Canadian Leaders Debate Amongst Themselves

My friend David Clement, now the news director at Forum Daily News up in Canada for which I occasionally provide commentary, told me years ago that the base to all Canadian politics boils down to “just don’t be America.” With the United States-Canadian relationship definitely going through some things lately, the looming federal election has plenty of cross-border issues that demand some fighting on that front.

While the subtle nuances and parliamentary differences of the Canadian system would require extensive explaining and background context to the American and international observer, in this particular case a picture is worth a thousand words. Or more specifically, the polling averages leading into the Canadian Leaders Debates:

For the uninitiated, that giant swing coincided with two major events: former Prime Minster Justin Trudeau announced his resignation leading to the party election of Mark Carney, and Donald Trump decided to declare Canada the 51st state while simultaneously kicking off a trade war with America’s biggest economic partner. Long story short, what looked to be a Conservative Party blowout for the better part of the last 15 months suddenly looked like a Liberal revival. President Trump, who had praised Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre and whose massive online support system began to cheerlead for, single-handedly swung polls in favor of the presumed-DOA Liberals with a rally-round-the-flag sentiment of Us vs US, Canada vs America. Since the wild swing the polling has settled a bit, and the Conservatives have made slight headway as the Trump outrage settled back down to a simmering loathing.

Which brings us to the Canadian Leaders Debates. Plural, because they do it twice, first in French then in English. We will be concentrating on the English one.

If you just looked at Twitter and the Trump-friendly America press, you’d be led to believe that Pierre Poilievre gave a masterful performance and ran riot over the other three men. I disagree, but first if you want to watch the entire uncut debate for yourself here it is:

Steven Paikin did a great job moderating this debate, and after the horror show of American presidential debates of late this was refreshing all around. Mostly cordial, sticking to task, loads of content.

After watching the whole thing, a couple thoughts. Poilievre won the debate on points, but close and certainly not a blowout or anything that’s going to be a huge swing in the polls. Carney got his electoral boost from Trump’s posture against Canada, but the drag of Trudeau fatigue is still there. While his “I’m a very different person” answer is about all you can do as a party man, Poilievre effectively made-up ground with it. The tariff rhetoric was firm that the American president was being “economically aggressive” with Canada but was noticeably muted all around from what it could have been. Housing, the strongest undercurrent in all of Canadian politics for nearly a generation now, and the economy more broadly received plenty of attention, as did sovereignty, public safety, climate and its eternal policy twin, energy, and leadership.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, whose party suffered the most polling loss to fuel the Liberal resurgent, had as bad a showing as the rather polite and professional event allowed. If he sounded desperate, it is because he is desperate, with the possibility of his party only having a handful of seats when the voting is all done. He was pressing, trying, and rather than forceful came off as obnoxious. Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet read the situation better than Singh did, realized this is a tread water and don’t drown spot, and mostly dealt with things in ways that would resonate with his legendarily cantankerous Bloquistes.

It was Carney vs everyone, which is the gig for the sitting Prime Minister that hasn’t been judged in a federal election yet, and he took his lumps from the three on one. But Carney held up. None of the men had a unified idea about how to deal with Donald Trump outside of multiple ways of not saying “wait until the next president” which cannot be said out loud, but everyone was thinking it. Everyone with a podium agreed that something had to be done about crime but there were four very different versions of what that something would be. The Trudeau shadow, which Carney is saddled with, also divided the candidates outside of “Trudeau bad” and the prospect of a fourth straight Liberal-lead term. General agreement followed by refraction on the particulars was the theme of the night. While PM Carney took hits, the lack of unified assault also meant no serious blows fell too hard.

Seats in parliament aside though, the issue at hand is the two-man race between Poilievre and Prime Minister Carney. This debate was a good outing for the Conservative leader, but with just 10 days until the election probably isn’t enough by itself to turn the tide. Anything can happen, as this election has already proven with the death, burial, and Trump-affected resurrection of the Liberal party since the Summer of 2023. If this election was at the end of May and the trade & tariff situation cooled off some, the conservatives might well have made the lost polling ground back up again. But unless something else affects the trajectory of the federal elections between now and April 28th, Mark Joseph Carney looks to be in line to continue as Prime Minister, this time with a federal election endorsement.