EDMONTON, Canada — At the start of the year, it was almost certain that Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, would be the next Canadian prime minister. After nearly a decade of Justin Trudeau leading Canada and the Liberal Party, both friends and foes had a growing disdain for the then prime minister.
Then, in quick succession, Trudeau resigned, Donald Trump became U.S. president, threatened Canada’s sovereignty and signed an executive order implementing tariffs on imported Canadian goods. The Liberal Party of Canada got a new leader, Mark Carney. And tariffs sent markets into a tailspin.
The once-commanding 25-point lead in the polls for the Conservatives disintegrated by mid-March. Now, when Canadian’s go to the polls on Monday, it’s anticipated that the Liberal Party will clinch a fourth term in office.
This is all you need to know about an election that’s been turned on its head by a politician who isn’t even Canadian — Trump.
The candidates
There are four major political parties with candidates vying for position of prime minister, including the New Democratic Party led by Jagmeet Singh and the Bloc Québécois, led by Yves-François Blanchet.
But this is essentially a two-man race between the Liberals’ Carney and the Conservatives’ Poilievre.
Sixty-year-old Carney is the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England and a political novice. But many Canadians see his decorated career in banking and the private sector as a necessary asset — experience needed to stand up to Trump.
David Coletto, a founder and CEO of Canadian polling firm Abacus Data, says Poilievre’s setback has benefitted Carney.
“Mark Carney emerged at a moment where I think more and more Canadians were looking for somebody with his experience, with his demeanor, with his approach to politics. That was very much of the moment.”
Before Trump’s inauguration in January, Poilievre’s sharp-tongued, populist style of politics was seen as the change Canada needed. But now that Trump’s tariff threats are becoming reality, many voters have shied away from the 45-year-old leader of the Conservatives, according to Robert Huish, a social science professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
“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,” he told NPR.
“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.”
Trump’s influence on Canada’s election
This election is seen as the most important in a generation for Canadians, and it’s been largely defined by the question — who is the right man to stand up to President Trump? Will it be the Liberals’ Carney or Conservatives’ Poilievre?
“There is a level of trust that has been lost between Ottawa and Washington that will be difficult to repair,” says Jared Wesley, a political scientist at the University of Alberta. “I don’t think that the Canada-U.S. relationship will go back to the way that it was without a major change in the leadership approach.”
Trump has shifted the entire ballot question. Canadian pride is riding an all-time high. There was Trump’s threat to turn Canada into the 51st state and making fun of then-Prime Minister Trudeau. Then came the tariffs. Out of that sprang a nationwide movement to avoid buying U.S. products and Canadians are canceling trips south of the border in their droves. Canada is united against one man: Trump.
First time candidate Jessica Fancy-Landry is running as a Liberal in a small district in the maritime province of Nova Scotia.
“People know that this is a historic election,” she told NPR, “I don’t think that there’s ever been an election that means more to Canada.”
What are the other election issues?
Before Trump’s second term in office, the cost of living and the national housing affordability crisis topped the ballot issues. Poilievre has had a strong base with Generation Z men because of the question of home affordability.
At one of Poilievre’s largest campaign rallies in Nisku, Alberta, NPR met brothers Bentley and Teagan Reimer — first and second-time federal voters. They attended the rally with their mom, and talked about the fear of not being able to afford homes of their own.
“The economic climate right now is kind of going downhill, if there is anything we can do to change that and bring it back up,” says Bentley Reimer.
Regardless of which party wins Monday’s election, facing tough economic times ahead together as one country rather than regionally will remain a top priority.
“National unity is going to be a major issue for the prime minister no matter who wins,” says Wesley, the Alberta political scientist.
Canada’s election — the nuts and bolts
In Canada’s first-past-the-post parliamentary system, voters aren’t directly casting their ballots to elect a prime minister. Instead, each citizen votes for a candidate in a political party to be a member of parliament in one of the country’s 343 ridings — or electoral districts. Then the leader of the political party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons becomes the country’s prime minister.
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,
And then whoever wins faces their first task — finding a way forward with the leader of their unpredictable southern neighbor.
