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Indian Express
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
How Donald Trump swung Australia's election — like he did in Canada
The incumbent Labor Party under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has won the federal elections in Australia. While votes from Saturday's (May 3) election are still being counted, early results from the Australian Electoral Commission indicate that the Labor Party was winning 56% of the vote, with the conservative Coalition, comprising the Liberal Party and the National Party, with 44% . Data from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation indicated that Labor would win 86 seats, 10 more than the 76 it needs to form a majority government, while Coalition, under Peter Dutton, would win 40 overall. However, only three months ago, things seemed to be headed in a very different direction. Albanese faced the prospect of being the first Australian PM since 1931 to be ousted after only a single three-year term. This story sounds familiar because it is. Earlier this week, the incumbent Liberal Party in Canada retained power in an election which at the beginning of the year seemed to be in the Conservative's bag. Behind this stunning turnarounds is one man — US President Donald Trump. The Canadian story The Liberals in Canada were staring at imminent defeat at the start of this year. PM Justin Trudeau was being panned by his constituents and allies alike for failing to address the soaring housing crisis and inflationary pressures. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party, under Pierre Poilievre, had made massive gains over the last couple of years. At their peak, the Conservatives enjoyed a 20-plus-point lead over the Liberals, as per the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Poll Tracker. Trudeau resigned on January 6. Trump became the US President on January 20. And everything changed. This was because Trump repeatedly went after Canada, one of Washington's closest allies. Not only was Canada one of the first countries to be slapped with the President's pet tariffs, but Trump also repeatedly called Canada the United States' '51st state'. Poilievre, who had long modelled himself as Trump lite, suddenly found himself sinking as 'Canadians literally wanted Trump punched in the face', and the 'existential threat' that the US President posed became the primary issue in the election. On the other hand, Trudeau's successor, the hailed but politically inexperienced Mark Carney, made attacking Trump his main plank, and galvanised support among the populace for his party. In the election on April 28, the incumbent Liberals in Canada won 169 seats, three short of the 172 needed for a majority. The Conservatives won 144. Poilievre lost from Carlton, the riding he had been representing since 2004. Parallels in Australia On February 1, polls gave the Coalition a voteshare in the 50.4% to 53.6% range, while the Labor Party trailed with 46.4% to 49.5% of the vote, according to data published by The Guardian. The two sides' graphs converged around March 28, after which the Labor pulled away. Now Trump's tariffs have had a more limited impact on this reversal in Australia, compared to Canada, with the island country's biggest electoral issues still being problems with the country's universal healthcare system, the high cost of living, and affordable housing. That said, the sky-high tariffs on China, which imports a third of Australian goods, could hurt Australia. Experts say that for Australia, a largely export-oriented economy, the 145% tariff on its major export market would snowball into reduced demand for its iron ore and copper reserves, a concern amidst a push for renewable energy worldwide. That said, Dutton too courted Trumpism (something that earned him the moniker 'Temu Trump' from critics), and like the US President, criticised woke politics, Australia's immigration policy, and attacked the national broadcaster. Most notably, he threatened to slash 41,000 public service jobs — a move he backtracked on only a few days ago — particularly in the education sector. Latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that the Consumer Price Index had risen by 2.4% in March 2025 over the last year, with the largest increase being 5.2% in education. Australian treasurer and Labor MP, Jim Chalmers, on Saturday called this policy stance the 'dumbest move ever', and considered it the reason Dutton lost his Dickson seat, which he had held for over 20 years. Australian political commentator and academic, Marija Taflaga, told CNN that Australia is seeing 'a diluted version' of the Canada trend, to the incumbent's advantage. 'Trump has essentially created a rally around the flag effect. In liberal democracies like Australia and Canada, (he's) flipped the incumbent from being in a disadvantaged position… into an advantageous position,' she said. 'Better the devil you know.'
