Liberals make comeback in Canada amid Trump's threats, flip Conservatives' lead: Survey

At a time when Canada is rallying around the flag in the face of unprecedented US aggression, the Liberal Party has made a comeback and flipped the lead that the Conservative Party held for years, according to the latest survey by Liaison Strategies.

The survey results published on Wednesday show that the Liberals have the support of 40 per cent Canadians compared to 36 per cent support that Conservatives have.

This is sharp reversal from just two months ago when Conservatives were the clear favourites to win the parliamentary elections later this year owing to the deep unpopularity of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the poor socioeconomic conditions that his decadelong rule created. However, US President Donald Trump changed that. As he unleashed a tariff war on Canada and threatened to annex the nation and make it the 51st US state, the Liberals made a political comeback

On January 7, when Trudeau announced his resignation, the Conservatives had a 26 per cent lead over Liberals and poised to have a landslide victory in elections slated for later this year — the Ipsos survey published that day reported 46 per cent voters favoured the Conservatives and just 20 per cent supported Liberals.

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Federal 🇨🇦 voting intentions from Liaison Strategies:

🔴LPC 40%
🔵CPC 36%
🟠NDP 10%
⚜️BQ 6% (27% in QC)
🟢GPC 4%
🟣PPC 2%

→ https://t.co/xNGyqehRo6

[Liaison Strategies, March 16-18, 2025, n=1,500 (3-day rolling poll)]#canpoli

— Philippe J. Fournier (@338Canada) March 20, 2025

The latest Liaison survey shows that the Liberals have expanded their lead in recent days. An Ipsos survey published on Feb. 25 showed that the Liberals had a 2 per cent lead over the Conservatives . Now, the Liaison survey shows that the lead is 4 per cent.

While there are internal reasons as well that could be attributed to such a rise, such as the change of guard in the Labour Party where unpopular Trudeau has been replaced by Mark Carney, the elephant in the room is of course Trump and his threats to Canada.

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Trump has announced that the United States would annex Canada and make it the 51st US state. In what appears to be a strategy to make the nation bow to his wishes, he has unleashed a tariff war on the country. He has imposed 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian goods (with the exception of oil that is tariffed at 10 per cent) and additional tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and aluminium imports. More reciprocal tariffs are expected to be rolled out starting April 2.

ALSO READ: New PM Mark Carney vows Canada will never be part of US, calls Trump's threats 'crazy'

Canadians across the spectrum have stood up to Trump’s threats and Trudeau in his last days put up a fierce defence in the face of Trump’s threats. In perhaps his most impassioned speech, ironically coming at the twilight of his career, Trudeau highlighted that Canadians and Americans had traded, helped each other, and fought, bled, and died in distant lands together — from fighting on the beaches of Normandy in World War II, sheltering and evacuating American diplomats during the Iran hostages crisis, to fighting in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

By invoking these historical acts, and recent ones such as the Canadian aid in California fires and previously in Hurricane Katrina (2005), Trudeau invoked in Canadians a sense of betrayal at the hands of the United States and trigerred a wave of patriotism on the back of anti-Trump sentiment.

At the same time, the Liberals have painted Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre as a copycat of Trump as he has often pitched his electoral platform as ‘Canada First’ after Trump’s ‘America First’. The way Liberals have flipped the lead, it appears the campaign is working.