Vassy Kapelos is the Chief Political Correspondent for CTV News.
I was seven years old the last time an election in this country centred around a single issue. Then, it was free trade; nearly four decades later – almost my entire lifetime – it’s about freedom. Freedom from Donald Trump.
Let’s just lay it all out there. I have never seen anything like this. Not politically, or otherwise. Would you have thought a year ago we’d wake up to a nightmare wherein the president of the United States wanted to take us over and planned to do it by bludgeoning an entire nation into submissive poverty? And that those threats would coincide with the resignation of a prime minister who never wanted to go but finally did? If you had that all on your bingo card, you’re way ahead of the rest of us.
The rest of us could never have predicted the degree to or cruelty with which Trump would take aim at Canada, and that it would coincide so specifically with Justin Trudeau’s decision to exit stage left. In just eight short weeks, the combination of those two events have taken this campaign from a Conservative cakewalk to the most competitive in a generation. A double-digit lead for the Tories is no more, and every single issue driving public sentiment last year--lack of housing, immigration policy, expensive groceries--has been displaced with an entire country’s anxiety over Trump coming for us.
In short, the world we lived in last year is no more. And the politics of last year have largely disappeared with it. Now, instead of a trouncing - public opinion polls in the aggregate have the Liberals and Conservatives within the margin of error. Their polling numbers aren’t the only thing moving closer together; the two main parties’ policies are converging like at no other point in the last decade.
For the Liberals, gone are the days of talking up NDP-driven policy (pharmacare, dental care) and gender balance. Even those policies and their politics aimed at putting Tories on the spot--the consumer price on carbon, the capital gains tax changes --gone and gone. Now it’s about (loosely defined) ‘fiscal responsibility,’ getting conventional and other types of energy to markets outside of the U.S. and breaking down trade barriers between provinces.
If that all sounds familiar, it’s because it is. The Conservatives were so successful in their opposition to the carbon tax and Trudeau, they will no longer be able to fight an entire election against them. They’ve been talking about getting oil and gas out of Canada for years, and though Tories will argue the Liberals won’t actually do it, the fact the now Mark Carney-led party is talking about it – even that is not something imaginable in this way just a year ago.
What Trudeau’s resignation did
So where has it left the parties? And what does it mean for how they will court your vote?
Liberals I speak with are less surprised by what’s happening to them than media and the punditry class are. Of more than a dozen MPs I spoke with on background in writing this, all but one thought Trudeau’s resignation would give them a fighting chance. The difference? They thought they’d be fighting to be a bigger opposition – not in majority territory. The Trump factor, on the other hand, did surprise most of those MPs. They largely felt the party’s previous attempts to link Trump and Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre--particularly around the issue of Ukraine--had some payoff but not enough to move a campaign.
Those MPs, and a handful of staffers I spoke with, now feel it will be the deciding factor in this campaign. That despite their differences and the recent rebuke of Poilievre by Trump himself, Canadians are so consumed with their disgust of the U.S. president, even a whiff of a Musk-laced endorsement is enough to poison the well.
As a result, you’ll see an amplified version of the online Liberal Party ads running in the weeks leading up to the campaign--Trump and Poilievre side by side--sliced into mirror images. They believe they can drive up the perception Poilievre is a risk when their candidate--in their view--is the opposite.
The proposition is entirely unique to the times. A year ago, Canadians did not feel their lives were better off - they wanted to take a risk to change that. Now, in the face of Trump, they appear to just want to keep hold of what we have – blemishes and all.
Watching Mark Carney become prime minister and take the helm of the Liberal Party, it’s hard not to be reminded of Stephen Harper. Serious, economically focused, and prickly at times. Listening to his press conferences this week I felt a distinct sense of déjà vu to more than a decade ago, listening to the then prime minister. Liberals feel like the moment was created for Carney--that his brand of “boring” as one staffer put it--is exactly what Canadians want right now, and perhaps only right now.
Poilievre ‘is who he is’: Conservative MP
Tories, conversely, cannot believe their luck. I spoke with almost a dozen Conservative MPs in writing this and none of them think they will handily win their ridings anymore – they believe any wins will be hard fought. Their leader--once revered by them for being a ‘true’ Conservative, for refusing to moderate in the name of broader public support that never materialized for his predecessors--they are less sure of.
“Pierre is who is he is,” one MP told me, with a sigh. Six months ago, the same line would have been (and was) delivered with excitement and optimism. MPs who willingly stayed away from public comment out of deference to a leader they thought would finally bring true Conservatism to the halls of government, are now resentful they aren’t allowed to speak their minds.
Those MPs are also incredulous at the thought Canadians will believe the Liberals with a new leader are different than the Liberals of the last decade. They support messaging to the contrary and they think if Canadians are reminded, they too will remember. That’s why their ads will focus on links between Carney and Trudeau and past Liberal policies.
What does the NDP do?
The NDP, for its part, is harder to gauge. The half dozen members of caucus I spoke with felt deflated by their own significant losses to the Liberals in recent public opinion polls. They are worried their leader can’t get in on what seems like a two-way race. They plan to characterize the battle as two Conservative candidates versus just one progressive option. Most of those MPs admit, though, that many of their own constituents have told them in recent weeks they will vote for Carney.
The result--the ads, the mud slinging, the campaign stops--might at times feel like just another election campaign. Make no mistake: it is anything but.
This is the beginning of what will define the future for us as Canadians – and our kids. Our beautiful country, under direct threat, has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to face down that threat and become something better. I take great comfort (and I hope you will, too) in the fact every party’s leader is seized with that and understands the significance of the moment. This won’t be just another campaign – it will be the campaign of our lifetime.
CTVNews.ca will have in-depth coverage on Sunday and exclusive reporting throughout the campaign. A CTV News Special Report will be hosted by CTV News Chief Anchor & Senior News Editor Omar Sachedina and Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos on Sunday and will be streaming on all platforms.
