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Canada’s first election debate opens with sparring over Trump

The American president loomed large during a party leader showdown near the close of a snap campaign.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney makes a point toward Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre during the French-language federal leaders' debate in Montreal on Wednesday. | Christopher Katsarov, The Canadian Press

Liberal Leader Mark Carney makes a point toward Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre during the French-language federal leaders' debate in Montreal on Wednesday. | Christopher Katsarov, The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — Canada’s Conservative leader invoked an old foe Wednesday in a high-stakes leaders debate dominated at times by the specter of Donald Trump.

“You’re just like Justin Trudeau,” Pierre Poilievre told Liberal Leader Mark Carney during Canada’s French-language debate in Montreal. The leader of Canada’s Conservatives insisted Carney, who recently replaced the deeply unpopular Trudeau as prime minister, would be more of the same.

But Carney was quick to remind his populist rival that the campaign is not about Trudeau.

“The question is who’s going to succeed in facing Donald Trump,” Carney said in French, brushing off his recent stint as Trudeau’s economic adviser.

“We are in a crisis. The most serious crisis of our lives,” Carney said. “We have to react with strength, which will allow us to succeed with Trump.”

Wednesday’s debate was the first of two nationally televised contests in Canada’s five-week election campaign, which has fixated at times on the damage Trump’s trade policy is inflicting on Canadians.

Trump’s trade war, accompanied by threats of annexation, have flipped the campaign, which earlier this year was expected to produce a strong majority Conservative government.

Poilievre has so far failed to close a polling gap with the Liberals — and he has taken criticism for focusing too little on Trump on the hustings. Instead, the Conservative leader has campaigned on affordability measures, arguing they persisted before Trump — and will outlast the president.

“I will never compromise Canada’s interests, and I will control what we can here,” he said. “We can’t control the decisions of Trump, but we can control our domestic economy and overturn Liberal policies that weakened our economy and made us more dependent on the U.S.”

 

Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida Poilievre arrive at CBC-Radio-Canada to participate in the French Federal Leaders Debate broadcast in Montreal, Quebec, on April 16, 2025. Mark Carney, the frontrunner in this month's Canadian election, faces two tests in Wednesday's televised debate: besting his conservative opponent -- and showing the bilingual nation that he has good enough French. Carney's main rival on the stage in Montreal will be Poilievre, whose Tory Party is trailing the Carney-led Liberals in most opinion polls ahead of the April 28 vote. (Photo by ANDREJ IVANOV / AFP) (Photo by ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Ana in Montreal on Wednesday night. | AFP via Getty Images

 

With 12 days to go in what was a “change” election before Trump’s return, Canadians are on the hunt for stability.

Since Carney became prime minister last month, he has distanced himself from Trudeau’s policies. He axed Trudeau’s consumer carbon price, talked defense with leaders of France and the U.K., and got Canada’s provinces and territories to agree to break down domestic trade barriers.

“I’ve just started. I’ve only been prime minister for a month,” Carney said repeatedly on the debate stage.

Hours before the leaders squared off, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem warned that Trump’s actions are a once-in-a-century disruption that could plunge Canada into a yearlong recession.

“I think everybody’s feeling this uncertainty,” Macklem said Wednesday during a regularly scheduled bank rate update. “Everybody is watching the daily announcements coming out of the White House and seeing the — you know — the erratic, unpredictable course of U.S. trade policy.”

Carney, a rookie politician who headed two central banks, calls himself a “crisis manager” who can take on Trump.

“We have to react with strength,” he said on the debate stage. “[Trump] respects strength, and he respects people who understand how the world works, and how the private sector works.”

In a recent Nanos survey, 62 percent of the Canadians surveyed said they considered Carney the best person to negotiate with Trump.

Poilievre has been a member of Canada’s Parliament since 2004. As leader of the opposition in the House of Commons since 2022, he waged a war of words against Trudeau’s climate policies and economic management. “Canada is broken,” he repeated in Parliament and on social media — a compelling argument to inflation-weary Canadians working to stretch their shrinking dollars.

If Trump is the ballot question, Carney is polling as the overwhelming favorite. Throughout the election, the Liberal leader has repeatedly donned his “prime minister” hat in a bid to remind voters why they like him at the helm.

But the president has spared Canada in recent weeks from extemporaneous Oval Office wrath — even amid overlapping tariff threats, Trump had dropped annexation threats.

Polls show Poilievre is far more competitive in an election about the cost of living. If Trump drifts off the front pages, Conservatives could smell a comeback.

Leave it to Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, to revive the annexation narrative this week in the White House briefing room.

“I would reject that the president’s position on Canada has shifted. Perhaps he just hasn’t been asked about Canada,” Leavitt said in response to a question from CBC News reporter Katie Simpson. “He believes Canadians would benefit greatly from becoming the 51st state.”

Author: Mickey Djuric, Sue Allan and Nick Taylor-Vaisey

Source: Politico

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