Donald Trump re-emerged as a factor in Canada’s election campaign on Thursday, days before a vote that Prime Minister Mark Carney says will determine how Ottawa can best stand up to the U.S. President.
Carney launched the race last month, calling for a strong mandate to deal with Trump’s tariffs and his stated desire to turn Canada into the 51st state. The ruling Liberals had a healthy lead but polls showed the advantage gradually shrinking in recent days as Trump kept silent on Canada and voters’ focus appeared to shift back towards concerns about high living costs.
On Wednesday, however, Trump declared the United States did not need Canadian-made autos and said he might increase tariffs on vehicles imported from Canada.
“President Trump repeated his attacks on Canada. He said he doesn’t want Canada to play any part in the North American auto industry,” Carney told a campaign event in Port Moody, British Columbia.
“So, I will be equally clear: this is Canada – we decide what happens here. Yesterday was more proof that the old relationship with the United States is over,” he said.
Carney is promising to spend tens of billions of dollars to help reduce the country’s reliance on the United States, which takes 75% of all Canadian exports.
The Liberals are still in the lead ahead of Monday’s election but the gap with the opposition Conservatives is tightening, a rolling three-day poll showed on Thursday.
The Liberals hold 42.9% support, followed by Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives at 39.3% and the New Democratic Party at 7.2%, according to the CTV News-Globe and Mail-Nanos poll.
The 3.6-point gap between the two leading parties as of Wednesday compares with a 5.6-point Liberal lead over the Conservatives in the same poll a day earlier.
Such a result on Election Day would produce a fourth consecutive Liberal mandate but Carney might only win a minority of seats, leaving him reliant on smaller parties to govern.
Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba, said voters’ focus might be shifting back to high prices, crime, and a housing crisis, which have been the centre pieces of the Conservative campaign.
“We can’t afford a fourth Liberal term of rising costs and crime,” Poilievre told reporters in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Thursday, pledging to scrap electric-vehicle sales mandates.
Liberal support is typically more efficiently distributed across Canada, resulting in more parliamentary seats. The Conservatives tend to win by large margins in rural areas with fewer seats.
Carney remains the preferred choice as prime minister, but Poilievre is narrowing that gap, Nanos said.
It surveyed 1,307 Canadians from April 21 to 23, and the poll is considered accurate plus or minus 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
An Abacus Data poll on Wednesday placed the Liberals at 40% support among decided voters, with the Conservatives at 37%. Abacus said Liberals’ share of support was unchanged from last week, while the Conservatives were down one point.
The poll was conducted among 2,000 eligible voters from April 18 to 21 and the margin of error is 2.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
