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The leaders’ tours
Liberal leader Mark Carney spent last weekend getting to know his chosen riding, Nepean, in Ottawa, but without the benefit of media coverage; most of his events were closed. After spending Monday in Vaughan, north of Toronto, for a major housing policy announcement, he then spent all of Tuesday in Winnipeg for an economic announcement, a meeting with Premier Wab Kinew and an evening rally. He then returned to Ottawa for meetings with the Cabinet Committee on Canada-U.S. Relations and the Canada-U.S. relations council prior to the Trump tariff announcements on Wednesday afternoon. Carney is in Montreal this morning, before heading to an auto manufacturing plant in Woodbridge Ontario, and he will hold a rally in Scarborough tonight.
Pierre Poilievre started Monday in Newfoundland and Labrador for a major policy announcement on energy policy and then moved to Prince Edward Island, where the Liberals hold all four seats. In Toronto on Wednesday, he delivered a keynote address, before heading to Kingston for a rally which drew 4,000 supporters. Poilievre is in Quebec today, making a stop in Trois Rivières.
Jagmeet Singh began the week in Edmonton, where he campaigned in Edmonton Strathcona, where he visited homes where the rent is being increased by $500 a month, as well as the Liberal seat of Edmonton Centre. By Wednesday, he was in Winnipeg for a press conference with the Labourers’ International Union of North America, and in Ottawa on Thursday. Singh remains in Montreal this morning, after appearing on Radio Canada’s Cinq chefs, une election in studio last night.
On third-party advertising
As Canada’s election heats up, third-party advertisers are using unconventional tactics—from aggressive digital ads to mobile billboards—to influence the conversation. While major parties refine their strategies, groups like PSAC and the nurses’ union are targeting niche audiences, raising the question: are these tactics impactful or just political background noise?
On the voters’ minds
Political debates can make it seem like Canadians are living in completely different realities, but when we asked people across the country to share some advice for whoever may become the next Prime Minister, something unexpected happened: we found… agreement. Real, heartfelt, and surprisingly consistent advice, even across party lines.
Take my advice. No, really, take it: What Canadians would tell the next PM
The Trump reciprocal tariffs
On Wednesday, President Trump announced his reciprocal tariff package, hitting Europe and dozens of other countries. While there were no new tariffs impacting Canada and Mexico, and the original “fentanyl-related” tariffs are still on hold, the tariffs on steel and aluminum are already in place and the auto tariffs began today. Auto maker Stellantis NV temporarily halted production at assembly plants in Windsor, Ont., and Mexico, laying off 3,200 people in Canada and 2,600 in Mexico, in addition to 900 layoffs at six U.S. factories.
On Thursday, following a teleconference with the Premiers, Prime Minister Carney announced that Canada will match the 25% tariff on all imported vehicles from the U.S. which are not CUSMA compliant, and on non-Canadian content of CUSMA compliant vehicles. Canada will not put tariffs on auto parts and will not impose tariffs on content from Mexico. He also announced the government is developing a framework that will offer relief to auto manufacturers in Canada, if they maintain production and investment in Canada. In addition, all proceeds from the tariffs will be used to help the companies and auto workers impacted by the tariffs. Mr. Carney was also careful to indicate that Canada is acting alone, and not in conjunction with other countries.
Policy in Week 2
As in the kick-off week, the second week of the campaign was heavy with policy promises.
The Liberals
The Conservatives
- Poilievre Announces Canada First Reinvestment Tax Cut
- Poilievre Will Axe The Annual Liberal Beer Tax Increase
- Poilievre To Create ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor
- Poilievre Commits to Tax Fairness for Travelling Trades Workers
- Put Canada’s Fisheries First – For a Change
- Poilievre Will Unleash Newfoundland and Labrador’s Energy
- More Liberal Bureaucracy Will Not Fix the Housing Crisis
- Poilievre Commits to all 5 Energy Sector Asks to End Dependence on US
- Poilievre To Axe GST on Canadian-Made Cars, Create ‘Keep Canadians Working Fund’
The NDP
- Climate Action That Protects You from Trump’s Trade War and Rising Costs
- Singh to First-Time Buyers: We’ll Help you Buy a Home—Not Investors and Speculators
- Jagmeet Singh Launches Canada Victory Bonds and a Plan to Build Canadian
Pushback on the Week 1 tax cut promises
The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP all announced broadly based tax cuts last week. Critics have countered that with the current deficit and debt situations facing the country, plus the likely need to help unemployed victims of the Trump tariffs, expensive tax cuts are an outmoded “business as usual” approach, not to mention ineffective economics and misplaced priority-setting:
- Economist Trevor Tombe of the University of Calgary argued in The Hub, “these tax cuts aren’t a great tool to tackle affordability – the issue both parties say they’re trying to address. Targeted help for lower-income households would go further. For instance, boosting the GST credit would be more effective.”
