Trump’s De Facto Election Interference Ensured the Left’s Victory in Canada
Canada’s Liberal Party, which appeared headed for certain defeat earlier this year, trounced the opposition in Monday’s elections.
This story’s exclamation point, if not the buried lede, involves Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre. He went from the man who would be prime minister to the unemployment line in a matter of months.
Poilievre became legendary around the world through the famous apple clip, in which he humbled a left-wing reporter as he calmly enjoyed a piece of delicious fruit, and other online exhibitions of his intelligence, quiet charisma, and Trumpian instinct to act as puncher instead of punching bag. By the end of 2024, his Conservative Party led by 25 points in a poll over Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party. By the beginning of this year, pundits often called him Canada’s Trump, and he looked to many as poised to become prime minister. (RELATED: Meet Canada’s ‘MAGA’ Prime Minister Candidate: Pierre Poilievre)
It turned out that the former perception upended the latter prediction. Pierre Poilievre did not become Canada’s Donald Trump. Instead, he became Canada’s Tom Foley, Eric Cantor, or Tom Daschle — a party leader toppled by his own constituents. Liberal Bruce Fanjoy, a house-husband who lives in a carbon-neutral home and volunteers for do-gooder causes, defeated him.
Poilievre first won a seat in parliament from rural Ottawa more than two decades ago. He won his seat in seven elections in a row. What upended him?
The same man to whom pundits compared Poilievre undid Poilievre. Surely, Donald Trump’s insertion of himself into Canadian politics represented a greater example of election interference than anything Vladimir Putin engaged in with regard to the United States.
Leave aside the trade war with our friendly neighbor, which, if unnecessary, at least involves legitimate concerns. The incessant, and profoundly idiotic, rhetoric of admitting Canada into the union — Why? So that Democrats can win every election? — cratered not only Poilievre’s popularity but the popularity of Canada’s national hero.
Wayne Gretzky’s association with Trump resulted in the smearing of his statue in Edmonton with feces. If Donald Trump can transform Canada’s Muhammad Ali, its Pele, its Hicham El Guerrouj into a magnet for human waste, then he could certainly turn Poilievre’s apple rotten.
This all seemed so avoidable. And the reaction of Canadians, rallying to the side of whoever looked the most opposed to his imposition of draconian tariffs on their goods and his threat to annex the sovereign nation, seemed entirely predictable.
Yet, Trump continued to say things that any moron could understand would help the left-wing in Canada and hurt reasonable voices. Poilievre demanded that he “stay out of our election” to no avail.
Consider that on the day of the election, Trump described Canada as the “cherished 51st State of the United States of America.”
“No more artificially drawn line from many years ago,” he wrote in ostensibly endorsing the Conservatives. “Look how beautiful this land mass would be. Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE! America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!”
Did Trump, who schizophrenically goes from wanting strong borders to no borders, want that socialist Mark Carney elected prime minister of Canada? It looks that way. Why else would he, on Election Day, tell Canadian voters that if they wished to end their independence, they should vote Conservative? Nerds on cable news call this an unforced error. (RELATED: Canada’s Mark Carney Shares the Same Goal as China — Ending American Dominance)
Norm Macdonald, now the greatest Canadian hero after Wayne Gretzky’s stumble, once said Canadians do not become exercised over elections like their neighbors to the south because they never amount to a red phone existential crisis as they do in America. Macdonald explained:
Here’s our elections in Canada: “Hey, listen, how does that guy stand on the bridge building?” That’s every time. One guy goes, “I think we should build a bridge.” The other guy goes, “I don’t care for the bridge.”
Trump ensured that the Canadian election fixated not on a boring bridge but on the real or imagined existential issues that so often animate American elections. In doing this, he ensured that the wrong guy won.
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