Canada goes on Monday to the polls to renew the Federal Parliament, in the middle of the commercial war and sovereignty against the United States. What in other circumstances would have been a purely processing process, far from the spotlights, has attributed the interest of thousands of media around the world because from the polls a very approximate image of how the fight with President Donald Trump will come out. The American has not only punished his neighbor with tariffs, but also threatens to make him the 51st state in the United States. Therefore, but also of preparation of the trench.
The special circumstances surrounding the process have exacerbated the participation and expectations of the parties. In the four days of early voting that ran between Good Friday and Easter Monday, 7.3 million people voted, a quarter of the census and 25% more than in the 2021 elections. But Trump’s shadow has worked, above all, a readjustment of partisan expectations. The conservatives, who for months led the vote opinion polls with 25 points ahead of Mark Carney liberals, the prime minister who in January replaced Justin Trudeau, have seen how his advantage vanished by Trump’s threats, his political model.
The liberals, burned for a decade of bad economic results and internal fights, are now seen in the government, with a prognosis of 187 seats – the absolute majority is in 172 -, followed by conservatives (125), the sovereignty Quebequés block (23) and the social democrat new democratic party (NDP, in its English acronym), with seven. The Green Party would take out a seat, according to the surrounding aggregator 338, in an assessment published this Saturday.
Above the noise that Trump usually does, and that has put Canada in war footing – or in front of the resistance at least – the programs of the different parties have had difficulty becoming heard: it is, for voters of the entire political spectrum, to vote for the strongest candidate to oppose Trump. Hence, Pierre Poilievre, the conservative leader who has seen an almost certain triumph vanished, has fish in recent days in the Bank of the Young Vote, more discouraged by the lack of opportunities and the cost of life, while Carney has managed to earn the vote of the most settled population, or with more than losing.
The transfer of votes from the rest of the matches to Carney for fear that Trump meets his threats explains the Copernican Revolution of surveys in just one month of campaign. Shania, a traditional NDP voter who voted last Monday in Toronto, assured that her only concern was to stop Trump’s feet, although she did not commune with the liberal ideology. “Call it useful vote if you want, but I don’t want to waste a vote at a time as transcendental as this. I hope you voted for Carney serves something,” he explained.
Shemhar, 27, an erytrus refugee arrived in Canada seven ago and who on Monday will vote for the first time after receiving nationality ten months ago, will opt for “some small game, such as green or any other, because all the big ones are the same and do not take care of the people, only their games of power and to stay in the same as possible. They are very far from the real concerns of the population, especially this Sunday Ottawa.
Although the declared objective of all, including conservatives, a party in the image and likeness of Trump, is to stop the US president, the clamor of the Canadians of has also modulated the programs of the candidates. Although there are similarities between some proposals for liberals and conservatives, there are also deep differences in various issues, including the response to Donald Trump’s threats.
Both promise to eliminate VAT in the purchase of a first home whose value is less than approximately one million, and lower taxes to the middle class, the most beaten by the crisis. In energy policy, they propose a unique window to expedite the study and approval of large projects. Carney promises a period of two years, while Pailievre wants decisions to be made in six months. The two also agree that Canada must produce more oil, in response to Trump’s tariff threats. The liberal leader and the conservative leader also agree on the convenience of returning to certain asylum applicants to the US under the so -called agreement on the safety of third countries.
There the analogies end. The opposition to Trump’s tariff war vehicle the liberal program, while conservatives oppose, like Trump, to everything that sounds like woke and to continue allocating money to international aid and “hostile international agencies such as UNRWA”, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. In matters of security and fight against crime, the firmness of the conservatives is evident, proposing to allow judges to condemn repeat offenders to consecutive prison sentences, without the possibility of probation or bond. They also want to impose perpetual chains on fentanyl traffickers – and give the police greater powers to dismantle camps in public spaces. In the conservative program there is not a single mention to the LGTBI community.
As for the fight against climate change, conservatives are radically against and liberals propose a compromise solution that does not satisfy experts: at the same time enhancing low -impact oil production, low cost and low carbon emissions and, at the same time, carbon storage. The threat of the USA, the country to which three quarters of the production of Canada’s crude oil go, has made the liberals rethink their most green policies: in its short term as prime minister, Carney has eliminated the unpopular rate on carbon, a classical claim of conservatives and that they accuse him of having appropriate.
