At the beginning of the year, it was fairly certain that Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, would be the next Canadian Prime Minister.
And then, Trump…
Justin Trudeau had been in power, leading the Liberal Party, for nearly a decade, and there began a growing disdain for Trudeau that led to a nearly 25-point lead in polling for Poilievre.
Trudeau resigned, Trump was inaugurated, and began threatening Canada’s sovereignty and threw tariffs on Canadian goods, sending Canada’s economy into a tailspin.
Mark Carney became the new leader of the Liberal Party and became Prime Minister, and the 25-point conservative lead has all but vanished.
Today Canadians go to the polls and it is expected that the Liberal Party will continue with its fourth term in office, thanks to the Trump Effect.
A poll by Abacus Data published on Sunday, found that the Liberals were on 41 per cent of the vote compared with 39 per cent for Conservatives.
Before Trump’s inauguration, Poilievre’s populist style of politics was seen as the change Canada needed.
“Many people in Canada have associated a lot of the language, a lot of the terminology, speaking points, that Pierre Poilievre uses to exactly what Donald Trump has been saying over the last how many years,” said Robert Huish, a social science professor at Dalhousie university in Halifax.
“Canada first, migration is a bad thing. Stronger borders. Budget cuts. All the stuff that you would hear Trump sort of doing, Poilievre has really adapted.”
With six time zones in Canada, polling times differ, but most polls close at 9:30 p.m. ET and the results of the election will be known later on Monday evening,
