How to deal with Trump: the key election question

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This article was published 12/04/2025 (199 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If slogans won elections, then the Conservatives would be coasting to a supermajority. From “Bring it Home” to “Canada First” to “Boots Not Suits,” Pierre Poilievre’s campaign has never met a slogan it didn’t like.

Until now. He is officially “slogan free” on his podium, eschewing simplistic phrases for a simple red maple leaf.

It’s all part of the pivot. A shift in campaign messaging to look more prime ministerial, as in Mark Carney, while sounding less presidential, as in Donald Trump.

It’s a good look, but is it good enough to arrest the momentum of his Liberal rival, Mark Carney?

In a word, no. That’s because Carney embraced an idiom, not a slogan as his campaign strategy. An idiom is an everyday figure of speech that rings true. “All’s fair in love, war, and politics” is the idiom that’s winning it for the Liberals.

They’ve changed leaders, changed policies, and changed direction, all in the service of winning an all-but-lost fourth term. In doing so, they’ve effectively blunted the Conservatives’ best election card, the desire for change after 10 years of Liberal government.

From ditching the consumer carbon tax to poaching Conservative policies on housing, income tax cuts, skills training, and even energy project development, Carney’s Liberals are running a copycat election where it counts — on change.

At the same time, Carney has pushed the envelope of his caretaker status as government and not just party leader, to convene cabinet and the public’s attention to announce a formal government of Canada response to the latest Trump tariff salvo. In doing so, he is providing prime ministerial levels of reassurance and security to voters worried about the economic chaos Trump keeps sowing.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have been branded as copycats themselves. But the wrong kind. They have allowed themselves to be branded as “too much like Trump.” In an election where the Trump brand is toxic to voters, this is like Socrates pouring the hemlock to poison himself.

Actually, this analysis does a bit of disservice to both leaders and parties. On the great issue of the campaign — dealing with America — each has set out a considered and distinctive approach. In one important respect, they are dramatically different.

That difference is in their belief as to whether Canada’s future lies with or without the United States.

Here’s Carney: “The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military co-operations, is over.”

Here’s Poilievre: “We are at a fork in the road … We don’t know which path the president will choose. So, Canada must be prepared either way.”

The Liberal leader sees no fork in the road. Trump’s actions have made it clear that Canada must now choose a path away from U.S. trade dependency. The Conservative leader is not so categorical. He says it’s up to Trump to choose a secure trade agreement with Canada or not.

This is a different kind of pivot, Poilievre is pivoting away from Trump, Carney is pivoting away from America.

Either way, the implications are profound for Canada. Becoming less dependent on the U.S. may be desirable, but is it feasible? Historic trading patterns, integrated supply chains, and our natural resource-based comparative advantage makes this a heavy lift. But voters appear to have concluded this is a necessary lift.

Which is why the ballot question for undecided voters is shifting. This winter it was “which leader is best able to negotiate with Trump?” This spring it is increasingly “which leader has the best plan to protect us from Trump’s America?”

Having pivoted to present himself is strong enough to negotiate a better, more secure trade deal with Trump’s presidency, Poilievre is not prepared to pivot strongly against Trump’s America at a time when voters want little to do with either the president or his country. To voters, this means Poilievre is not representing the change Canadians think they need to counter Trump.

It’s like the Conservative leader is fighting a two-front war. Against Donald Trump and against himself.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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Poilievre recognizes this. Sort of. He has been at pains to paint out that he has, “A plan to protect Canada from whatever President Trump chooses to do.” This includes a significant amount of new policy ideas he has offered during the campaign.

With “time for a change” failing to move post-Trudeau voters his way, he needs his “better plan” to do so and fast.

It’s why his latest attack on Mark Carney features this line: “A resume is not a plan.”

Now, if only that could be turned into a slogan.

David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.