- Marcus Gee wrote in the Globe and Mail, “The result of these campaign giveaways would be to deplete the national treasury just when Canada needs the money most. It will take many billions of dollars to cushion the economy from the battering it is taking from the Trump administration.”
- Andrew Coyne, also in the Globe, described the tax cuts as, “a bipartisan bribe, in other words, driven by neither equity nor efficiency considerations, but the worst sort of politics as usual.”
- And Bill Robson, Don Drummond and Alexandre Laurin in The Hub wrote, “With cost of $5 billion to well over $10 billion, the personal income tax cut promises of the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP are particularly egregious uses of public funds for little economic benefit.”
The Conservative pivot at last
According to several media reports last weekend, Conservative stalwarts are increasingly concerned that the Poilievre campaign is “dysfunctional” and “highly disorganized”, with “too much centralized power and aggressive treatment of staff”. Kory Teneycke, Doug Ford’s campaign manager said the federal Conservative campaign was heading for disaster unless it pivoted to address the Trump tariff threats more directly and how talked more about defending the Canadian economy. Teneycke’s comments exposed the uneasy relationship between the federal and Ontario wings of the party, with Doug Ford making it clear that he will not campaign for the federal party in the election.
On Wednesday this week, in his first major speech on the Trump tariff policies, Pierre Poilievre responded with a detailed plan to build an “economic fortress” for Canada, proposing to “accelerate renegotiations to replace the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA)”, “that both countries pause tariffs while we renegotiate a deal. During the negotiations, we will protect our border, our resources, our farmers, including our supply-managed farmers, our fresh water, and our automotive workers.”
Candidates behaving badly
The Liberals and Conservatives were both forced to terminate candidates this past week.
- First up was Liberal Calgary Confederation candidate Thomas Keeper, who was dropped by the party after he failed to disclose a 20-year-old domestic assault charge that was stayed six weeks after it was laid.
- MP Paul Chiang, the Liberal candidate for Markham-Unionville, suggested during a local Chinese-language media news conference in January that people should claim the bounty on Joe Tay, who is currently running for the Conservatives in Don Valley North. “To everyone here, you can claim the one-million-dollar bounty if you bring him to Toronto’s Chinese consulate,” Chiang said. Mr. Tay runs a YouTube channel, HongKongerStation, that draws attention to continuing civil-rights violations in Hong Kong.
- With the Conservatives and the NDP, as well as Hong Kong human rights groups all calling for Mr. Chiang’s resignation, Liberal leader Mark Carney doubled down, confirming that Chiang would remain as a Liberal candidate. After a fearsome editorial backlash, Chiang resigned his nomination. By failing to deal quickly with the situation, the Liberals allowed it to drag on for four days before it arrived at its inevitable conclusion.
- On April 3, the Liberals tossed Rob Loyola, their candidate in Edmonton Gateway, for praising terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah at a 2009 anti-NATO protest.
The Conservatives scored a record of sorts on Tuesday by parting company with four candidates in one day:
- Mark McKenzie, the Conservative candidate for Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore was dismissed after it came to light that he had expressed support for public hangings in 2022 and jokingly suggested Justin Trudeau should receive the death penalty.
- Stefan Marquis (Laurier-Sainte-Marie) was dropped after social media posts came to light about conspiracy theories on COVID-19 vaccines, the World Economic Forum and the invasion of Ukraine.
- Laurence Singh, who was running in New Westminster-Burnaby-Maillardville, was fired by the party for undisclosed reasons.
- Don Patel, the candidate in Etobicoke North, was sent away after social media comments calling for individuals to be “deported to India then PM Modi can take care of these nonsense people.”
The deadline for parties to nominate candidates is fast approaching: April 7 at 2 PM.
The public opinion polls
Canada338, which aggregates and averages national public opinion polls, today places the Liberals at 44%, ahead of the Conservatives at 38% and the NDP at 8%.
In Quebec, the Liberals are at 43%, followed by the Bloc Quebecois at 23% and the Conservatives at 23%. The NDP is trailing at 5%.
Insights in this piece contributed by Geoff Norquay.
