The Decibel - The ‘trade war’ election campaign is under way

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

At midday on Sunday, Prime Minister Mark Carney asked Governor-General Mary Simon to dissolve Parliament and begin an election campaign. Canadians are heading to the polls to elect the next federal government on Monday, April 28.Three months ago, this election was the Conservatives’ to lose. But polling has Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney neck and neck. The race is set to be one of the most unpredictable – and important – elections in recent memory. U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and threats of annexation loom large as Canada fights to affirm its place in the international order.Campbell Clark is The Globe and Mail’s chief political writer, and he’s on the show to explain where the parties are, what’s at stake, and why this election is so important.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

I've just requested that the Governor General dissolve Parliament and call an election for April 28th. She has agreed. On Sunday afternoon, Liberal leader Mark Carney called the election everyone has been waiting for. We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump's unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty. And with that, the other parties also kicked things off.

Conservative leader Pierre Polyev held an event in Gatineau, Quebec. We will stare down this unprovoked threat with steely resolve because be assured Canadians are tough, we are hearty and we stand up for ourselves. Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the NDP, launched his campaign in Ottawa. I'm running in this election to fight for you, not the billionaires. Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet spoke to reporters in Montreal, ahead of his campaign launch on Monday.

What would be the point for Quebecers to support somebody that will do something bad for Quebec? And the Green Party was also in Montreal with co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneau. It's an honor for me to be the youngest leader on this stage during this federal election because for me, as for many of you, the future is not a privilege, it is a right. At the start of the year, Nanos polling had the conservatives with a 27-point advantage over the liberals. But a lot has changed since then.

The liberals elected their new leader, Mark Carney, and US President Donald Trump has continuously threatened Canada's economy and sovereignty. And now, the Liberals and Conservatives seem to be in a neck-and-neck race. A Nanos poll from the middle of March shows the Conservatives polling at 35.3% and the Liberals at 34.1%. So today, I'm speaking to Campbell Clark, the Globe's chief political writer. He'll explain what it means for Canadians to have this election in this moment and where the parties stand at the start of the campaign. I'm Maynika Ramen-Wilms and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Campbell, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. So Campbell, it's official. We're in a federal election campaign. We're talking to you around 4 p.m. on Sunday and Canadians will go to the polls in about five weeks. How does this campaign compare to other recent federal elections? I think it's very different. It is a campaign that has an overriding dominant issue in a way that we haven't seen in a long, long time in Canada.

One that really sort of sharpens the contest. It's also got two leaders at the moment who are sort of very close together in the polls and we haven't seen a questions that has worked up Canadians like this Probably since the 1988 free trade election when actually some of the questions were kind of similar and Campbell for those of us who don't remember The 1988 election. Can you remind us what happened? So Brian Mulroney negotiated a free trade deal with the United States and the campaign turned on the question of whether this would damage Canada's sovereignty. There was actually the big famous election ad from that campaign was one of the border between Canada and the United States being erased. And that turned for a while the election in favor of the liberals, which then rollercoastered

back to the conservatives. So it was a pretty eventful campaign. Okay. So you're saying like, if we look at other recent federal election campaigns, they didn't kind of have that, I guess that really important question then that's kind of grabbing people the way we see right now. There've been swings, right? There was a swing in 2015 when the liberals won power after being the third party, but there hasn't been a sort of intense debate over a dominant

issue like this for a long time. You know, I was thinking about the 2021 election campaign when Justin Trudeau walked out of Rideau Hall the way Mark Carney did today and he took off his mask because it was still the pandemic. You'd think it was, you know, a big election because it was still the pandemic. You'd think it was a big election because it's still midst of a crisis. But good luck trying to recall what the big issues of the 2021 election campaign actually were. It turned into a variety of sort of niche issues. There was a lot of vaccine mandate wedge politics, but then it sort of ended up being a bit of a blob and people voted much the same way they had in the previous election. Yeah, we saw almost the exact same kind of seat share in that election. So that was an interesting reminder.