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How the Liberals came up short in Ontario — and lost their majority bid
Winning a fourth mandate and returning to power was certainly a victory for the federal Liberals, but it was marred by a disappointing showing in Ontario which played a significant role in costing them a majority. "Obviously, if you compare to where the Liberals were three months ago, it was an unbelievably amazing result in Ontario. But I think it would be fair to say that to get to a majority government, they needed to hold their own in Ontario," said Dan Arnold, chief strategy officer for the research firm Pollara and former research strategist for Justin Trudeau's Liberals. "I think you could at least say that their inability to, or the fact that they lost seats in Ontario, is probably the reason it's a minority as opposed to majority government." The Liberal Party did end up winning 69 seats, the most in the province, with 49.6 per cent of the popular vote. But the Conservatives weren't far behind, winning 53 seats and 44 per cent popular vote. It was a net gain for the Conservatives of 16 seats, and loss of nine for the Liberals. The NDP's five seats in the province were wiped out. The results seemed to defy some projections. Éric Grenier, a polls and elections analyst who writes The Writ newsletter and runs CBC's Poll Tracker, had projected the Liberals to win 82 seats and the Conservatives 38. "This was where the surprise came in, primarily in York Region of the Greater Toronto Area and in southwestern Ontario. The Conservatives beat their polls in Ontario by a small amount, but their vote proved more efficient than expected," Grenier wrote. WATCH | Why the Conservatives' message resonated with voters in many GTA ridings The results in Ontario looked very different than they did during the Trudeau years, Arnold said. The Liberals this election did do better in the Ottawa area, most notably picking up Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's seat in Carleton. And in some Toronto ridings, their win margins were much larger than before, he said. Liberals lost seats in GTA The Liberals scored victories in places like Peterborough and the Bay of Quinte, parts of the province where they did better than they had in past couple elections. But there were other parts on the province where they recorded some big losses, including in the 905 region and ridings like Brampton West, Cambridge, Markham-Unionville, Newmarket-Aurora, and Vaughan-Woodbridge, all won by Conservatives. For example, Liberal candidate Francesco Sorbara won three times under Trudeau in Vaughan-Woodbridge but lost Monday by 20 percentage points, Arnold noted. As well, Brampton West Liberal candidate Kamal Khera, a cabinet minister in both Trudeau and Carney governments, lost in her riding, despite winning in 2021 by over 20 points. "So there's some very dramatic swings there," he said. As to why the political shift, voters in that particular area may have been more sensitive to issues like affordability and housing pressures over the last couple years, issues that Poilievre had zeroed in on during the campaign and before, Arnold said. "For a lot of voters there, that probably trumped the Trump factor when they were kind of ranking their priorities" Arnold said. David Coletto, founder and CEO of Abacus Data, echoed that millennial and Gen X voters in the Greater Toronto Area whose mortgage payments went up substantially over the last years of the Trudeau government may have turned to the Conservatives. WATCH | Polls predicted election well, except some weird Ontario results, says pollster Those issues may have been muted when Trump was the main factor but in the final two weeks of the campaign, based on Abacus tracking, the concerns about Trump faded and gave the Conservatives an opening to make the case for change, Coletto said. Affordability and crime were two issues that mattered to a lot of voters in that 905 region that worked against the Liberals, he said. He said in many parts of the 905 area, there was the perception that crime, particularly auto thefts, had gotten out of hand, and that was linked to the Trudeau years. "And I think the Conservatives in the final week-and-a-half of the campaign really tried to put a focus on that," Coletto said. Boots vs. suits But there was also the opening up of the "boots versus suits" dynamic in Ontario that has become a political advantage for Conservatives, he said. That the Conservatives won both Windsor ridings may be an in indication of the slight realignment of the party — to get those working-class, private-sector, unionized voters in the trades, manufacturing and