Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre spent much of the first week of this election campaign targeting NDP-held ridings that could be up for grabs now that polls suggest New Democrat support is in free fall — but the recent Liberal surge has upended those plans.
The big political story of the campaign so far is the remarkable resurgence of the Liberal Party — which only weeks ago was thought left for dead — as some voters sour on Poilievre after he led in the polls by huge margins for the better part of two years.
It’s a phenomenon largely driven by U.S. President Donald Trump and his economic assault on Canada with his devastating tariffs.
There’s a perception by some voters that the Conservative leader won’t be strong enough in the face of the American threats, pollsters say, and that’s given Mark Carney and the Liberals a boost.
But Poilievre is conceding nothing so early on in this election. He’s also making a play for seats held by a competitor who’s arguably doing worse than he is.
Poilievre is zeroing in on seats held by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s party in areas where there’s a history of “orange-blue” swings.
It’s a relatively rare political phenomenon in large swaths of the country, but one that’s quite common in areas where the federal Liberal brand is weaker — most notably on B.C.’s Vancouver Island, where six of the seven seats are held by New Democrats.
Speaking to reporters at a sawmill on the island during a campaign stop in Nanaimo Friday, Poilievre said the NDP hitched its wagon to the governing Liberals in the last Parliament and a vote for them this time is a vote for another decade of Liberal “darkness.”
“The NDP has failed these communities. They sold out residents when they signed onto a costly coalition with the Liberals. They voted for carbon taxes, being soft on crime, releasing criminals into the streets and easy drug policies that are killing people,” he said.
“The good news is that British Columbians can choose another way,” he said.
Over the past 80-plus years — and also over the course of numerous boundary changes — the NDP has traded the Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding back and forth with the Conservative Party and its past iterations.
It’s an area that’s largely shunned the Liberals for most of its existence, with an MP from that party representing residents here for just 12 of the last 121 years, according to parliamentary records.
The last time Nanaimo voters sent a Liberal to the House of Commons was 1940. The party’s candidate placed a distant fourth in the 2021 federal election.
But there are some signs things could be different this time in NDP icon Tommy Douglas’s old riding.
CBC News spoke to voters in Nanaimo over two days late last week and found some are considering Liberals for the first time ever — and it’s all because of Trump.
“In this election, I hope the Liberals stay in. I hope that Carney guy fights the States. This American B.S. is not good,” said local resident Mark Shantz.
Another Nanaimo voter, Frank, who did not want to give his last name, said he agrees that Carney is the man for the moment.
“He’s a businessman and that’s one of the reasons I’m voting for him. He’s not a politician, and I need someone different,” he said. “The Liberal, that’s the only hope.”
And then there’s Carol Seward. She’s not usually a Liberal voter but said she’ll go that way this time — seeing a vote for Carney as akin to backing the country in its fight with the U.S.
“I think it’s going to be important to support the federal government,” she said, adding she’s turned off by Poilievre. “I don’t like the Conservative leanings right now.”
Gary Malhomme said the most important issue for him in this election is “who can stand up to Trump.”
“We need some with backbone so I’m leaning Liberal,” he said.
“Carney, being an economist, has more understanding of the money side and how we’re going to deal with tariffs. I’m thinking he’ll have more insight of how to deal with it, rather than a career politician.”
Shachi Kurl is the president of the Angus Reid Institute in Vancouver.
She said it’s telling that Poilievre devoted about half of the crucial first week in B.C.
“Pierre Poilievre is here because he is trying to shore up a vote that is quickly abandoning him,” she said.
The most recent poll from Kurl’s firm shows the Liberals have a narrow three-point lead on the Conservatives in B.C., a huge improvement over what the party pulled in the last election, which wasn’t exactly a bad showing in terms of the seat count.
While the Liberals have long been perceived as the party of “central Canadian elites” in B.C., “everything has been rewritten and reframed in the face of the Trump tariffs,” she said.
“In all of the elections I have polled, I have never seen anything like this in such a short period of time,” Kurl said of the Poilievre polling dip and Liberal spike.
“And it’s almost entirely attributable to an external factor.”
Conservatives aim to wrestle Vancouver Island away from NDP
In an interview with CBC News, Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog said Vancouver Island has its share of social challenges — the opioid overdose crisis and housing affordability are top of mind for many — but he gets the sense from residents that the federal election will hinge on what’s going on with the shaky Canada-U.S. relationship.
“The whole issue around President Trump, the mad king as I call him, is going to have a significant impact on how people are voting. I think there will be more strategic voting that usual,” said Krog, a former B.C. NDP MLA.
Federal Liberals have traditionally backed the NDP in these parts, Krog said, because it’s always been a given the Liberal candidate would never win.
“I don’t think there’s any question that the presence of Donald Trump and his idiotic behaviour has boosted the fortunes of the federal Liberals, and that’s true across the country,” he said.
NDP candidate Lisa Marie Barron, who served as the area’s MP until the recent election call, poured cold water on the possibility of a Liberal surge in this part of the country.
Barron said she’s the only viable progressive candidate who can stand in the way of what she called Poilievre’s Conservative cuts.
“If you look at Trump’s playbook and Poilievre’s playbook, they are one in the same. They’re in it for billionaires,” she said. “People deserve somebody who is in their corner, working for them.”
Still, Poilievre is making a big play for working people.
Every one of his campaign announcements in the first week of this campaign was at some sort of worksite, with yellow vest-clad workers standing behind or near the leader during his press conferences.
He deployed one of his new slogans, “Boots not suits,” at a rally in Stoney Creek, Ont., to drive home the message: blue collar workers are welcome in the big blue Conservative tent.
Poilievre also rolled out endorsements by private sector unions that represent workers like boilermakers, welders and steamfitters, once rock-solid NDP constituencies.
NDP candidate Peter Julian, who has represented Burnaby, B.C., in Parliament for years, said his party is being counted out too soon.
“In B.C., New Democrats defeat Conservatives and we’ve proven that in the last three elections,” he said.
“We’ve seen, repeatedly, these polling sites be flat-out wrong. The reality is the polls always underestimate NDP support and New Democrats never give up,” he said.
