In January, Canadian pollers and political commentators struggled to find a fresh way to explain the dark outlook of Justin Trudeau’s liberal party, meditating whether it was an existential proportion sweeping or simply a catastrophic blow.
But fresh polls released by the three companies this week show a spectacular reversal of the party’s wealth.
This result reflects the major role played by an unpredictable US president, and has little precedent in Canadian history. It also highlights the incentive for Carney to call a snap election in the coming days.
On Tuesday, political analyst Philippe Fournier updated his meticulously viewed website 338Canada.
For the first time, his prediction was presented with a 55% chance of a liberal majority government. In January, the odds were below 1%.
For the past two years, conservative leader Pierre Polyavere has used controversial carbon collections and deep unpopular, resigned prime minister Trudeau to what he has promised to be one of the most biased political victories in recent memory. Pollers predicted that his party would occupy most of his seat. For over a year and a half, conservatives had a 99% chance of winning.
For example, as in recent January, the most sympathetic voting company was having the Trudeau party stretch conservatives by 20 points. Others had a high gap of 27 points.
But Trudeau’s resignation a few days later, and the threat of Donald Trump taking over Canada, changed everything.
In a recent column in the walrus magazine about “a spectacular conservative collapse,” Fournier warned Tory that a 15% chance of victory “is at risk of suddenly blowing one of the biggest poll leads in modern Canadian history.”
Almost every Canadian voting company has shown a sharp trend towards the Liberal Party at the expense of the Conservatives and the New Democrats on the left. If current voting forecasts are reflected in the outcome of future federal elections, the NDP will collapse in the House and lose its party status.
“This change will be one of the biggest things we’ve seen in such a short time in Canadian history,” said warrant political analyst Eric Grenier. Unlike other notable changes in national sentiment, he says, the outcome is heavily distorted by threats from Donald Trump.
“It’s not just a leadership honeymoon issue, but it adds a level of volatility to a public opinion environment that makes things unpredictable.”
For Poilliebre, who used the country’s populist tide and elicited a comparison with Trump, the path is less clear after losing Trudeau and the simple political target of the carbon tax.
The conservative leader’s combat politics served him as the leader of the opposition, but the strategy seems to shaking with the nationalist suplantist party.
Poilievre held an event this week with the “Ax The Tax” sign just days after Carney dismantled the carbon tax for consumers.
Political columnist Robin Wolback posted on social media that conservatives are “still running a campaign that they don’t have.”
On Tory’s tougher data points, a vote from the Angus Reed Institute released Monday found that Canadians preferred Carney over Poirierel for all questions relating to the ongoing trade war of Canada’s economy and future.
“More frankly, 41% consider Carney to be the best prime minister, compared to 29% of Poilierbre,” the company said in a new release. “At least measurements, Trudeau was sitting in a PM chair, which earned 19 points for the liberal leader on this question.”
If the vote is like that, “the majority of discardable brands that were tired just three months ago will be in their fourth term this time.”
The company is paying attention to the profound impact Trump has had on Canadian politics. After staring at the US-led trade war and giving a passionate speech about the need to fight for Canada’s independence, Trudeau left with the approval of 47% of Canadians.
