Lessons From Canada’s Liberals
Shaking up your party’s image + patriotism + sensible economics = a path to defeating conservative populism.
Canada’s Liberals owe a debt of gratitude to Donald Trump—and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s astute governance—for saving their political hide. Prior to the American president’s inexplicable attacks and tariff threats on our northern neighbor, the Liberals were facing an electoral stomping with the Conservative Party holding a 24-point lead in general election polling at the start of January.
On Monday, in one of the largest election surges in recent history, Carney’s Liberals won a narrow national victory after being well behind for most of 2024. Although Liberals are projected to end up with a parliamentary minority (a party needs to win at least half the seats, 172 of 343, to form a majority government and Liberals are at 169), they did manage to flip Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre’s own seat. Several minor parties posted notable declines in support as well, particularly the New Democratic Party (NDP) whose national vote share fell more than 11 points, to help cement the Liberals’ win and fourth term in power.
How did the Liberals pull it off?
A compilation of Liberal Party advertising during the short campaign paints a pretty clear picture of how Carney and his colleagues won: by shaking up voters’ expectations of their party, standing for patriotism and national values, and promoting sensible pro-growth economics.
The first ad featured in the reel simply focused on Carney’s first act as PM—eliminating the much-hated carbon tax on consumers implemented by his own party under Justin Trudeau in 2019 (“Carbon Tax, Cancelled”). The ads next established the Liberals’ core theme of “Canada Strong” featuring all the great aspects of the Canadian project:
Canada has been built by the strength of its people. From our mines to our ports, from our logging roads to our city streets. We’re strongest when we are united, when we can cheer for different teams and still be on one team, when it counts.
The advertising then moved into the reality of Trump’s tariff attacks on Canada and his condescending threats to make the country America’s 51st state. They featured Carney’s economic knowledge as a former central banker and his experience in dealing with economic crises and the fallout from other global setbacks. There were several ads focused on “building” and a lighthearted ad featuring Mike Myers in a “Never 51” hockey jersey talking about Canadian values and the nation’s quirky traits (Carney: “What are the two seasons in Toronto?” Myers: “Winter and construction.” Carney: “Wow. You really are Canadian.”)
Finally, the ads linked Conservative leader Poilievre to Trump and ended with Trump announcing to Fox News that Canada is “one of the nastiest countries to deal with” since they “give us nothing” followed by all the times Canada stood up for their American friends as “good neighbors”—helping to get back U.S. diplomats from Iran, assisting Americans after 9/11, Canadian soldiers helping to fight the Afghanistan War, and assistance during the L.A. fires. A second compilation of Liberal ads continued these themes focusing extensively on Prime Minister Carney standing up to Trump coupled with feel-good segments about Canadian “kindness” in contrast to Trump’s hostility to the country.
As far as political advertising goes, this was quite effective work by the Liberals and right on target for a party fighting for its survival and a dramatic electoral turnaround. Although the circumstances of the Canadian election are not easily replicated in other nations with different political and economic contexts, there are larger lessons for center-left parties like U.S. Democrats.
“Resistance” activists in the Democratic Party will be tempted to believe that the Liberal victory means fiercely opposing Trump will be enough for Democrats to recover in upcoming elections without having to alter anything internally in terms of their own policy priorities and political values.
But this is not what occurred with Canada’s Liberals.
For starters, Prime Minister Carney explicitly rejected one of his party’s least popular policies on climate and energy while keeping other elements of the government’s climate agenda. He also chose to run a campaign explicitly on the economy, patriotism, and national values—not Liberals’ cultural priorities which remained in the party platform but did not feature at all in the campaign. Carney and Liberals also leaned heavily on notions of nation building and pro-growth economic models. They did not go “full socialism” or “post-neoliberal” falsely believing that thermostatic reactions to Trump and Conservative populism opened the door for kooky and impractical economic ideas. Instead, Liberals featured the calm and successful interventions of their ex-central banker PM as a contrast to the chaotic tariff wars of Trump and politicians like him in Canada.
U.S. Democrats should not delude themselves into believing that Trump opposition alone will lead to optimal outcomes and sustainable majorities in either the 2026 midterms or the all-important 2028 presidential election. The Liberals up north got a reprieve due to Trump’s interventions that will be tested with their minority status, but their actions under Carney also highlight a plausible and credible path back to relevance for other center-left forces: turn away from your own party’s least desirable traits and policies, stand up for your country’s basic values, and be sensible and rational on the economy—not radical.
Democrats should take a page directly from their successful Canadian counterparts rather than concocting a self-soothing account of why the Liberals won that absolves them of their own economic and cultural failures in defeating Trump last year.
Conservative Populism may have been defeated , but so too was any chance of economic gains for the Canadian people . For the past decade, the economic outcomes of Liberal policies in Canada have been horrendous. In what should be, one of the wealthiest places on the globe.
Canada has the 2nd largest landmass on earth, and very few people. 40 million souls, dwelling in one of the least densely populated places on earth, covered in timber. Yet they have a horrendous housing shortage and affordability problem?
The tiny population, sits on a sea of oil, gas and other valuable natural resources, but Canadian currency is constantly weak, economic growth has been anemic for a decade and Canada's once sane immigration system, has been chucked, for open borders.
Canadians shouldn't be mad at Americans for electing Trump. They should own a good chuck of the US. With their natural resources and small population, Canada should have a sovereign wealth fund that rivals Norway or Dubai. Instead they vote for more of the same, because of a hyperbole prone American President?
Canadians not only won the natural resource lottery, they did OK in the neighbor department, as well . For the past 80 years, the US has provided free national defense to Canada. China protects smaller boarders than Canada's with a 2 million man military. The Canadians are protected by 70K people. The toy military works, because the large, expensive guard dog to the South, protects not just his backyard, but the neighbor's as well. To say nothing of the perk, of residing next to the largest group of wealthy consumers on earth.
Yet with all these advantages, Canadians can only produce some of the worst economic numbers in the First World? It would appear, just about everyone lost, on Canada's Election Day.
Imagine being so afraid of a foreign politician that you elect a central banker from two countries one of which isn't yours. If you look up globalist in the dictionary, there is a picture of Carney. Mexico has a lot of similar issues with the US but more dignity.