Poilievre Has a Trump Problem

On Feb. 17, right-wing media commentator Candice Malcolm posted a video titled “Disgraceful: Canadian Fans Boo the American National Anthem.”

Malcolm, a former Calgary Sun columnist, has 136,000 followers on X and founded the right-wing media site True North in 2016. Her husband, Shopify executive Kaz Nejatian, has also been involved with the organization, according to reporting by PressProgress.

Before scolding hockey fans for booing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a hockey game on Feb. 15 — something Canadian fans have been doing since President Donald Trump said he would impose harsh tariffs to compel Canada to join the United States — Malcolm talked about her hopes for a government led by Pierre Poilievre.

“We're still trying to understand what a Poilievre government would look like,” she said of the Conservative leader.

“Is it going to be a significantly more conservative government, something more like the America First movement in the States with Trump? Or is it going to be something more like the polite, centrist Progressive Conservatives?

“I hope it's more like the former.”

Malcolm’s remarks highlight a problem for Poilievre: some of his voting base are strong supporters of Trump, despite the U.S. president’s growing hostility towards Canada. But many other voters have been repulsed by Trump’s repeated threats to Canadian sovereignty, and that may be having an impact on support for the Conservatives.

Another likely factor is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to resign in early January.

While the Conservatives have had a very strong lead in the polls for months, that has softened since Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty ramped up in January.

A Feb. 11 poll conducted by Leger found that support for the Conservatives had dropped by nine points while the Liberals’ support had increased by six points.

A subsequent Feb. 17 Leger poll found that if Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney were the party’s chosen candidate for prime minister, 39 per cent of poll respondents would vote for the Liberals while 40 per cent would vote Conservative.

A Nanos poll published on Feb. 18 also found the gap between the Liberals and the Conservatives is narrowing, with respondents now saying the economy, Trump and U.S. relations are their top concern.

“[Trump] is moving a lot faster than I think almost anybody expected,” said Michael MacKenzie, a professor of political studies at Vancouver Island University.

“Things have shifted very quickly, and the fact that Trump has been threatening our sovereignty and our economy and our well-being — I think the appropriate response is to be angry about that and to challenge Trump, and I think most Canadians feel threatened and disappointed.”

Nervous cheers for Trump, now fading

On the Hub, a website funded by conservative foundations and closely read by Conservative Party of Canada veterans, the tensions have been on display for months.

“It’s time for conservatives to embrace the Right’s political realignment” signalled by Trump’s populist victory, cheered founding editor Sean Speer, who was a top aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on Nov. 6.

Yet Trump’s authoritarian bent and tariff threats moved Speer to counsel caution. “There’s no point in winning if [Poilievre’s team] throw free markets or limited government or other core conservative beliefs under the bus.”

By Feb. 17 Speer was soberly pronouncing a Poilievre government “must be conceived with an eye toward managing the threat posed by Trump.”

Citing a pressing need for a “pivot,” prominent conservative voices have praised Poilievre’s recent switch from focusing on his rival, Trudeau, to talking about how to put Canada in a stronger economic position.

“He made it clear that he was no friend of Donald Trump, and that Canada under his leadership would ‘bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country,’” John Ibbitson wrote about a recent Poilievre speech.

In the same piece, former Liberal strategist Scott Reid emphasized Poilievre’s turn towards championing Canada. “Pierre Poilievre wrapped himself so tightly in the flag that he nearly rubbed the beaver right off his own nickel,” Reid enthused. “And it looked spectacular.”

Harper himself has tried to draw a sharp line between Poilievre and Trump.

Divided over tariff response

But Malcolm’s recent videos are a good example of the position of Canadians who still support Trump, despite his recent actions, and how they’re interpreting Trump’s threat to Canadian sovereignty.

In a Feb. 17 video, Malcolm called the threat of a tariff war a “manufactured narrative.” In a Feb. 20 interview with a Canadian academic who has suggested that Trump should offer only Alberta the chance to join the United States, Malcolm said she believes Trump’s comments about annexing Canada are just a joke.

