A stunning reversal of fortunes in Canada’s historic election

At a rally in London, Ontario, on Friday, the crowd booed as Mark Carney delivered his core campaign line about the existential threat Canada faces from its neighbour.

“President Trump is trying to break us so that America could own us,” the Liberal leader warned.

“Never,” supporters shouted back. Many waved Canadian flags taped to ice hockey sticks.

Similar levels of passion were also on display at the union hall where Pierre Poilievre greeted enthusiastic supporters in the Toronto area earlier in the week.

The Conservative leader has drawn large crowds to rallies across the country, where “Bring it Home” is a call to arms: both to vote for a change of government and a nod to the wave of Canadian patriotism in the face of US tariff threats.

In the final hours of a 36-day campaign, Donald Trump’s shadow looms over everything. The winner of Monday’s election is likely to be the party able to convince voters they have a plan for how to deal with the US president.

National polls suggest the Liberals have maintained a narrow lead entering last stretch.

Still, Trump is not the only factor at play – he was only mentioned once in Poilievre’s stump speech.

The Conservative leader has focused more on voters disaffected by what he calls a “Lost Liberal decade”, promising change from a government he blames for the housing shortage and a sluggish economy, and for mishandling social issues like crime and the fentanyl crisis.

His pitch resonates with voters like Eric and Carri Gionet, from Barrie, Ontario. They have two daughters in their mid-20s and said they were attending their first ever political rally.

“We’re pretty financially secure – but I worry about them,” said Eric Gionet. While he and his wife could buy their first home while young, he said, “there’s no prospect” their children will be able to do the same.

“I’m excited to be here,” said Carri Gionet. “I’m hopeful.”

Tapping into voter frustration has helped opposition parties sweep governments from power in democracies around the world. Canada seemed almost certain to follow suit.

Last year, the Conservatives held a 20-point lead in national polls over the governing Liberals for months. Poilievre’s future as the country’s next prime minister seemed baked in.

Then a series of shockwaves came in quick succession at the start of 2025, upending the political landscape: Justin Trudeau’s resignation, Carney’s subsequent rise to Liberal leader and prime minister; and the return of Trump to the White House with the threats and tariffs that followed.

By the time the election was called in mid-March, Carney’s Liberals were polling neck-and-neck with the Conservatives, and by early April they had pulled slightly ahead, national surveys suggest.

It has been a stunning reversal of fortunes. Seemingly dead and buried, the Liberals now believe they could win a fourth successive election, and even a majority in Parliament.

Carney is pitching himself as the man most ready to meet this critical moment – a steady central banker who helped shepherd Canada’s economy through the 2008 financial crisis and later, the UK through Brexit.

For Conservative voter Gwendolyn Slover, 69, from Summerside in the province of Prince Edward Island, his appeal is “baffling”.

“Many people think Mark Carney is some kind of Messiah,” she said. “It’s the same party, he’s one person. And he’s not going to change anything.”

For Carney’s supporters, they see a strong resume and a poise that has calmed their anxieties over Trump’s threats of steep tariffs and repeated suggestions the country should become the 51st US state – though the president has been commenting less frequently on Canada during the campaign.

“I’m very impressed by the stability and the serious thought process of Mark Carney,” said Mike Brennan from Kitchener, Ontario, as he stood in line to meet the Liberal leader at a coffee shop in Cambridge, about an hour outside Toronto.

Mr Brennan is a “lifelong Liberal” who did not initially plan to vote for the party in this election because of his dislike for Trudeau.

The departure of former prime minister Trudeau, who had grown increasingly unpopular over his decade in power, released “a massive pressure valve”, said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit public opinion research organisation.

“All of these angry Liberals who are either parking their votes with the [left-wing] NDP or parking their votes with the Conservatives start re-coalescing,” she said.

Then more disaffected Liberals and other progressive voters began to migrate towards Carney’s Liberals, driven by Trump, this election’s “main character”, Ms Kurl said.

“The threats, the annexation talk, all of that has been a huge motivator for left of centre voters.”

It has worked to Carney’s advantage, with Trump’s tariffs threats giving the political neophyte – he is the first prime minister to have never held elected public office – the chance to publicly audition to keep his job during the campaign.

Trump’s late-March announcement of global levies on foreign automobile imports allowed Carney to step away from the trail and take on the prime minister’s mantle, setting up a call with the president and meeting US Cabinet ministers.

He’s never been tested in a gruelling federal election campaign, with its relentless travel, high-pressure demands for retail politics and daily media scrutiny. Yet on the campaign trail, and in the high-stakes debate with party leaders, he is considered to have performed well.

Poilievre, in contrast, is a veteran politician and polished performer. But on the shifting political ground, Conservatives appeared to struggle to find their footing, pivoting their message from Canada being broken to “Canada First”.

Poilievre had to fend off criticism from political rivals that he is “Trump lite”, with his combative style, his vows to end “woke ideology”, and willingness to take on the “global elite”.

“I have a completely different story from Donald Trump,” he has said.

More on the Canadian election:

Canadians have historically voted in either Conservative or Liberal governments, but smaller parties – like the NDP or the Bloc Québécois, a sovereigntist party that only runs candidates in the province of Quebec – have in the past formed Official Opposition.

In this campaign, both are languishing and face the possibility of losing a number of seats in the House of Commons as anxious voters turn towards the two main political parties.

If the Liberals and Conservatives both succeed in getting over 38% of the vote share nationally, as polls suggest is likely, it would be the first time that has happened since 1975.

The message from the NDP – which helped prop up the minority Liberals in the last government – in the final days of campaigning has been to vote strategically.

“You can make the difference between Mark Carney getting a super majority or sending enough New Democrats to Ottawa so we can fight to defend the things you care about,” leader Jagmeet Singh said earlier this week.

The campaign has also highlighted festering divides along regional lines.

With much of the campaign dominated by the US-Canada relationship and the trade war, many issues – climate, immigration, indigenous reconciliation – have been on the backburner.

Even when the campaigns have focused on other policies, the discussion has centred on the country’s economic future.

Both frontrunners agree in broad strokes on the priorities: the need to pivot away from dependence on the US; the development of oil, gas and mining sectors; protection for workers affected by tariffs; and increased defence spending.

But they disagree on who is best to lead Canada forward, especially when so much is at stake.

“It’s time for experience, not experiments,” Carney told his supporters in London.

Poilievre closing message was: “We can choose change on Monday. We can take back control of our lives and build a bright future.”

Additional reporting by Ali Abbas Ahmadi