natural resource sectors into their camp, Coletto said. "The absolute devastation of the NDP really opened that up," he said. The GTA was was a roadblock for the Liberals in a way but Conservatives made some important gains in other parts of the province." Arnold added that the Liberals ate the NDP vote in many parts of the province, but there wasn't as much NDP vote to begin with in the 905, which hurt the Liberals in terms of growth. "The biggest dynamic of this campaign was the fall of the NDP. And in places where the fall of the NDP helped the Liberals, like in Peterborough, that's a great night for them. But in places where either there wasn't as much NDP to fall or it went more to the Conservatives or split evenly, those are the places where I think they struggled more in Ontario." Vote-splitting on the left Laura Stephenson, professor of political science at Western University, said in some ridings like London Fanshawe and Windsor West, in which the NDP incumbent lost to a Conservative, there was likely vote-splitting on the left. Prior to Carney becoming the leader, there may have been strong support going to the NDP incumbent. In this case, it's likely that some stayed with the NDP incumbent but others went to the Liberal candidates, she sad. "So it was almost like a failure of co-ordination on the progressive side," she said. Stephenson also suggested the Doug Ford factor should also not be ruled out for Liberal challenges in the province. "There's a lot of people in Ontario who do feel more conservative right now," she said. "Obviously there are differences at the federal level, but you know, we have to account for the fact that there will be this baseline level of more right-ish support."
CBC
01-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
How the Liberals came up short in Ontario — and lost their majority bid
Winning a fourth mandate and returning to power was certainly a victory for the federal Liberals, but it was marred by a disappointing showing in Ontario which played a significant role in costing them a majority. "Obviously, if you compare to where the Liberals were three months ago, it was an unbelievably amazing result in Ontario. But I think it would be fair to say that to get to a majority government, they needed to hold their own in Ontario," said Dan Arnold, chief strategy officer for the research firm Pollara and former research strategist for Justin Trudeau's Liberals. "I think you could at least say that their inability to, or the fact that they lost seats in Ontario, is probably the reason it's a minority as opposed to majority government." The Liberal Party did end up winning 69 seats, the most in the province, with 49.6 per cent of the popular vote. But the Conservatives weren't far behind, winning 53 seats and 44 per cent popular vote. It was a net gain for the Conservatives of 16 seats, and loss of nine for the Liberals. The NDP's five seats in the province were wiped out. The results seemed to defy some projections. Éric Grenier, a polls and elections analyst who writes The Writ newsletter and runs CBC's Poll Tracker, had projected the Liberals to win 82 seats and the Conservatives 38. "This was where the surprise came in, primarily in York Region of the Greater Toronto Area and in southwestern Ontario. The Conservatives beat their polls in Ontario by a small amount, but their vote proved more efficient than expected," Grenier wrote. The results in Ontario looked very different than they did during the Trudeau years, Arnold said. The Liberals this election did do better in the Ottawa area, most notably picking up Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's seat in Carleton. And in some Toronto ridings, their win margins were much larger than before, he said. Liberals lost seats in GTA The Liberals scored victories in places like Peterborough and the Bay of Quinte, parts of the province where they did better than they had in past couple elections. But there were other parts on the province where they recorded some big losses, including in the 905 region and ridings like Brampton West, Cambridge, Markham-Unionville, Newmarket-Aurora, and Vaughan-Woodbridge, all won by Conservatives. For example, Liberal candidate Francesco Sorbara won three times under Trudeau in Vaughan-Woodbridge but lost Monday by 20 percentage points, Arnold noted. As well, Brampton West Liberal candidate Kamal Khera, a cabinet minister in both Trudeau and Carney governments, lost in her riding, despite winning in 2021 by over 20 points. "So there's some very dramatic swings there," he said. As to why the political shift, voters in that particular area may have been more sensitive to issues like