Today, Explained - How Trump saved Canada’s libs

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

The Liberal Party was set to lose today’s election. Now, thanks to President Trump, it just might win. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Gabrielle Berbey, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. A protestor chanting during the "Elbows Up" rally in Toronto. Photo by Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's election day in Canada, which is nothing new for reporter Stephanie Levitz. I have covered, I believe this is my ninth federal election. But Stephanie says this one is without precedent. How it looked like the next campaign in this country was going to go, and it feels like that's all been flipped on its head. So you have the liberal campaign, which is led by Mark Carney, which is driving a narrative that says he's the guy to take on US President Donald Trump. We can't change President Trump.

So we need a leader that can stand up to him. His chief opponent, Conservative leader, Pierre Poliev, running more on a cost of living narrative. We cannot afford a fourth liberal term. It's as though they're kind of evaluating them and imagining a boardroom and imagining the US president at one end of the table and this leader at the other end of the table and which one do I want to see in that seat. How Trump's 51st state talk may have saved Canada's libs coming up on Today Explained. From early morning workouts that need a boost to late night drives that need vibes, a good

playlist can help you make the most out of your everyday. And when it comes to everyday spending, you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard to help you earn the most PC optimum points everywhere you shop. With the best playlists, you never miss a good song. With this card, you never miss out on getting the most points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard. The card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. It was a crisis, a fast moving crisis. And so it's not surprising in retrospect that

the debate was truncated. But it is surprising the extent to which the decisions that were made in the early going of the pandemic departed from conventional wisdom about how to handle a pandemic. This week on The Gray Area, we're talking about tough decisions that were made during the pandemic. New Gray Area episodes drop every Monday, available everywhere. When we sat down with Stephanie Levitz from the Globe and Mail, we started talking about how it was just about a year ago that we sat down with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

He was eager to talk about his ambitious plans to invest in housing construction, affordable health care and childcare, raising capital gains taxes. These are things that actually meet people where they are in their cost of living and provide solutions for a better life. Those choices are going to be on the table in the next election and I'm confident the Canadians are going to remain responsible, ambitious, and optimistic about their future. You know, I asked him if he should just step aside and he said, no, I still have something

to offer the Canadian people. But it turned out the Canadian people weren't buying when he was selling. I mean, that's pretty much it, right? When I think back about when he went on your podcast, he was trying to reach a different group of voters. He was trying to reach people, frankly, that his opponent, conservative leader Pierre Polyev, had been so successful reaching, which was millennials, younger Canadians, people really worried about their futures.

And at that moment in time, those people were squarely behind Pierre Polyev and they weren't interested in Justin Trudeau because part of it was, well, thanks, where you've been, you've already been in power for nine years. And so, as this campaign sort of drags on, Trudeau has to finally face the music and he announces that he will be stepping aside. But it seems like right as he's in the process of stepping aside, all of a sudden, the liberals do get a boost from a very unlikely source. Is that accurate? Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially

drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like. This is one of the wild turning points of our election. So you have the liberals down in the dumps, nothing is going right for them. And then in December, in this like Shakespearean political moment, his finance minister and for them. And then in December, in this like Shakespearean political moment, his finance minister and deputy prime minister, Krista Freeland quit on the very morning she was supposed to deliver a major economic update for the government. And when she quit, it was to tell Justin Trudeau that she didn't think he had

the chops to guide the country in a trade war with the United States. Now, in a letter posted to X addressed to the prime minister, Freeland says the prime minister and her have found themselves at odds over the past few weeks about the best path forward for Canada. There is one line that is particularly pointed where she says that we need to eschew political gimmicks that the country can ill afford. Trudeau sees the writing on the wall, decides to go. I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader. But because he launches a leadership race in the interim, now while he's still prime minister, he only needs to focus on one thing, not all the things.

And that thing, that big, big thing that was blotting out the sun in Canada was Donald Trump and the launch of the tariff war. Mr. President, is there anything China, Canada and Mexico can do tonight to forestall your implementation of tariffs tomorrow? No, nothing. Not right now. And from that point on, when you saw Justin Trudeau, you know, singularly focused on being Captain Canada. Canadians are reasonable and we are polite, but we will not back down from a fight. Which is a role that suits him, that comes naturally to him because of his upbringing, because his father was a Prime Minister.