Okay, so when we look at this campaign that we are entering into now, Campbell, how are the leaders of the main parties positioning themselves to, I guess, meet the moment? So both the liberal and conservative leaders, because they're the two main contenders, are you know, talking about this as the big issue, but in very, very different ways. Mark Carney is focusing on it even more. He is talking about managing this challenge, building the Canadian economy to get through it, and he is sort of playing up the threat, if anything. Whereas Pierre Poilier knows that this is the issue

that has kind of displaced his lead in the polls. So he's trying to get this issue and marry it back to the frustrations that people have had with 10 years of liberal government, with cost of living, the fact that they can't afford things. He's trying to put those two things together because he knows his big strong point is the frustrations with 10 years of the liberals in

power. Essentially, this is kind of a classic campaign in many ways, right? There's a government saying we have to be careful and stay the course on certain things. Even though Mark Carney talks about change, he's saying we can't go too crazy. Whereas Pierre Poilé is talking about we need to rebuild Canada, we have to change things in, you know, we need to rebuild Canada, we have to change things in a bigger way, we need massive tax cuts and so on. And you know, the anger that people felt that was propelling Poilieff to a big lead in the polls for the last couple of years has been replaced by a lot of fear about what might happen to our economic future with the threats of Donald Trump and tariffs.

So let's talk a little bit more about this then, Campbell, because yes, this election is coming in the middle of a trade war with the threats of Donald Trump and tariffs. So let's talk a little bit more about this then, Kimball, because yes, this election is coming in the middle of a trade war with the US. President Donald Trump is expected to issue reciprocal tariffs on Canadian goods April 2nd. Can I just establish first, how is this going to work for the Liberals? Like, how do they deal with governing the country through this while also running an election campaign at the same time? Yeah, usually that's not as big an issue as people think because there's the caretaker convention. Basically governments go stick to routine business in an election campaign. It's run by officials and the government of the day only has to make sort of major decisions.

And usually it's fairly routine decisions. This is going to be a bit different because there are a number of foreign policy issues for one and obviously the threat of tariffs for two, in what is essentially going to be at the end of the first week of the campaign. So that could call for another round of retaliatory tariffs, for example, and that's something that the prime minister of the day has to react to. So there is a little bit of a different situation. I guess, can I ask too, like, what is the rationale for calling an election in the middle of the trade war?

I think the rationale, and we heard Mark Carney give a particular rationale today, which is, you know, I've done a lot of things that I have to do and now I need a strong mandate. The real rationale is there isn't a choice for the government of the day because if they don't call an election, the parliament comes back and they will be defeated. So, one way or the other, we're having an election. Okay, so it does seem like our relationship with the US is already dominating the election narrative. We've seen both Carney and Poliev make announcements responding to the trade war. Can you just quickly run us through, like, let's start with Carney and then get to Poliev here, Campbell.

What has Carney said that he would do when it comes to dealing with this? You know, in some ways, both have said relatively similar things. So let's start with that. They both said that they would break down internal trade barriers, have one economy rather than 13. We're making a commitment at the federal level to legislate the removal of all these barriers by Canada Day so we can have free trade by Canada Day. They both talked about building infrastructure across the country, but in different ways.

Pierre Poliev talks about unleashing resource development and building pipelines by basically deregulating the economy. And Mark Carney is talking about, in part, a publicly paid infrastructure boom. And I think one of the real differences comes in management style, in terms of dealing with Donald Trump and in experience, right? Mark Carney can say, I have an experienced economic negotiator. I've worked as a central banker,

helping economies through financial crisis, both in Canada and in England. England was the Brexit threat. So he has a lot of experience, whereas Polyev's basic argument is that the government has to be radically changed to improve the economy, to make it stronger, to get us through these times. And his main vehicle for that is big tax cuts. He argues that will change the economy, make everything more affordable, increase investment, cause an economic boom. And you alluded a little bit earlier to the fact that this is not the election campaign the conservatives wanted to be fighting, right?