affordability and housing pressures over the last couple years, issues that Poilievre had zeroed in on during the campaign and before, Arnold said. "For a lot of voters there, that probably trumped the Trump factor when they were kind of ranking their priorities" Arnold said. David Coletto, founder and CEO of Abacus Data, echoed that millennial and Gen X voters in the Greater Toronto Area whose mortgage payments went up substantially over the last years of the Trudeau government may have turned to the Conservatives. Those issues may have been muted when Trump was the main factor but in the final two weeks of the campaign, based on Abacus tracking, the concerns about Trump faded and gave the Conservatives an opening to make the case for change, Coletto said. Affordability and crime were two issues that mattered to a lot of voters in that 905 region that worked against the Liberals, he said. He said in many parts of the 905 area, there was the perception that crime, particularly auto thefts, had gotten out of hand, and that was linked to the Trudeau years. "And I think the Conservatives in the final week-and-a-half of the campaign really tried to put a focus on that," Coletto said. Boots vs. suits But there was also the opening up of the "boots versus suits" dynamic in Ontario that has become a political advantage for Conservatives, he said. That the Conservatives won both Windsor ridings may be an in indication of the slight realignment of the party — to get those working-class, private-sector, unionized voters in the trades, manufacturing and natural resource sectors into their camp, Coletto said. "The absolute devastation of the NDP really opened that up," he said. The GTA was was a roadblock for the Liberals in a way but Conservatives made some important gains in other parts of the province." Arnold added that the Liberals ate the NDP vote in many parts of the province, but there wasn't as much NDP vote to begin with in the 905, which hurt the Liberals in terms of growth. "The biggest dynamic of this campaign was the fall of the NDP. And in places where the fall of the NDP helped the Liberals, like in Peterborough, that's a great night for them. But in places where either there wasn't as much NDP to fall or it went more to the Conservatives or split evenly, those are the places where I think they struggled more in Ontario." Vote-splitting on the left Laura Stephenson, professor of political science at Western University, said in some ridings like London Fanshawe and Windsor West, in which the NDP incumbent lost to a Conservative, there was likely vote-splitting on the left. Prior to Carney becoming the leader, there may have been strong support going to the NDP incumbent. In this case, it's likely that some stayed with the NDP incumbent but others went to the Liberal candidates, she sad. "So it was almost like a failure of co-ordination on the progressive side," she said. Stephenson also suggested the Doug Ford factor should also not be ruled out for Liberal challenges in the province.
CBC
29-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Trump knows exactly what he just triggered in Canada
Donald Trump is fully aware he provoked a political earthquake in Canada — just ask him. On the day of Canada's election, the U.S. president was quoted in an interview voicing detailed knowledge of the historic plot-twist he triggered. "You know, until I came along, remember that the Conservative was leading by 25 points," Trump told The Atlantic last week, in an interview published Monday. "Then I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I've thrown the election into a close call, right?" He was statistically dead-on, literally within the margin of error. In a rare example of Trump not taking liberties with numbers, Canada's Liberals were, in fact, down precisely 24 percentage points at their nadir on CBC's Poll Tracker, on Jan. 6, 2025. Then a couple of things happened. That day, Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as prime minister. A day later, Trump suggested he could use economic force to annex Canada, escalating a campaign of disparagement that put him at the epicentre of the country's politics. The ensuing phenomenon is now political history. It's illustrated in the eye-popping public-opinion trend line. The graph of Conservative and Liberal support looks like a pair of garden shears, at first wide open, then swiftly snapping shut, finally splintering apart, with one end cracking past the other. How it plays in U.S. politics To the extent that Canada's election will make news in the U.S., it will be presented as a story about Donald Trump – as a personal repudiation on the eve of his 