OTTAWA — What is the ever elusive ballot question in Canada’s 2025 federal election?
Just three months ago, or in political dog years, a hundred years ago — before Justin Trudeau said he’d quit as Liberal leader — the ballot question was definitely “change.”
Now? It’s probably still a factor. At least according to the latest polling by Abacus Data.
It shows 57 per cent of Canadian voters want a change in government, compared to 50 per cent before the launch of the 2021 pandemic election, and 60 per cent before the 2015 election that ousted the Stephen Harper-led Conservative government.
“I’m not sure the ballot question is set,” said Abacus Data president David Coletto in an interview. “I think it’s in transition, and I think the election is going to be a contest especially in the first few weeks to shape it, because the poll that we did shows there’s still a broad and deep desire for change. It’s higher than it was in 2021, and it’s about as high as it was in 2015.”
“On the other hand,” he said, “I do think that there are people who increasingly are looking for a leader who can help guide the country through this incredibly uncertain moment, who, at once, can stand up to Trump, but also is compassionate enough to understand how to help people through this moment.”
Liberal Leader Mark Carney has been prime minister for all of a week and is framing the ballot question as “trust.” As in, who do you trust to steer you through the economic crisis sparked by Donald Trump‘s tariff and annexation threats?
Carney, the “I’m not a lifelong politician” politician says he is the change voters are looking for, and is drawing a clear contrast with the Trudeau Liberals and the Poilievre-led Conservatives, saying Thursday he is offering a “positive vision” for how to confront the U.S. president’s trade war and to address voters’ economic concerns.
He has stumbled a few times, but is quickly sharpening some political skills. Carney dialed back his testy answers to reporters through the week and positioned a trip to France and Britain that produced little in concrete results as part of his “action-oriented” agenda. He has also pivoted his party quickly off past positions: he ditched the consumer carbon levy, has promised to kill the expansion of capital gains taxes and on Thursday stole outright the Conservatives’ promise to drop the GST for first-time buyers of new and renovated housing valued under $1 million — a move Carney said represents a savings of $50,000 — aiming at those voters who rank the cost of living as their top issue.
Since Carney’s arrival on the federal political scene, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has doubled down on his preferred ballot box question.
Poilievre, the lifelong politician, insists this is still a “carbon tax election” and a “change” election — as in, who can’t you trust given the Liberals’ economic track record.
In Poilievre’s pitch to voters, the Carney-led Liberals are the same as the Trudeau-led Liberals. No change. More of the same old Liberal party whose policies left Canada too “weak” in the face of Trump’s threats. On Thursday, he promised to fast-track permits for mining, resource and energy projects, saying they make “us more self-reliant and independent from the Americans.”
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh leaned into the question of “trust” on Thursday — the day when Election 2025 basically got a soft launch.
Multiple media outlets, including the Star, reported that Carney will go to Gov. Gen. Mary Simon on Sunday to ask her to dissolve Parliament and drop the election writs.
“In the fight with Donald Trump, I want to ask you, I want you to ask yourselves, who do you think is going to actually put your family first? Who’s going to put working people first? It’s not going to be Pierre Poilievre. It’s certainly not going to be Mark Carney. It’s going to be us.”
It’s a twist on the change and trust ballot questions. Singh is going from “who do you want to kick out of office,” to “who do you trust to lead Canada in office.”
“I ask you to ask yourself, Who do you want in Ottawa, fighting for you? Who do you want in Ottawa who’s going to put you and your family first? Who do you think is actually going to prioritize working people over the CEOs? Who’s going to prioritize working families over billionaires? That answer is very simple. That’s New Democrats,” he said.
For Coletto, the cost of living and the spectre of Donald Trump’s influence are the top two issues driving this spring’s vote.
“Among those most concerned about Trump, the Liberals lead by 30 points; among those most worried about cost of living, the Conservatives lead by 20. These contrasting priorities indicate the campaign could hinge on which issue becomes most salient as we move closer to election day,” he said.
Curiously, in conventional elections in Canada, foreign and defence policy are never really vote drivers, or ballot questions, but they are factors in political debates as voters try to assess leaders’ offerings. When the Syrian refugee crisis was unfolding during the 2015 election campaign, the Trudeau Liberals promised to take in 25,000 asylum seekers fleeing the devastation of war, and drew sharp contrasts with the then-nine-year-old Harper government.
This year, foreign and defence policy is playing directly into voter considerations about who is best to confront Trump and present a strong Canadian presence, even for voters who say cost of living is their top priority.
”Trump is infusing that conversation because now people are worried not just about who’s going to make my life more affordable, but who’s going to stop it from getting worse,” said Coletto.
As Coletto outlines it, ”Trump is now the threat. It’s not Justin Trudeau. It’s not Liberal policy. It’s Trump’s chaos that now people want protection from. And so, I think, it’s not so much the revival of the Liberal party as much as Mark Carney has revived the Liberal party because of who he is.”
The pollster doubts the election will be about debating policy. “It’s very much going to be a character test,” he said.
In that, the game is more complicated.
For the last two years, said Coletto, Pierre Poilievre has been “the trial lawyer litigating the case against Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. And he’s been very successful at it … he connected at an emotionally angry and frustrated level about Trudeau.”
But now, said Coletto, “I think Canadians now are looking for, like an oncologist, a physician, who’s the best in their field, because they think there’s a disease that might kill them and they want both the best treatment, and someone’s going to hold their hand and say, we can get through this. Which is different” than a prosecutor.
That’s reminiscent of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair in 2015, after the then-opposition leader led the charge in Parliament against the Harper Conservatives on the senate expenses scandal, only to lose the election to Trudeau.
Although the Liberals are the incumbent government, said Coletto, Carney as the rookie now in charge is the challenger, less well-known than Opposition leader Poilievre.
The other factor Coletto is watching now is how broad an appeal the political leaders can make.
Coletto’s most recent poll surveyed 1,500 adults from March 17 to 20. An online poll doesn’t have the same random sampling, but is considered to have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent 19 times out of 20.
While his horse race numbers don’t reflect a Liberal majority yet, unlike other polling firms, Coletto sees a path to that for the Carney Liberals because more people are open to switching their votes to them.
“Imagine you’ve got two nets in the water,” he said. “The Conservatives have a smaller net, but more fish in it right now.” But in Coletto’s analogy, the Liberals have a bigger net. “So they can pull in more fish.”
“Every week that goes by, more and more people are opening their minds to voting Liberal. And while the Conservative vote pool isn’t dropping substantially, a lot of those people who had migrated over to the Conservatives from the Liberals are coming back to the Liberals.
“The Liberals are almost fully reconstituting the 2021 vote, and now they’re starting to chip away at the Conservatives, and they’re taking a big chunk from the NDP,” said Coletto.
“That is how Mark Carney wins a majority government,” he said.
For all leaders, this campaign will matter. Mistakes could be fatal. For Poilievre, he said, demonstrating he is in any way close to Trump’s Republicans is a risk. “Trump is his kryptonite.”
In Carney’s case, his pitch is based on his crisis-management skills and competence, and if he somehow fails to demonstrate he’s up to the task, then he’s vulnerable, said Coletto. The Conservatives attack him as a global elitist who cannot relate to ordinary Canadians’ concerns.
But Coletto says on the flip side of that, there is an “elite-ness” to him that can work: his Harvard-Oxford training, his having led the central banks of two G7 countries is what may appeal to Canadians. “He’s like a sniper who is the best sniper we could find.”