They've been calling for a carbon tax election for months now and then of course one of the first things that Carney did when he became Prime Minister was commit to ending the consumer price on carbon. So I guess, Campbell, where does all of this actually leave the conservatives? In fact, Mark Carney has gone beyond just getting rid of the carbon tax, right? He basically adopted the same housing policy as Pierre Polyev. And you know, like Pierre Polyev has been planning an affordability campaign. He's had this four-part slogan, axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crimes. Well, Mark Carney in a couple of weeks has already gone slogan, acts the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crimes. Well,

Mark Carney in a couple of weeks has already gone through the acts the tax and build the homes and maybe he's working on the other two. He's stuck very close to conservative policy or at least moved a lot closer to conservative policy because that kind of smothers the criticisms that the conservatives have been working on for the last few years about Justin Trudeau and the liberals. And it makes the issues that divide them more about Donald Trump and handling the crisis of trade war. And that's what the liberals and Mark Carney want. Prair Paulyev is very much trying to turn this back to a campaign that involves frustrations

with the liberals, time for a change. But a liberal is a liberal is a liberal. It's the same old liberal MPs, the same liberal ministers, the same liberal advisors, the same liberal elites, the same broken liberal promises of the last 10 years. He wants to steer the conversation about the trade war and the economic threat to one about your income, your cost of living, your frustrations,

and his argument that you can solve those with a tax cut. So how does he do that? Like what are the challenges that are ahead for him there? So both of them face a lot of challenges actually, and that's why this will be an interesting election. He will propose policy and he's got two issues with that. One is, the policies aren't always what we expect to hear from a Canadian leader in a time of crisis. So, for example, both of the two major party leaders have talked about what they would do with the proceeds of retaliatory tariffs, right, which would bring in some kind of income to the Canadian government. So, Mark Carney says he would put this towards programs to help affected workers,

people thrown out of jobs and industries. Whereas, Pierre-Pauliev said most of it would go to a tax cut. Now, in Canada, especially if you look back just recently to the COVID-19 pandemic, I would say the instinct and maybe voters expectation is that government will do something to help the vulnerable in a time of crisis through a program of aid. Whereas what Pierre Pauliev says is this is a time to shrink the government and give people more of their bunny back. And that is an economic strategy because it could create stimulus for the economy, but it may not be what Canadians normally expect in a time of crisis from their government.

The other problem by the way is this is an issue of leadership from their government. The other problem, by the way, is this is an issue of leadership in large part. And Pierre Poliev's leadership over the last two years has been focused on sort of a traditional anger campaign, right? And we saw this in the United States with Donald Trump, and I'm not trying to put Pierre Poliev and Donald Trump into the same category, but the anger is intended to bring about a desire and a demand for change. When you're angry, you want things to be different. When you're angry, you want retribution, you want justice. But the emotion that's taken over recently is fear. When you're afraid or worried or concerned about your future, you want somebody to reassure you. He hasn't really represented that in the last

two years. Mark Carney has come along in the last two months with a CV that looks and feels like somebody who can deal with those kinds of issues, and that has really changed opinion polls. You're getting at something really interesting here, Campbell. And I guess this also makes me think about the specter of Trump kind of hanging over this election and affecting the way that each of these two leaders that we're talking about kind of handle things. How would you say that Trump is affecting how Carney and Pauli ever responding to all of this? this election and affecting the way that each of these two leaders that we're talking about kind of handle things. How would you say that Trump is affecting how Carney and Pauli ever responding to all of this?

In every way almost. You know, one of the funny things is this is probably the first Canadian election where being upset and belligerent with the US president is an advantage. And agreeing to make economic deals with the US president might be a major faux pas because there's just so much distaste and anger for Donald Trump. Even amongst people that weren't feeling that way three months ago, things have really changed radically.