People started sort of responding to the Liberals in a very different way than they'd been responding to them for months, and you begin to see the polls tick tick tick tick up for the Liberals. Then along comes the new Liberal leader Mark Carney and that's when you really begin to see the polls take off for the Liberal Party. We didn't ask for this fight but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So the Americans they should make no mistake in trade as in hockey, Canada will win. And under this new guy, who's very different than Justin Trudeau in all sorts of ways, people who had turned their backs on the liberals began turning towards them. People who were worried

about, you know, the future of this country, but used to put those votes in a much more progressive political party, the New Democrats it was called. They started looking to the Liberal Party. People in Quebec, where the federal political party there is called the Bleu Québécois, they are a separatist party. Incredibly, Quebecers were looking towards the Liberal Party. The liberal pitch in Quebec is that only the liberals can stand up to President Donald Trump. But just like elsewhere in Canada, Quebecers voting intentions and the way they looked at this federal election was completely upended. And it was this swing of fortunes for the liberals,

and now they're running neck and neck with their former opponents. and neck with their former opponents. Marc Carney, different from Trudeau, in some ways, maybe similar to Trudeau, but tell us how he contrasts with Justin Trudeau, especially for the Canadian voters right now. Sure. I mean, there's a generational difference. That's a big one, right? Marc Carney is 60. He's got grown children. He has worked in a variety of high profile jobs. He was the governor of the Bank of Canada, which is the equivalent of the head of the Fed in the US. He was the governor of the Bank of England.

He had a job at the UN sort of directing sustainable climate initiatives. If the world truly wants revolution towards a more sustainable, resilient and fair energy system, the finance for it will be there. He's got this international resume. He has never served a day in elected office. He is definitely not a politician. And his demeanor, whereas Justin Trudeau had this energy, this buoyancy and this dramatic effect that he would often bring to a lot of what

he did. Mark Carney is like the opposite of that. He's calmer, much more academic, much more corporate in a way. And what's really interesting about that, just to go back to Justin Trudeau for a second, trying to reach those millennial voters, Mr. Carney has brought back the boomers. He has brought back this voting cohort that is they are reliable voters in every single election and they are turning to him and they're saying, yeah, that guy. And let's talk about Carney in relation to his opposition. Tell people who Pierre Poliev is and what his appeal is in this election right now.

Sure. So Pierre Poliev is in his mid 40s. He's got two young kids. He really has cut his teeth over the years as being a politician who can really meet particular moments very well. And he rode to a tremendous degree of success, became leader of his party in the easing out of the pandemic era, where the restrictions in Canada had been in some cases, quite dramatic. People were chomping at the bit for freedom. They wanted the government out of their life. And so he began to jump on this narrative.

Let's remove the government gatekeepers to build more homes, grow more food, and produce more energy right here in Canada. That he was really successful in beating Justin Trudeau over the head with on a daily basis for like two years and people responded. Mr. Poliev is a master of the rhetorical flourish. He loves slogans. He loves things that rhyme. Acts the tax, taxes up, costs up, crimes up, times up.

And you know, some of that stuff really works for people because it makes the message stick and he's been really successful with that message up until the moment or the series of moments in which Donald Trump got elected, Justin Trudeau stepped down, and Mark Carney got himself elected liberal leader. And that message track, while still very resonant with Canadians, just can't take enough support away from Mark Carney. Hmm. I mean, I've heard Poliayev referred to as Canadian Trump. Now, how does a Canadian Trump compete in an election where Trump has become such a boogeyman for Canadians?

And therein lies the issue, right? When people watch Mr. Poliayev or they listen to him, they come away come away thinking, it's like he's kind of Trumpy. Listen, I think it to have 10 or 15,000 people at one political rally. This is a movement like we've never seen because people want change. They want to put our country first for a change. And it's in the way he speaks. It's in his rhetoric, the hyperbole, the sloganeering. Trudeau gets protection from the cancel culture woke warriors.

And I will replace the woke culture with a warrior culture. A common sense Canada first plan. And so when Mr. Poliev gives off an echo of that, it sends people away. Okay. And then either way, whoever wins, how do they stand up to Trump differently than say Trudeau and Carney have done so far? Yeah, this one's interesting.

I mean, Mr. Carney does have a lot of contacts and connections in the international geopolitical world. And, you know, he's made a point of saying that the old relationship with the United States is over. There is a new path forward. And so he'll have to figure out how to shape that path. And what those conversations with Mr. Trump look like. Conversely, Mr. Poliev takes a much more domestic facing view of things, I think, in terms of standing up to Trump, he's promising to do things that rebuild our economy quite quickly, developing natural resources, building more homes. And

so we'll see. I don't know. I mean, Mr. Trump has said not nice things about Pierre Polyev. Well, I think his biggest problem is he's not a mega guy, you know? He's really not. He's not a Trump guy at all. Which is weird and funny, I guess. I don't know. And he has been slightly more conciliatory, shall we say, to Mr. Carney than he was ever to Justin Trudeau. He has not referred to Mr. Carney as Governor Carney. He has referred to him as Prime Minister. Wow. But we had a very good talk, the Prime Minister and myself, and I think things are going to

work out very well between Canada and the United States. Yeah, please go ahead. So that's an interesting tonal switch. Same party, different attitude, eh? Same party, different attitude. And you know, there's lots of folks in Canada who will say that some degree of the animosity that Mr. Trump has displayed to our country was born out of a personal animosity for Justin Trudeau. Just didn't like the guy, they didn't get along.

