LILLEY: Tories can thank Donald Trump with Mark Carney on verge of majority
· Toronto Sun
By the time Mark Carney turns off the light and heads to bed Monday night, he will know for certain that he is presiding over a majority government.
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Carney and his Liberals currently have 171 seats in the House of Commons; the three byelections taking place Monday should give them 174 seats. That is still a tight majority, but it’s a majority nonetheless.
It was 350 days ago when voters sent Carney to Ottawa with 169 Liberals in his caucus. Thanks to five floor-crossings, four by Conservative MPs and one by the New Democrats, the majority will be secured.
It’s been a different type of year for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has seen his caucus shrink from 144 seats to 140 seats. At the same time, Poilievre has been making the kinds of changes that many political pundits said he should have made and yet he continues to lose MPs and drop in the polls .
Poilievre making himself available to media
Over the past several months, Poilievre has been willing to engage with Canada’s mainstream media in ways that he wasn’t will to do during the last election. He’s granted several interviews, appeared on CBC with Rosemary Barton, went on CTV with Vassy Kapelos and granted a year-end interview to Dawna Friesen at Global.
His recent appearance on Peter Mansbridge’s podcast was self-deprecating.
In March, he conducted tours of both Europe and the United States that were well received. He was given accolades for saying on both The Joe Rogan Experience and The Diary of a CEO podcasts that he wouldn’t criticize Carney on foreign soil.
Here at home, Poilievre continues to hammer away at Carney on issues such as affordability, the housing crisis, crime and immigration – these are some of the biggest issues voters keep telling pollsters.
Yet those same polling firms show Poilievre’s numbers dropping.
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It is frustrating for the Conservatives and for their leader. They must be wondering what they can do next to turn things around.
The simple answer is there is nothing they can do at the moment because voters aren’t fleeing Poilievre or flocking to Carney so much as they are reacting to Donald Trump.
In the last election, the Liberals took 43% of the popular vote, the Conservatives 41% and for a long time after the election polling continued to show the two parties as close. That started to change at the end of January as the Liberals opened a wider lead.
It wasn’t due to popular new policies from Carney, it wasn’t due to stumbles by Poilievre; it was all about Trump.
As long as Trump dominates in the headlines, Carney will benefit in the polls.
Canada’s economy continues to struggle under Carney
With factors like this at play, there is little that Poilievre can do to break through in the meantime. He’s going to have to wait until Canadians wake up and see that despite Carney’s resume, his promise to expand Canada’s economy and his promise to secure a better trade deal with Trump, things are not going well for Canada’s economy.
Our unemployment rate is still up, food inflation in Canada is the highest in the G7, our economy is the weakest in the G7 and we still don’t have a trade deal with the Americans.
As Canadians increasingly believe we need to get closer to Europe, 10 EU nations have still not fully ratified our free-trade deal with them. Meanwhile, despite his closeness with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Carney hasn’t been able to rekindle the trade talks with the U.K. that were called off two years ago.
The perception, though, is that Carney is standing up to or somehow dealing with Trump. That’s more of a vibe, a feeling than anything based on reality, but it is enough for voters at the moment and that is enough to give Carney his majority.