And the emotions are strong. I think we all know that. There's people talking about boycotts. People are just annoyed. So you have to look like you're strong, that you would not give in. And if you watched Mark Carney's speech at Rideau Hall today, he spent a fair bit of time trying to assert that Pierre Polyev is in many ways like Donald Trump. You know, there's a lot of effort to sort of pin the tail on the

Donald Trump donkey here in Canada. There's two ways. One is I will be better at dealing with Donald Trump. Mark Carney says I'm the more experienced negotiator. Pierre Polyev says the Liberals have made Canada weak and that's what Donald Trump wants. And then there's a question of how much you are like Donald Trump, how much you are distinctively Canadian, and there'll be quite a lot of flag waving in this campaign. I've already seen more and larger Canadian flags in the last month of Canadian politics than I have in the previous 30 years, I think.

We'll be right back. So, Kim, we've talked about the two front runners, the liberals and the conservatives at this point, but of course there's also the NDP and the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party. So, let's start with the NDP. Where do they stand going into this election? In a difficult place. They're already appear to be getting squeezed out of the national conversation, starting from basically the

point that the NDP has difficulty convincing people that they will be in power. Since this is a leadership question in many ways about who will deal with Donald Trump and how will we be governed, rather than a question about dental care or farmer care or what social programs we might have, it's very difficult for the NDP to insert itself into that conversation. The NDP already was suffering some problems. Over the course of the last few years, they'd been beaten up by the conservatives for being too close to the liberals. They miscalculated their political timing so that they end up running not against Justin

Trudeau but against Mark Carney and they're getting squeezed very badly. If we were talking about the 1988 election a few minutes ago and the NDP looked at one point like they might win that election under Ed Broadbent and they got squeezed out of that conversation when it ended up being a conservative liberal race. That is the danger for the NDP at the level of the polls that we see them at now, they could be virtually wiped out. Now they have an argument and their argument is we care about you, not about billionaires. We will protect you, the ordinary folks. They're trying to squeeze themselves into the conversation, but it won't be easy.

And the Bloc Québécois, of course, are a factor in Quebec. What's going to be their focus during this campaign? The Bloc Québécois have a similar issue in theory, but they have a different way to deal with it because they are geographically rooted in places where they don't have strong competitors. Although the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals are the two biggest electoral winners usually in Quebec, they tend to sort of divide up the province rather than compete over it. In fact, the Bloc are often fighting with conservatives for seats and winning the lion's

share. I think in a debate where people are talking about protecting Canadian sovereignty and defending against the Americans. The idea that the Bloc will put forward is, well, look, we can hold the balance of power and make sure Quebec has its fair share or at least its way of protecting its own identity and all that Canada-U.S. battle. And you mentioned how Quebec is often between the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals. We've seen that Marc Carney's French isn't maybe the best.

Could that be a major factor here? It could be a major factor. What we don't know is really if in an election like this, where as we've said, it's a fairly polarized election on a very clear issue, whether people will sort of overlook that and think, you know, I'm hiring a leader for a job and that is managing our economy through crisis or threats rather than I want somebody who represents my identity and can feel the same sort of nationalistic cords that I do. So he may get a lead on that, he may not.

Certainly when it comes to the French language debate, he's going to struggle against Yves Francois Blanchet and even against Pierre Poilier. And then, of course, we do have the Green Party, which now has co-leaders, Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneau. Tell us a little bit about what they're looking at going into this campaign. Well, in some ways, they're looking for the same things as the NDP, not to get squeezed out of the conversation. And you know And we all know what the Greens stand for in everybody's mind is sort of environmental

progress and protection. This is a campaign where the two major parties are very much pro pipeline, for example, pro development. Even if Mark Carney is not in favor of deregulating or getting rid of the industrial carbon tax and so on. They are certainly talking about more resource development in ways that the Greens have always objected to. I think that will be the obvious niche for them in this campaign is to say, whoa, whoa,