Famous clash when Canada hosted the G7. Well, he's too fast. Solid grudge match. Rumors swirling that Melania crushes on Justin, I don't know. You know what? All politics is personal. At the end of the day, and if you can't make a personal relationship with world leaders,

that sometimes that's not gonna work to your advantage. Can Mr. Carney build that relationship with Mr. Trump? We'll see. Can Mr. Poliev build that relationship with Mr. Trump? We'll see. You can read Stephanie Levitz at theglobeandmale.com. You can read Stephanie Levitz at theglobeandmale.com. Elbows up when we're back at Today Explained. Support for the program comes from Quince.

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Yeah, they felt very fresh, smelled lovely. They also opened up really nicely. To claim your Double Your Roses offer, you can go to 1-800-flowers.com-slash-explained. That's 1-800-flowers.com-slash-explained. Sean Ramos from Today Explained here with David Moskrop, Canadian. Born in Peterborough, Ontario and spent most of my young life in central Ontario, although incidentally my late father was American in case anyone is wondering if I might be a sleeper agent, I'm not, but I want to just get that out at the top just in case. Jared Sussman David's also a political columnist and podcast host, and he says, perhaps unlike

most Americans, Canadians are taking Trump's 51st state comments pretty seriously. Here, nobody really took it as a joke. It was at best an insult and at worst a credible threat. And I think for a lot of people, the calculus was, okay, well, this might not happen. It probably won't happen in the sense that we're gonna get invaded, troops going over the border.

But when the hegemon and your neighbor along the world's longest undefended border, at least for now, starts talking about annexation, you think, okay, maybe this is something we should take seriously, you know, just in case. And of course that accompanied real economic threats that we started to feel immediately. And so that was

a real one-two punch that hit. And in the meantime, there were some Americans, including people like Steve Bannon saying, China and Russia, the great powers and the United States, fighting it out over the Arctic is going to be the new great game of the 21st century. Canada, you are thrust into the middle of that. And quite frankly, you're the great prize of that. And quite frankly, you're the great prize of that. It's like, okay, well then we're listening. So what did you do as a country? It's not like Justin Trudeau sent troops to the border, is it?

Well, yes and no. No, none of this ends. We didn't send troops to the border to go defend because that would be an exercise in futility. We don't have that many troops to begin with. It's a huge border. Yeah, they're stretched a little thin as it is. It's a long border. But incidentally, as it happens, as Trump started in the early days said,

well, we're gonna hit Canada with tariffs because of fentanyl and because of a lax border. The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. The government under, at the time Justin Trudeau said, okay, well, we're going to start patrolling the border with Black Hawk helicopters. We're going to send drones. We're going to declare drug cartels terrorists.

We launched a $1.3 billion border plan that is already showing results because we too are devastated by the scourge that is fentanyl. And incidentally it turns out that border apprehensions according to the White House are down, but as you can imagine, tariffs are not. Okay, so there's some real practical reactions there. What about the cultural reaction? The cultural reaction has been fascinating because at no time in my life, I'm a spry 41 and a half, but at no time in my life have I seen this sort of surge of nationalism that's been so widespread and sustained at least so far and rapid. And it's manifested itself in all kinds of ways.

["The Star Spangled Banner"] We saw the booing of the Star Spangled Banner at sports events. Which was actually encouraged by the Prime Minister of Canada, if I recall correctly. And yeah, we're probably gonna keep booing the American anthem. Yeah there was a kind of hedging on that.

But let me tell Americans we're not booing you, we're not booing your teams, we're not booing your players. We're booing a policy that is designed to hurt us. We pulled boos off the shelves from the United States. A handful of provinces here including mine in Ontario and British Columbia straight up said okay the state liquor distributor and retailer is simply not going to carry alcohol. And since then it's only been Canadian spirits and beer. There was a return of the I am Canadian, this iconic I am Canadian beer commercial from the early 2000s. Hey I'm not a lumberjack or a fur trader.

And I don't live in any igloo or eat blubber or own a dog sled. Jeff Douglas talking about these stereotypical Canadian things, you know, as a flag waved on the screen in the background. I believe in peacekeeping, not policing, diversity, not assimilation, and that the beaver is a truly proud, normal animal.