100th day in office. An early example was the Monday night headline from The Daily Beast: "Trump's big mouth propels Canadian Liberals to victory." The New York Times offered a less sensational variation on the theme: "Mark Carney wins full term as Canada's prime minister on anti-Trump platform." Politico ran a feature in the final days of the campaign poring through numerous other subtleties of Canadian politics, including the collapsing NDP vote and retrenching Quebec nationalism, but the headline kept it simple: " Canada vs. Trump." Reacting to Canada's results, American political actors invariably mentioned Trump. His domestic foes, in particular, delighted in his perceived rejection. Anthony Scaramucci, who was briefly the president's communications director, now a nemesis, called Mark Carney's election win the best thing Trump has done in 100 days. A Democratic pollster called it an unprecedented shift, an early example of Trump's toxicity rewriting global politics. A Democratic congressman who attended university with Carney expressed disbelief about the course of life events that led to Monday. Jim Hines of Connecticut went to Harvard and then Oxford in the same period as Carney in the late 1980s and early 1990s. "If I had said to him, 'Mark, someday Donald Trump will be president of the United States, and he is single-handedly going to make you prime minister of Canada', he would have called campus security to take me home," Hines posted on X, formerly Twitter. WATCH | Trump's threats proved pivotal to Canadian election: Trump threatens to use 'economic force' to annex Canada 4 months ago Duration 2:57 One conservative in Washington warned months ago that this could happen — writing that Trump's actions risked re-electing a liberal government in Canada. A foreign-policy thinker at the American Enterprise Institute, Colin Dueck had an earlier read on the dynamic than most here: While he's lived in the U.S. for decades, he grew up in Canada. "Obviously Trump's intervention was crucial. There's just no denying it," said Dueck, who has advised different Republican presidential campaigns. "I think there will be a widespread feeling and awareness [here] that Trump had a lot to do with this outcome – even though of course he'll deny it and, you know, his most enthusiastic supporters will deny it." What about the effect on Trump's Washington? What Dueck means is some Americans will delight in mentioning Canada's anti-Trump backlash: liberals, and some conservatives unhappy with his conduct of foreign policy. As for whether this result has any effect in Washington, Dueck expects none. He can't see this damaging Trump politically. It might prompt some people around him to urge a less combative foreign policy. But even there, he says: Don't hold your breath. "To be blunt … we know that most Americans don't care that much about Canadian election results," Dueck said in an interview Monday. "What it might do – and what I hope what it might do – is to change the way the administration approaches the negotiations with some of its allies, including Canada. In other words, you can't go around insulting everybody and then expect them to meet you halfway. I mean, you have to show some minimum above-the-board respect for your allies." "But you know, again, Trump does what he wants. And anybody who tries to make him do otherwise is gonna hit their head against a brick wall." After all, Trump had an inkling this was coming, and never course-corrected. In February, a right-wing interviewer told Trump his comments about Canada were useful to the Liberal campaign. Trump's reply: Pierre Poilievre is "not a MAGA guy." Trump said he didn't like the way the Canadian Conservative leader was criticizing him. Did Trump care? Doesn't look like it. For a few weeks, he avoided talking publicly about making Canada a state, but started up again, and then capped it with an extraordinary election-day post on social media seemingly suggesting Canadians should elect... him. He won't be Canada's leader. But he will negotiate new trade and security negotiations with Carney, the leader of the party he helped reanimate from the political dead. In his victory speech, the prime minister referred to the U.S. president as an ongoing existential threat for the whole nation; he said Trump wants to break Canada so that he can own it. That will never happen, Carney added. But what will happen, indeed what has already happened, he said, is a changed world, with U.S. integration no longer a given, and the U.S. betraying the global trading system it helped build. The solution? Build new infrastructure within Canada, and new trading partnerships at home and abroad.
