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Canada’s Liberals and Conservatives are neck and neck as election begins, and running on similar promises
Canada’s federal election is on. The polls show a polarized contest between the Liberals and Conservatives, one dominated by Donald Trump and the question of who’s best-suited to deal with his tariff and annexation threats. Canadian nationalism has surged. The Liberal Party, recently down 25 points in the polls to the Conservatives, have seen their fortunes turn around under new leader and Prime Minister Mark Carney — a manwho’s been all too keen to, ahem, adapt ideas from his top rival.
Liberal, Tory, same old story?
A Trump-centric campaign risks obscuring other important policy issues. But how much does it matter when the two front-runners are so close together? So far, both parties — one of which is running on the slogan “Canada Strong” and the other on “Canada First” – have adopted similar proposals for a range of issues.
Both Liberal and Conservative campaigns launched with promises to cut personal income taxes. The Liberals are offering a 1% cut to the lowest bracket, and the Conservatives are putting forward a 2.25% cut. Both parties are also promising to cut federal sales taxes on new homes for first-time buyers, with Liberals including new builds worth as much as CA$1 million and the Conservatives ramping it all the way up to … $1.3 million, but they’ll expand eligibility to non-first-time buyers, including investors.
On defense, Carney is promising to spend 2% of GDP on the military by 2030 and expand Arctic security. Poilievre has promised more or less the same, with details to come. Both say they’ll speed up the building of energy infrastructure, including oil and gas pipelines, though Carney would keep a Trudeau-era emissions cap on the oil and gas sector, while Poilievre would not.
Affordability remains a major concern, even more so with tariffs threatening the economy. Poilievre even says he’d keep (though perhaps not expand) the Liberals’ public prescription drug, daycare, and dental care programs. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of Canadians can’t afford food. In 2024, the Liberals launched a food lunch program, which the Conservatives attacked as a headline grab but didn’t outright oppose. The parties haven’t released more on food security and affordability yet, but they almost certainly will.
Can the Liberals rewrite the past?
While the Liberals are now led by Carney, with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gone, they’re still the same party that has governed for nearly a decade and earned ire from voters for policy shortcomings. With a policy agenda that, so far, looks similar to that of the Conservatives, the Liberals must persuade voters they’re not just better on policy, but that their guy is better on character and competence, and that his team is fit for purpose.
It’s a tricky task, and it’s fair to ask how much the Liberal Party has changed. Many top candidates and current Cabinet ministers are the same faces from Trudeau’s years, including Chrystia Freeland, Mélanie Joly, Dominic LeBlanc, Bill Blair, and François-Philippe Champagne. The Liberal surge even persuaded a handful of candidates who’d served in the caucus to run again after saying they were out under Trudeau, including high-profile players Anita Anand, Sean Fraser, and Nate Erskine-Smith.
When Carney announced his Cabinet just before he triggered the election, Conservatives were quick to point out that the group contained 87% of the same faces from Trudeau’s table. Among the faces are those who supported, just weeks earlier, policies Carney is now reversing, including the Liberals’ signature consumer carbon price and its planned increase to the capital gains inclusion rate (reversals Conservatives were calling for).
Canada’s “presidentialized” election
A leader-focused campaign in the face of Trump’s threats will, perhaps ironically, be thoroughly American. Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, notes that the tricky thing for the Liberals is this is a change campaign, with voters looking to reset after the Trudeau years. Carney will have to present himself as that change – which could mean an intense focus on him as leader.
Thompson calls it a “presidentialized” campaign, one that comes with a risk for the neophyte Liberal leader. “It opens the question of Carney’s political experience, or rather lack thereof – and the fact that he has never run an election campaign before, let alone a national general election campaign. It’s an open question whether his political inexperience comes out in a negative way.”
But a focus on character could also set Carney apart from Poilievre, even if the two don’t have much daylight between them on policy. Voters see Carney as the best person to be prime minister, and he enjoys high favorability ratings — over half the country likes him. The Conservative Party leader, on the other hand, isn’t particularly well-liked, with his unfavorables sitting at 59%.
Promise now, worry later?
For all the talk of character, Conservatives, including Poilievre himself, have accused the Liberals of stealing their ideas. That’s a fair criticism. As Thompson puts it, the Liberals have caught the Conservatives out and, indeed, have adopted their positions. But how far will that take the Liberals? And at what cost?
“These are all Conservative policies that were being wielded against Trudeau,” Thompson says, “which Carney has now adopted as his own. And it’s shrewd politicking.” But it’s also risky. “If the Liberals win, they need to deliver very quickly on showing that this is a new government and that they have new policies. The honeymoon period would be, I think, quite short.”
