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Amidst the flood of executive actions, Trump also moved to impose blanket tariffs on all Canadian, Mexican and Chinese goods entering the U.S. It\u2019s a political strategy that seems designed to overwhelm the opposition, American voters and even allied countries.<\/p>\n
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On Monday, the Mexican and Canadian governments were able to convince the administration to back down on the tariffs, at least temporarily \u2014 largely in exchange for border actions both countries had promised to do already.<\/p>\n
Hamish Marshall, the Conservative Party\u2019s national campaign director in 2019, said while he believes Trump will play a factor in the upcoming Canadian campaign, affordability issues will remain top of mind for most voters.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Trump) was a useful bogeyman for the Liberals. I don\u2019t think it so much changed a lot of minds, but it was a good way for the Liberals to motivate their base to come out and vote,\u201d said Marshall in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re going to try\u201d to use Trump that way again, Marshall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it will work or not is another story \u2026 I think the cost of living is still going to be the dominant issue in the campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Abacus Data poll released in mid-January found that 67 per cent of respondents listed \u201cthe rising cost of living\u201d as the top issue facing Canada, followed by health care (40 per cent) and housing affordability and accessibility (38 per cent). The survey interviewed 1,500 Canadians from Jan. 9 to Jan. 14 and has a margin of error comparable to 2.3 per cent.<\/p>\n
Dan Mader, who served as policy director for Erin O\u2019Toole\u2019s 2021 campaign, doesn\u2019t anticipate that will change before the next general election, expected this spring shortly after Parliament resumes under a new Liberal prime minister.<\/p>\n
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\u201cPeople have been thinking for quite a while about the possibility of Trump becoming president and the reality of him becoming president and how that will impact things \u2026 but some things are still going to be issues. Cost of living is still going to be an issue,\u201d Mader said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite Liberal leadership candidates backing away from a consumer carbon price, how much they can be trusted for having it for so long and what impact on families anything else they do is going to have are still going to be issues, and still going to be issues that play to the Conservatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there does seem to be some movement in the national polling numbers, according to the latest survey Global News.<\/p>\n
The Conservatives still enjoy a commanding lead at 41 per cent support nationwide, followed by the Liberal Party (28 per cent) and the New Democrats (16 per cent). But that\u2019s an eight percentage point jump for the Liberals since Ipsos\u2019 poll in early January, mostly at the expense of the Conservatives, who dropped five percentage points over the same period. The NDP were down one percentage point.<\/p>\n
The Ipsos poll was conducted between January 30 and February 3, and interviewed 1,000 voting-aged Canadians online. It is considered accurate within 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.<\/p>\n
Whether the movement can be attributed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau\u2019s announcement he intends to step down, the looming threat of Donald Trump or some combination of the two is unclear.<\/p>\n
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There is another \u201cX\u201d factor those in Trump\u2019s orbit could influence a Canadian campaign, however. Elon Musk, the world\u2019s richest man, who is now playing a central \u2014 and unelected \u2014 role in the Trump Administration\u2019s push to slash the civil service and sharply curb government spending, has not been shy about meddling in foreign countries\u2019 domestic affairs.<\/p>\n
Musk has used his $44-billion soapbox, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to support far-right parties in Italy, Germany and criticize the U.K.\u2019s Labour government, and to encourage Trump to punish his native South Africa over \u201cwhite genocide\u201d conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n
While Canada has no real equivalent to Germany\u2019s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) or Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni\u2019s Brothers of Italy (FdI), Musk has repeatedly praised Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and suggested he should be Canada\u2019s next prime minister.<\/p>\n
Most of the conversation around foreign interference in Canadian elections have focused on hostile foreign powers attempting to covertly influence the country\u2019s politics, but Musk\u2019s interventions are very much overt. And while most Canadians are not on X \u2014 and more have been leaving since Musk\u2019s takeover \u2014 internet chatter has a way of making itself into real-life conversations, according to Concordia professor Fenwick McKelvy.<\/p>\n
\u201cContent is constantly shared across platforms. It\u2019s important to recognize that any one platform is part of a network of content circulating, and even if Twitter or X is not as influential as it once was, it\u2019s still influential in certain circles and that content does still circulate across the internet,\u201d said McKelvy, whose research includes social media and internet policy.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s really quite exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a mere 17 days, Trump and his acolytes effectively upended the Canadian political debate. And there\u2019s more than 1,400 left in the U.S. president\u2019s term.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n