The Liberal Party was set to lose today’s election. Now, thanks to President Trump, it just might win. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Gabrielle Berbey, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. A protestor chanting during the "Elbows Up" rally in Toronto. Photo by Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Election Day in Canada?
It's Election Day in Canada, which is nothing new for reporter Stephanie Levitz.
I have covered, I believe this is my ninth federal election. But Stephanie says this one is without precedent. how it looked like the next campaign in this country was going to go. And it feels like that's all been flipped on its head. So you have the liberal campaign, which is led by Mark Carney, which is driving a narrative that says he's the guy to take on U.S. President Donald Trump.
We can't change President Trump. So we need a leader that can stand up to him.
His chief opponent, Conservative leader Pierre Palliev, running more on a cost of living narrative. We cannot afford a fourth liberal term. It's as though they're kind of evaluating them and imagining a boardroom and imagining the U.S. president at one end of the table and this leader at the other end of the table. And which one do I want to see in that seat?
How Trump's 51st state talk may have saved Canada's libs. Coming up on Today Explained.
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Chapter 2: How did President Trump influence the Canadian election?
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When we sat down with Stephanie Levitz from The Globe and Mail, we started talking about how it was just about a year ago that we sat down with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He was eager to talk about his ambitious plans to invest in housing construction, affordable health care and child care, raising capital gains taxes.
These are things that actually meet people where they are in their cost of living and provide solutions for a better life. Those choices are going to be on the table in the next election. And I'm confident the Canadians are going to remain responsible, ambitious and optimistic about their future.
You know, I asked him if he should just step aside and he said, no, I still have something to offer the Canadian people. But it turned out the Canadian people weren't buying when he was selling.
I mean, that's pretty much it, right? When I think back about when he went on your podcast, he was trying to reach a different group of voters. He was trying to reach people, frankly, that his opponent, conservative leader Pierre Polyev, had been so successful reaching, which was millennials, younger Canadians, people really worried about their futures.
And at that moment in time, those people were squarely behind Pierre Polyev and they weren't interested in Justin Trudeau because part of it was, well, thanks, where you been? You've already been in power for nine years.
And so as this campaign sort of drags on, Trudeau has to finally face the music and he announces that he will be stepping aside. But it seems like right as he's in the process of stepping aside, all of a sudden the liberals do get a boost from a very unlikely source. Is that accurate?
Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like.
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Chapter 3: What are the main narratives of the Liberal campaign?
Which is a role that suits him, that comes naturally to him because of his upbringing, because his father was a prime minister. People started sort of responding to the Liberals in a very different way than they'd been responding to them for months. And you begin to see the polls tick, tick, tick, tick. up for the Liberals.
Then along comes the new Liberal leader, Mark Carney, and that's when you really begin to see the polls take off for the Liberal Party.
We didn't ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So the Americans, they should make no mistake, in trade as in hockey, Canada will win.
And under this new guy, who's very different than Justin Trudeau in all sorts of ways, people who had turned their backs on the Liberals began turning towards them. People who were worried about, you know, the future of this country, but used to put those votes in a much more progressive political party, the New Democrats, it was called. They started looking to the Liberal Party.
People in Quebec, where the federal political party there is called the Bloc Québécois, they are a separatist party. Incredibly, Quebecers were looking towards the Liberal Party.
The Liberal pitch in Quebec is that only the Liberals can stand up to President Donald Trump.
But just like elsewhere in Canada, Quebecers' voting intentions and the way they looked at this federal election was completely upended.
And it was this swing of fortunes for the Liberals, and now they're running neck and neck with their former opponents.
Mark Carney, different from Trudeau, in some ways maybe similar to Trudeau, but tell us how he contrasts with Justin Trudeau, especially for the Canadian voters right now.
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