(Adnkronos) – Three weeks to the day before the early elections in Canada on April 28, Donald Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats continue to push the Liberals of new Prime Minister Mark Carney ahead in the polls. After wiping out in just 8 weeks the lead that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives had held for months, who is paying for his closeness to the tycoon and the Maga world, now the latest polls give the Liberals a six-point lead, with 44% against 38%, according to an average from broadcaster Cbc.
And the message coming from Canadian voters is clear: 51% of those who have changed their voting intentions say they did so primarily because of Trump’s actions, according to a recent Angus Reid Institute poll, cited by the New York Times. Another important factor was the appointment of the new Liberal leader and prime minister, Carney, and the departure of Justin Trudeau who announced his resignation in January.
After 10 years leading the country, the Liberal leader had been plummeting in the polls for months, so much so that everyone took a Conservative victory for granted in the elections that were scheduled for next fall. Instead, his resignation, in which Trump’s attacks directly at Trudeau, whom he called “governor”, also played an important role, completely changed the scenario: 56% of the voters who changed their minds about voting in fact say they were motivated by Carney’s appointment.
Again according to the Angus Reid poll, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, and then of the Bank of England, at the end of March, when he announced the early elections, had a favorability rating – equal to the percentage of those with a favorable opinion less that of those with a negative one – of 54%, against 35% for Poilievre and 33% for Jagmeet Singh, leader of the left-wing New Democratic Party. The majority of Canadians, 52%, finally believe that he would be a better prime minister than Poilievre.
“If Trudeau had stayed I don’t think we would have had these numbers – comments Éric Grenier, pollster for the website The Writ – and if it hadn’t been for Trump, I don’t think Carney would have had the same numbers”.