whoa, we cannot all rush to opening the spigots of oil in Canada when there's a climate crisis around the world. That's what they have always stood for and at a time when people are shifting on that and provinces are shifting on that, they will probably be the voice for concern. I also quickly want to ask you about the People's Party of Canada, Campbell. This is of course run by Maxime Bernier. We've seen them be a bit of a factor in the last two elections. Do we know where they stand now? Well, they certainly haven't been doing as well in the polls as they did in the run-up to the 2021 election and

you know they probably to a certain extent could suffer some of the struggles that the other smaller parties do in the sense that they don't compete for governing but more than that the conservatives and Pierre Poliev's conservatives since he's been the leader have gone out of their way to try to neutralize the People's Party support, believing that it comes right out of their base. And Pierre Pauliev is naturally a more sort of red meat conservative. He wants to deregulate industry, reduce environmental protections. He does sort of rail against the woke. So he's gone out of his way to neutralize Bernier. It still seems to be working. They're much lower in the polls than they were at

one time. And unless there's a surprise, they're probably not in a very strong position in this campaign. Just in our last few minutes here, Campbell, I also want to bring up the fact that there are more seats up for grabs in this election. There's more writings across the country now, 343 up from 338. Can you just briefly explain why that number increases from time to time and could this increase actually make a difference in this election? So, I mean, the main reason is the population grows, we add more seats so that representation is not watered down too much. This is a regular thing that occurs in every few elections. So we're going from 338 to 343, there'll be one seat more in British Columbia, one seat more in Ontario,

three seats more in Alberta. I mean in an election that could be close, it's possible that we have two parties roughly the same number of seats. That could matter a lot. And of course, the addition of Alberta seats would tend to favor the conservatives who win most seats in Alberta in most elections. But in the overall numbers, five seats is still relatively small. The real issue in terms of the shifting polls, at least so far, is still relatively small. The real issue in terms of the shifting poles at least so far is still Ontario. Conservatives were way ahead in Ontario

two months ago. Way ahead and were ready to you know run the table almost outside of downtown Toronto, the 416 area code. Things have changed a lot and those Ontario writings are still likely to be the biggest factor in settling this election. And since we're talking about Ontario, of course, we just had a provincial election in this province, and that was really fought on who's best position to combat Donald Trump. Campbell, are there any lessons from that provincial election that leaders might take for this federal one? Yeah, well, the first one is that is the issue. We've found out what the ballot question is in the largest province in the country, so don't try to walk around that.

It is the issue. And Doug Ford was able to carry that issue on a pretty simple proposition, which is, I will take care of you. His slogan was, protect Ontario. It was, we've got to stand up to Donald Trump. And people liked that. It was pretty simple, pretty clear. And in the Ontario campaign, that was the only issue that people ended up hearing about

in the province of Ontario. It was a very quiet election, almost nothing else punched through. There wasn't even that much attention paid to other things because all the news was about Donald Trump and his tariffs and each time there was a new set of tariffs or a new tweet about tariffs or anything of that nature. It just focused the public on that issue. There was no way for the provincial liberals, for example, to talk about healthcare and have people say, oh, I was just thinking about that. And it was a very quiet election, very low voter engagement over the course of the campaign.

There wasn't even a lot of election news in a way if you're following Ontario media. So that's different because this is going to be a much bigger clash. Foreign policy dealing with the United States, that is in the wheelhouse of the federal government. Everybody knows that's the prime minister's job, not the premier's job. There will be really big arguments over how to deal with that. And it is going to be, I think, a far more detailed and serious debate over the issue of dealing with the United States. Kimball, always great to talk to you. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me. Now that the federal election campaign is officially underway, we want to hear from you. Throughout the campaign, we'll be answering your questions about the leaders, the stories, and the issues. If you have a question for us, send us an email or a voice note to thedecibel at globeandmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. Okay, that's it for today. I'm Nanika Ramon-Wilms.

Our intern is Amber Ransom. Our producers are Madeleine White, Michal Stein, and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. You can subscribe to The Globe and Mail at globeandmail.com slash subscribe. Thanks so much for listening.