OTTAWA – While President Donald Trump was widely viewed as the major factor in securing a fourth consecutive term in office for the Liberals in last Monday’s Canadian general election, the Conservative leader played a role in his party’s defeat at the polls, according to Canadian political analysts.
“Trump set the stage” for Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney “as a somber leader for the Liberals, who made people feel assured that things could be handled when there was a sense of fear of people at the beginning of the campaign worried about” the president’s threats of annexing Canada as the 51st state, University of Manitoba political studies professor Christopher Adams told Fox News Digital.
“It’s highly unusual for American presidents to wade into Canadian politics, especially during elections,” said Adams.
He explained the last time that happened was during the 1963 Canadian general election campaign, when the press reported on President John F. Kennedy speaking favorably about Canadian Liberal Leader Lester Pearson, whose party toppled Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservatives to win the election and form a minority government.
Trump directly inserted himself into Canada’s election day, April 28, as a quasi-candidate when he posted on social media that the “Great people of Canada” should “elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World…if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America.”
Whether in jest or not, the president’s pitch for annexation was a form of “foreign interference,” said Adams.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Trump said it was “highly unlikely” that the U.S. would use military force against Canada to acquire it as the 51st state.
The president will meet the Canadian prime minister for the first time at the White House on Tuesday.
After a post-election call with Carney last week, Trump said the Canadian leader “couldn’t have been nicer” and is “a very nice gentleman.”
When asked about his upcoming meeting with the president, the prime minister told reporters at his first post-election news conference on Friday that Trump “respects – as others who are good negotiators, and he’s one of the best negotiators – strength. That’s why we’re building Canada strong.”
Before the Canadian election was called on March 23, the president told Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” host Laura Ingraham that he would “rather deal with a Liberal than a Conservative,” and said that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is “stupidly no friend of mine.”
Trump earlier told The Spectator that the Conservative leader’s “biggest problem is he’s not a MAGA guy.”
“He’s not a Trump guy at all,” said the president.
Carney’s Liberals won 169 out of 343 seats in the House of Commons to form a minority government in Canada’s 45th general election with 44% of the popular vote. The Conservatives placed second, with 41% of the popular vote, and 144 House seats.
More than 19.5 million Canadians cast their ballots in the election.
Poilievre lost his position as official opposition leader after being defeated in his Ottawa-area riding by Liberal Bruce Fanjoy. Carney, in his first run at seeking public elected office, handily won his Ottawa seat.
Poilievre will run in a yet-to-be-called byelection in an Alberta district in which the Conservative MP Damien Kurek, who was re-elected, will step aside.
At the beginning of the year, polls showed Poilievre was poised to become prime minister and lead his Conservatives to a majority government. He just did not pivot fast enough to a new reality that unfolded within Canada since then, according to Adams, who is writing a book about Canada’s public opinion-research industry.
Justin Trudeau, whose deep unpopularity as Liberal leader and prime minister, stepped down in March and was replaced by Carney, who scrapped an equally unpopular consumer carbon tax – two targets Poilievre continued to focus on.
“And Poilievre kept saying the country is broken, which was the last thing Canadians wanted to hear when Trump was making our country broken,” said Adams, who added that the Conservative leader never polled high in likeability.
“Canadians didn’t realize how much they disliked him until Trudeau was gone.”
Poilievre will meet in Ottawa on Tuesday with members of the Conservative caucus who won their ridings in last week’s election. They could decide whether he stays or goes as leader through the Reform Act – a 10-year-old law introduced in Parliament by re-elected Conservative member of Parliament (MP) Michael Chong that empowers parliamentarians to hold leadership reviews following elections.
Conservative MPs will also need to choose an interim official opposition leader.
Adams believes Poilievre’s job as party leader is safe given the Conservatives’ overall electoral performance that led to them winning 16 more Commons seats in the most populous Canadian province of Ontario – at the expense of both the Liberals and fellow progressive New Democrats – and their forming the largest official opposition in Canadian history.
TRUMP THREATS BOOSTED CANADA’S CARNEY, HURT CONSERVATIVES AS COUNTRY VOTES FOR NEW LEADER
Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus in the University of Toronto’s Department of Political Science, told Fox News Digital that the race between the Liberals and Conservatives narrowed when Trump pulled back his attacks against Canada in the latter half of the campaign.
The focus shifted to “Conservative issues – cost of living, affordability, housing, time for a change – while Carney was making speeches about Trump – because he knew that was his trump card, no pun intended – and it was wearing off,” said Wiseman.
May will be a busy month for Carney. Next week, he will unveil his Cabinet and, on May 27, welcome King Charles III to read the Speech from the Throne to open the next session of Parliament as Canada’s head of state – the first time the British monarch has come to Ottawa to perform that ceremonial role since Queen Elizabeth II in 1977, 20 years after she did so during her first visit to Canada.
Wiseman said the royal visit is intended to showcase national unity in response to Trump’s threats against Canadian sovereignty.
However, the man who represented the crown as governor general in Canada from 1979 to 1984 said that he “can’t believe that as many people are taking seriously this whole business of Trump talking about the annexation of Canada as an existential threat,” Edward Schreyer, a former premier of his home province of Manitoba, told Fox News Digital. “I think the whole thing is a joke – and was at the beginning, is now and ever shall be an absurdity.”