The Liberals will be happy to worry about all of this later. For now, they’re the beneficiaries of an election in which the very issues that were set to spell their doom have become temporarily incidental to Trump and to questions of character and competence – questions to which voters seem to think Carney is the answer.
The policy challenges that got Liberals into trouble in the first place are still lurking and waiting to reassert themselves in short order. But for the Liberals, those are problems for another day.
Supporters attend a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden, in New York, U.S., on Oct. 27, 2024.
Trump rallies in NYC, Harris hits Philly in star-powered final push
With the US election just eight days away, it’s crunch time for the presidential campaigns. Republican candidate Donald Trump headlined a rally Sunday night at Madison Square Garden in New York, a state that last backed a Republican in 1984. While the former president knows he's unlikely to win the Empire State outright, his event could boost local GOP candidates. Trump was accompanied by familiar allies like Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Rudy Giuliani.
The speeches all communicated a similar message: Trump’s support is underestimated, his followers are oppressed, and the system is rigged. “No fair system would elevate someone like Kamala Harris to a presidential nomination,” said Carlson.
But racial insults and a distasteful comment about Puerto Rico at the event from pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, host of the “Kill Tony” podcast, have led to a backlash, even from fellow Republicans.
Still, there was no shortage of support on the streets outside the arena, with lines stretching across multiple avenues and some supporters even camping overnight to get a good seat. “I’m here because of the high interest rates and securing the border,” Tom Miller, of Pennsylvania, told GZERO's Riley Callanan. “New York is going down the tube. There are lines down the block in Times Square of migrants that get to live in hotels for free,” complained Jay Murphy, 56, while Carol Harper, 43, of Fire Island, cautioned that “There’s already voter fraud happening in Pennsylvania.”
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris was in The Keystone State, visiting a barbershop and a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia. Harris focused on mobilizing Black voters at Philadelphia’s Church of Christian Compassion, warning that if voters pick Trump, they’ll get a president “full of grievance … retribution and revenge.” On the same theme, Harris will be in Washington, DC, on Tuesday to deliver what her campaign calls her “closing argument,” speaking from the Ellipse, the grassy space adjacent to the National Mall where then-president Trump exhorted his supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The stars are shining bright – but will they matter? Trump’s Sunday night event was set to feature Elon Musk, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan, and RFK Jr. As for Harris, after a week featuring appearances by both former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, as well as singer Beyoncé, the vice president plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Wednesday with musical performances featuring Mumford & Sons. Trump will also make a stop in Wisconsin before heading to speak on Friday at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, the site of this year’s Republican National Convention.
Contributed reporting from Riley Callanan.
Supporters of Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris cheer before the start of the golf cart rally in the retirement community of The Villages, Florida U.S. October, 14, 2024.
Harris and Trump take very different approaches in the homestretch
With exactly three weeks left before Election Day, both campaigns are battling it out on the ground for the handful of undecided voters who will decide the election. But the Harris and Trump teams seem to have very different assumptions about what will work.
According to a report by the New York Times, the Harris campaign is using a large, well-established party infrastructure to find, call, and knock on the doors of reliably Democratic voters from past cycles. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is taking its base for granted and instead using scrappier, less experienced networks to find people who don’t vote regularly but who might be Trump-curious.
What does that tell us? That as we enter the homestretch, the Blue Team, despite the boost in enthusiasm that came after Harris entered the race, is still more worried about shoring up its reliables than about pioneering fresh supporters, while the Red Team is betting it has a message that can bring new voters into the fold.
Where do things stand? The latest polling shows Harris ahead of Trump 48.5 to 46.1 nationwide, and holding a razor-thin lead in key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Trump holds a similarly slim edge in Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.President Joe Biden speaks to the press before boarding Air Force One at Hagerstown Regional Airport in Hagerstown, Maryland, on March 5, 2024.
State of the Elephant downstairs
Here are a few things to watch for.
First, does the 81-year-old Biden look all there? Any slips or gaffes will be internet catnip for those who think Biden is too old to be president – a view now shared by 73% of voters. (About 40% say the same about Donald Trump).
Second, what does Biden say about immigration, trade, or climate policy – issues that could directly affect Canada? Ottawa and Washington have squabbled in recent years over the Made in America provisions of Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act.
But most importantly, does Biden make a compelling case for another term? He’s polling poorly despite good data on inflation, crime, wages, and employment. For Biden to pull ahead of Trump, he’ll need to pierce the doom bubble and convince just enough people that he’s a safer option for America’s institutions, economy, and alliances than the Other Guy.
Tonight will be his big shot to do that – can he land it?