You go to grocery stores and you see American products sitting there on the shelves while Canadian products are empty. And even I was part of this. I went to the grocery store one day and I wanted to make poutine because I guess I felt like being a stereotype. It's something you shouldn't do every day, because it's heavy. Especially as you've got to get into your 40s.

Yeah, once you get into your spry early 40s, don't eat poutine every day. I'm not that kind of doctor, but I think that's solid advice. And I went in and I picked up a can of gravy and I get to the cash and I look at it, it's called Americano. I'm like, I should have noticed this earlier.

So I go back down, I haul my butt back down the aisle and I went and I checked the label to be sure. And sure enough, it comes from the United States. I put it back on the shelf and I got a different gravy and I walked back and left paid for it and left the store. There was even this great instructional video, right? Also, you know, comedic, but telling Canadians how to go about boycotting U.S. products, right? You were going to buy

American maple syrup? Oh. Okay, that costs way more. So does freedom. Which they have. They're not traveling to the United States either. Bookings are way down, border crossings, both for Canadians and Americans are way down. And this is, you know, two deeply integrated economies, both economically and culturally, a trade relationship worth a trillion dollars a year, 75% of Canadian exports go stateside. And people all of a sudden say, no, it's both an economic and cultural imperative that I start to push back against this. And it came out of nowhere because, you know, prior to Trump trash talking Canada, threatening Canada and levying tariffs, this wasn't really on the radar. And we'd be remiss to talk about the culture of the backlash in Canada without talking about elbows up. Could you explain

that for people who didn't know what Mike Myers was saying on SNL? That's right. This has become both a rallying cry and a meme and a little bit cringe in Canada. It was a genuine moment that's also been appropriated by politicians. Elbows up! And it's elbows up time. Ladies and gentlemen, Canada will never bend. We will never kiss the gangsters ring. But let me ask you, Mr. Prime Minister, will there always be a Canada?

There will always be a Canada. Alright, elbows up! People on social media in some cases have put little emojis in their profiles with hashtags that say elbows up. And it comes from Mike Myers going on SNL and he's wearing a Canada's not for sale shirt and he puts up his elbow and now his elbow's up.

In reference to the hockey expression that basically means get ready to fight, get ready to the hockey expression that basically means, you know, get ready to fight, get ready to stand up for yourself. And some people liken it back to hockey legend Gordie Howe, who was quite famous for throwing elbows. Do you think it dissipates after the election? Or does that more so depend on Trump's threats that follow the election? Well, this is it.

I mean, I think every time Trump opens his mouth and starts speaking off about the 51st state or threatening another round of tariffs, it comes back. Even if it settles a little bit, it comes back. And I think the suspicion and the anger and the sense of betrayal that is expressed culturally and politically is going to lead to a remaking of public policy that's going to lock in those changes. Because once you said, okay, well, I'm going to start shipping goods and services to other countries, I'm going to make my business plans based on that.

I'm going to build a bigger east-west electricity grid instead of running it north-south. I'm going to ship, build pipelines to ship oil and gas east-west and out on the ocean instead of to the south. Well, then you're kind of locked into that new arrangement because it's expensive and difficult to change it. And so as Mark Carney, the prime minister himself has said, you know, the relationship has fundamentally changed for good. And I think a lot of people feel that way. And are people mournful of it? I think mournful is exactly the right word. Because that's how I feel. Millions of us really deeply love Americans, but don't love what the American administration is doing to our country and our relationship. And it feels like those

ties that bind have been severed by that administration. And yeah, we're mourning that loss. And because it kind of feels like losing a family member. I can't even share for the Red Wings anymore. Do I have to be a Habs fan? No, God knows I'm not going to be a Leafs fan, but do I have to be a Habs fan? Ouch! Yeah, I know. There is a kind of light jokey side to this, a kind of spy versus spy side to it. But then you start digging and you're like, oh, the Trump tariffs could decimate entire industries and put cities out of work and industries out of work and drive Canada into a recession and people would lose their homes.

And you're like, that jokey bit stops at the water's edge and so the cultural expressions are going to reflect that and so you know maybe that means getting a Habs Jersey. Hey, go Leafs Go! David Moskrop is working on a book about Canadian nationalism and he's got a sub stack. You can find it at davidmoskrop.com. That's M-O-S-C-R-O-P. Avishai Artsy produced our show today. That's A-R-T-S-Y. Amina Alsadi edited.

Andrea Christensdottir and Patrick Boyd mixed. Gabrielle Burbae and Laura Bullard checked the facts and wait, my spidey sense is tingling it must be because it's Laura's birthday happy birthday Laura from everyone at Today Explained. you