(Adnkronos) – Five days before the April 28 elections, there is already a record of early voting in Canada with 7.3 million people having voted, between last Friday and Monday, to determine who will be the new prime minister. The turnout in advance at the polls, with 25% more than the 5.8 million in 2021, confirms the importance of these elections, called in advance, compared to the date scheduled for the fall, by Mark Carney, who last March replaced Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal party and the government.
And long lines were recorded at the polling stations yesterday as well, the last day for early voting and the day the election campaign closed, which was conducted at an extremely delicate time for Canada, targeted by the tariff war and threats of annexation by Donald Trump. But Trump’s heavy interference, it should be remembered, has completely overturned an electoral landscape in which for many months Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, ideologically close to the tycoon and the Maga world, have been ahead by even more than 20 points.
In a few months, however, with every blow or insult from Trump to Canadian sovereignty, this substantial advantage has gradually eroded, so much so that the latest polls, also thanks to the exit of the now unpopular Trudeau, give Carney’s Liberals a 5-point lead.
“Pierre Poilievre does not intend to stand up to President Trump,” Carney said in his closing campaign speech, promising that with him still leading the government, he will continue to respond point by point to the 25% tariffs that Trump has imposed on the neighboring country.
The former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England did not hesitate to point the finger at “America’s threats to our very sovereignty.” “They want our land, our resources, our water, they want our country,” he said, speaking, in terms unthinkable until a few months ago, of the neighboring, and allied, Americans, in the speech with which last weekend the electoral manifesto in which great emphasis is placed on the increase in military spending.
The defense of Canadian sovereignty and economy is therefore becoming the central theme of the Liberals’ campaign, which is taking ground from the one with which the Conservatives have for months ridden the discontent after nine years of Trudeau’s government.
The 46-year-old Conservative leader, whom Elon Musk showered with praise on X in January, when the Conservatives had a 24-point lead, making fun of the outgoing “governor” Trudeau, continued to run his election campaign entirely focused on the need to cut public spending and fight crime.
“It’s time for the government to start saving, we can choose change, hope, the future,” Poilievre said in his closing campaign speech, who found himself dramatically losing tens of points of advantage, perhaps because he was considered by Canadians too close and in tune with Trump.