While most experts have said that Canada needs to respond strongly to the threat of U.S. tariffs with retaliatory tariffs, Malcolm called that idea a “Liberal tax increase” on Canadians. In a Feb. 15 interview, she pressed Poilievre on why he had promised to respond with retaliatory tariffs.

“I do believe that if a foreign government attacks Canadian industry that we have to retaliate,” Poilievre said in response. “That is the only tool we have to deter these tariff threats from the United States, [which are] are utterly unjustified. There is no justification for what President Trump is threatening Canada with.”

Trump has given several reasons for enacting harsh tariffs on Canada, from complaining about a supposed trade deficit with Canada to saying the tariffs are needed to compel Canada to stop the movement of illegal fentanyl and migrants across the border. While many politicians and policy experts have said that none of these issues warrant such a harsh penalty, Malcolm said she believes Trump has valid concerns when it comes to fentanyl.

Her position echoes that of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad, who have both urged a more conciliatory approach rather than fighting back against Trump.

Meanwhile, David Parker, leader of the right-wing populist Take Back Alberta movement that supported Smith, has called on X for “an Albertan version of DOGE,” Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk.

Poilievre’s echoes of Trump

Terri Givens, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, said the challenge for Trump-identified Canadian politicians is that the president’s actions — and those of his unelected right-hand man, Musk — are having undeniable real-world impacts.

Musk, with Trump’s blessing, has slashed entire government agencies and has attempted to jettison thousands of government workers under the excuse of cutting government spending. The effort has been chaotic and destabilizing: Musk’s team has fired staff at a nuclear arms agency, then struggled to recall them; sought access to millions of Americans’ private tax and social security data; abruptly shuttered the entire international aid agency USAID; gutted a consumer protection agency; halted health research; and destabilized the entire federal workforce.

Multiple figures in Trump’s orbit, including Musk, have also openly made Nazi salutes at public events.

“Trump has got a flame-thrower pointed at the United States, and he doesn't care who is in the path,” Givens said.

“The problem for the folks in Canada who like Trump is that, yeah, he's been entertaining up until now — but people are going to die. They're not just going to lose their jobs, they're going to die because of what Trump is doing.”

Doug Ford, Ontario’s Conservative premier, was caught on video saying he previously supported Trump, but “then the guy pulled out the knife and f--king yanked it into us.” If other voters feel the same way, Poilievre could have trouble shedding his association with Trump’s style of politics.

Poilievre has echoed Trump’s language, using the tag line “Canada First” like Trump’s “America First” slogan. Like Trump, Poilievre has called his opponents nicknames like “Sellout Singh” and used inflated language like “authoritarian socialist” to describe his opponents.

Like Trump, Poilievre has attacked the news media and complained that journalists ask him unfair questions. When Trump moved to erode transgender rights as some of his first actions as president, Poilievre said he was “not aware of any other genders than man and woman” — denying the existence of non-binary people — in a question about whether he had any plans to follow Trump’s lead.

“He's very consciously presented himself as a Trumpian figure, and I think now he's walked himself onto a very narrow ridge that seemed to have been working for him for a number of months,” MacKenzie said.

In contrast, Givens said, outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been able to rally Canadians with firm resistance to Trump and an appeal to patriotism. It’s been a surprising turnaround for a deeply unpopular prime minister whose own party pushed him to resign earlier this year.

Trudeau hasn’t hesitated to wrap himself in the Canadian flag at every opportunity: when Canada won the hotly contested 4 Nations hockey tournament against the United States on Feb. 20, Trudeau posted, “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game.”

Poilievre posted a more subdued message: “Canada’s game. Canada’s legacy. The true North, strong, free and golden.”

Givens said that if she were giving Poilievre advice, she would emphasize that “he needs to stand out as his own man.

“He needs to be able to show that he is his own person, he doesn't need anybody else. He can be a strong leader,” Givens said. “I think he can keep his connection to those more Trump-oriented voters if he says, ‘Look, I'm the strongest candidate who can address Trump — but also work with Trump.’”