How Trump Turned Canadians Off Populism
In 2025, society is grappling with a handful of competing crises: the ripple effects of a global pandemic, record-high wealth concentration, middle-class collapse and distrust in institutions. It’s all ominously reminiscent of the world a century ago. At the time, these calamities produced dramatically different populist outcomes. America embraced the New Deal, ushering in union rights, welfare programs and progressive taxation. Large swaths of Europe, by contrast, slid into fascism and ultimately lost the deadliest war in history.
This time, many advanced Western democracies are going the way of 1930s Europe and descending into right-wing populism. In the last few years, the U.K. voted for Brexit, Trump’s America enacted protectionist economic and anti-immigration policies, and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has curtailed LGBTQ+ rights and criminalized rescue missions for migrants at sea. Hungary is no longer a democracy under Viktor Orbán, who rewrote the constitution, weakened judicial independence and marginalized media outlets. And for most of the last two years, it seemed Canada might well be headed down the same road.
That fate is less certain now. In less than three weeks, Canadians will head to the polls to determine who forms the next government. But at stake is something much bigger. It’s about whether Canada can survive as a viable country in a world lurching toward chaos—and what our future might look like if it does. For now, it appears we’re sidestepping the slide into authoritarian populism. Donald Trump has scared us away from that prospect. Many Canadians looked to our neighbours to the south, saw what populism really looked like and decided they wanted no part of it.
As the founder of EKOS Research Associates, I’ve been tracking public opinion for more than four decades. In the past year alone, my team has found that confidence in intergenerational mobility has plummeted, especially among younger Canadians; only a small number believe that things will be better for their generation. We recorded the lowest-ever satisfaction with the direction of the country, the lowest-ever sense of attachment to Canada, the worst-ever economic outlook, the highest-ever perception that the world is more dangerous than ever and the highest-ever opposition to immigration. These record low scores showed us an outlook so dark and divided it was virtually unprecedented in Canada.
At EKOS, my team draws on decades of public opinion data and updated tools originally developed to study authoritarianism in postwar Europe. We’ve found that about 25 per cent of Canadian voters consistently exhibit traits aligned with authoritarian populism. These people are mistrustful of institutions, pessimistic about the future and vulnerable to disinformation. They believe the Freedom Convoy was great, that governments are hiding vaccine death data, that climate change is a hoax. And they’re dramatically more likely to approve of Trump. This faction is the bedrock of Pierre Poilievre’s support—even if he doesn’t endorse all of their views. And, for the last two and a half years, the Conservatives mostly held double-digit leads and seemed inevitable for a majority. Three months ago, they led the Liberals by more than 25 points.
What made the Conservatives viable as a governing force wasn’t just this core 25 per cent, however. It was also the 20 per cent of Canadians who don’t share these traits but were simply sick of Trudeau, frustrated by inflation and worried about their mortgages. These voters weren’t extremists. They were pragmatists. And now they’re pulling back their support.
Why? Trump got elected. And Canadians are watching, in real time, a government in Washington that appoints anti-vaccine ideologues to run public health, threatens to exit NATO, openly flirts with autocracy and, most importantly, wants to annex our country. The U.S. has become a cautionary tale in what happens when populism wins, and the message it’s sent to many Canadians is that this is the future we must avoid.
In just two months, the 25-point Conservative lead has reversed into a 10-point deficit. The Liberal Party has recorded both its lowest and highest voter intention scores within this period, while the NDP, once tied with the Liberals, is now 40 points behind. National attachment—previously at all-time lows—spiked in five consecutive waves. It’s risen in Quebec in lockstep with aversion to Trump, to the extent that Quebecers are the least likely group of Canadians to travel to the U.S. and to consume American goods. I’ve never seen such massive swings in public opinion—in such a short span of time—in my entire career.
The numbers reveal a shift that runs deeper than partisan leanings. Canadians are taking a collective gut-check about who we are and who we want to become, and we’re seeing signs of clarity. That recent spike in anti-immigration sentiment? It’s reversing. There’s a newfound receptivity for attracting the best and brightest talent—people who might be either leaving the U.S. or no longer attracted to the U.S. Canadians are embracing this as part of a bold new strategy to build a more independent, sovereign and productive economic future.
Meanwhile, Poilievre has struggled to pivot effectively, a failure compounded by a prevalence of populism, Trump sympathy and disinformation within his core constituency. The highly effective and disciplined mantra of “Trudeau bad, country-broken, axe the tax” no longer fits the new zeitgeist or the Trump threat. He’s caught in a difficult position: trying to court moderates while his core base sympathizes heavily with the American right. However, he’s still in the race. His base is loyal, his messaging resonates with a significant portion of the country, and he has more support than Erin O’Toole did in the last election. But the broader coalition he needs may be slipping away.
We have a national choice to make: do we want to follow the populist path or reject it? When we recently asked Canadians to name the dominant emotion they feel about the upcoming election, the answer wasn’t fear or anger. It was hope. That’s new. A few months ago, hope was nowhere on the emotional landscape. This shift is also translating into policy preferences that were once fringe. Seventy per cent of Canadians now want to prioritize trade with Europe. An overwhelming majority believe the rupture with the U.S. is permanent. There is growing support for homegrown industries, including defence and the automotive sector, and efforts to attract the most skilled and qualified talent. There’s a clear appetite for grand-scale national projects like upgrading our hydro-electric corridor and a Marshall Plan approach to housing. The appetite for a sovereign, self-sufficient Canada has never been higher.
We are at an inflection point. Will Canada embrace the angry populism that tore through the U.S., the U.K. and parts of Europe? Or will it chart a different course, one that’s more open, more sovereign, more hopeful? If other democracies are falling into authoritarian reflex, Canada may be showing the world what it looks like to pause at the edge—and step back.
Frank Graves is the founder and president of EKOS Research Associates
