.”

No one controls his public events more tightly than Pierre Poilievre. To the point of absurdity. Journalists are penned up like cattle. The leader routinely limits the questions and occasionally decides who does and doesn’t get to ask one.

Here’s how veteran journalist Glen E. McGregor, who is covering the Poilievre campaign, described it on X:

“I have been covering federal elections since 2000. I have never seen anything like this. Journalists were just told by the Poilievre campaign that national media will not get to ask one of the four allotted questions at the end of his presser in Richmond, B.C. But a radio station in Manitoba will get to ask one by phone. Incredible.”

Incredible indeed. But not surprising from a politician who thinks that the only good journalist is a friendly one.

Next Monday, we’ll learn how friendly Canada’s voters have become to the Conservatives’ chosen messages and methods during this weirdest of federal elections.

With files from Amanda Follett Hosgood, Andrew MacLeod and Olamide Olaniyan.

Our comment threads will be closed until April 22 to give our moderators a much-deserved break. Enjoy the long weekend!