Focus on The Prairies
Written by: Dale Richardson, Principal
The Prairies have long been considered solid Conservative territory, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan, but the 2025 election could see subtle but important shifts, particularly in Manitoba and possibly in major cities like Calgary and Edmonton.
The Conservative Party maintains its strong support in rural and small-town Alberta and Saskatchewan, but national momentum appears to have turned sharply in favour of the Liberals under the leadership of Mark Carney. Polling now shows the Liberals with a significant lead across the country, and for the first time in years, they could make gains in some parts of the Prairie region, especially in Manitoba, where Winnipeg has emerged as a bright spot for the party.
Liberal momentum
In the 2021 election, the Liberal Party was reduced to just a handful of seats in western Canada, mostly in urban Winnipeg and a couple in urban Alberta. With national polling now firmly in their favour, the Liberals are pushing to hold their Manitoba seats, pick up a few more, and remain competitive in a limited number of urban ridings in Alberta and even Saskatchewan.
That effort will face an early test in Edmonton, where former Liberal cabinet minister Randy Boissonnault is not seeking re-election. Boissonnault, who had represented Edmonton Centre since 2021 and previously from 2015 to 2019, was one of only two Liberals elected in Alberta in the last federal campaign, along with George Chahal in Calgary Skyview. (Chahal is running in the new riding of Calgary McKnight). Losing an incumbent like Boissonnualt could make an already uphill battle in Alberta that much more difficult for the Liberals.
In contrast, Liberal candidates in Winnipeg are seeing a more promising picture. The party is expected to hold its seats in St. Boniface–St. Vital and Winnipeg South and is targeting pickups in Winnipeg West and Kildonan-St. Paul.
Conservatives still strong, but watching their flanks
The Conservatives remain dominant in nearly all of Alberta and Saskatchewan, where they won every seat in Saskatchewan and 30 of 34 seats in Alberta in the 2021 federal election. Polling continues to show them with commanding leads in both provinces, bolstered by vocal provincial premiers who have positioned their governments in near-constant opposition to Ottawa.
In Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has emerged as a national lightning rod, especially on issues of provincial autonomy, energy development, and perceived federal intrusion on provincial authority. Her public sparring with the federal government – on carbon pricing, firearms policy, and the impact of Bill C-69 – has helped solidify Conservative support. Smith’s approach to dealing with Donald Trump’s tariffs has put her squarely in the national spotlight, with some questioning her methods and chumminess with the Americans, and for eschewing central Canada’s preferred “Team Canada” approach to tariff counter measures.
In Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has taken a similar approach, continually defending the province’s economic interests and provincial jurisdiction over natural resources and development but has not been quite as prominent during this election campaign compared to Premier Smith in Alberta. While the political map in Saskatchewan remains overwhelmingly blue, Conservatives are keeping an eye on Regina Wascana, Ralph Goodale’s former riding that he lost to Conservative Michael Kram in 2019. The NDP also do not have a strong candidate in Regina Lewvan, so the Liberal Party’s Mac Hird could look to chip away at support from the incumbent CPC MP Warren Steinley.
Tariffs, energy, and western discontent
Not surprisingly, the escalating trade dispute with the United States has dominated the Prairie political landscape, with the imposition of tariffs on key western Canadian exports such as oil and gas, potash, and uranium. Prime Minister Carney responded swiftly to the tariffs on the Canadian automotive sector but has drawn the ire of Premiers like Smith and Moe for not doing enough to defend western Canada’s industries.
The issue has fueled the narrative of Western alienation, especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan, already stoked by long-standing grievances over equalization payments, carbon taxes, federal regulation of energy and resource sectors, and now a lack of response from the federal government to China’s 100% tariff on Canadian canola products.
The Liberals have pushed back, emphasizing national unity and the “Team Canada” approach, but are viewed skeptically by many in the west who have endured a decade of the Trudeau Liberals seemingly ignoring the region while implementing policies that were harmful to western Canada’s economy. Carney has tried to distinguish himself from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by getting rid of the consumer carbon tax, but time will tell whether he continues to shift the Liberal Party to policies deemed more friendly to western Canada and its industries.
Conclusion
The Prairies remain largely Conservative territory, but Election 2025 could shape up to be more competitive than previous campaigns. With Liberal momentum growing nationally, the party is eyeing gains in Winnipeg, hoping to pick up a couple of seats in Alberta, and to make any progress possible in Saskatchewan. The NDP will work to defend its few footholds, while the Conservatives aim to maintain dominance, especially in the face of a rapidly evolving national electoral map.