CBC
27-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Why Quebec could once again tip the balance in this federal election
At a casse-croûte on Montreal's South Shore, Anne-Marie Pinot settles in for a lunchtime poutine. She has voted for political parties across the spectrum over the years, but this time, she is voting Bloc Québécois. Pinot is concerned about the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump, but worries Quebec could be forgotten in trade negotiations without a strong local voice. Her 18-year-old daughter, also a Bloc supporter, motivated her to get more involved with the sovereigntist party. "The idea is to protect the Quebec economy," said Pinot, after snapping a selfie with Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet, who stopped for a photo-op in the hotly contested riding of Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, where polls suggest the Liberals are in a tight race with Bloc incumbent Denis Trudel. Pinot's argument reflects what Blanchet has been trying to get across to voters, in what has proven to be a challenging campaign for the sovereigntist party. The shadow cast by Trump has loomed large in Quebec, where questions of identity and culture have not been as present as in previous campaigns, said Sébastien Dallaire, executive vice-president with the polling firm Leger. "In the past few electoral cycles, it was easier to run on identity issues. That really gave the Bloc an edge compared to other parties," Dallaire said. "Without this, as people are talking more generally about the economy, how to defend Canada against the threats coming from the United States, it was much harder for the Bloc to really make its voice heard in that context." Bloc's pitch: 'We will be a responsible partner' The latest opinion polls show the Liberals could win as many as 45 of the province's 78 seats, with the Bloc a distant second with between 19 and 26, according to CBC's Poll Tracker. In the 2021 election, the Liberals won 35 seats, compared with 32 for the Bloc. The tracker suggests the Conservatives could win between 12 and 14, up from 10 in 2021. The NDP is hoping to hold on to its lone seat in Quebec, with Alexandre Boulerice in Montreal. In the final stretch of the campaign, Blanchet has acknowledged the Liberals could form the next government and has tried to make the case that the Bloc needs enough seats to represent Quebec's interests in Ottawa. "I don't want to be prime minister, but I can offer to be a partner, a responsible partner, a collaborative partner," Blanchet said during the English debate, stressing the need for the next federal government to protect the province's aluminum industry from tariffs, as well as the French language and culture. "If we are respected, we will be a partner, and then Canada will be stronger in its negotiation with Donald Trump." The two main parties have also tried to shore up support. Liberal Leader Mark Carney spent a day in Quebec during the last week of the campaign. In Trois-Rivières, another hotly contested riding, Carney said French language and identity and supply management are not "negotiable" in the face of Trump. "As long as I am prime minister, those fundamental components of our society and of Quebec's economy and the economy of all of Canada will never be called into question," he said. The Conservatives appear to have a stronghold in the Quebec City area, where Pierre Poilievre announced his party's "Quebec platform" last month. Poilievre has said he would protect Quebec's autonomy and the French language and cut the number of non-permanent residents in the province by 50 per cent — a demand by Premier François Legault. As party leaders wrap up their pitches, analysts say Trump's influence still hangs over the campaign. "Even if Trump might be less central to the debates now, there is a path that was created — one that's favourable to the Liberals — and the Bloc and the Conservatives have been unable to really shift that path," said Daniel Béland, a political science professor and director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. WATCH | How voters in Quebec view the campaign: How has this election campaign evolved for Canadians from start to finish? 1 day ago Duration 2:43 Trump and other issues Election campaigns tend to start with policy and numbers, and turn toward emotion near the end of a campaign, but in this case, Trump's threats flipped the script, Dallaire said. "Now it's more of a calculating, more rational end to a campaign," he said. Affordability is still a big issue, but inflation could potentially get worse if a trade war escalates with the U.S. "It brings up concerns about your job and your family's well-being," Dallaire said. "All these things are closely intertwined." In Longueuil this week, several residents said cost of living was among their top concerns. "I'm a student, so everything is really expensive," said Marianne Boisclair, adding that the environment was also a top concern. Robert Lauzon, who supports the Bloc, said his priorities are the "economy for sure, and the place for Quebec in Canada." On her way to the shopping mall with her newborn, Evelyne Gauvin said support for families and the environment were important. But the U.S. president "is still very much part of the debate." "And I think he is going to be there until the end of his mandate," she added. With that in mind, the Bloc could be especially vulnerable, polls suggest — and what happens to its seat count could tip the balance. "How much will the Bloc be able to keep? That may well decide if we have a majority or a minority government," Dallaire said.
