Millions of Canadians head to polls after 'useless' five-week campaign dominated by Trump

OTTAWA — Millions of Canadians are expected to cast a ballot today, capping a 36-day election campaign dominated by threats of annexation and tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump and affordability concerns. The election has been deemed by Liberals , Conservatives , pollsters , unions and even former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien as the most consequential vote in a lifetime amid Canada’s trade row with its closest economic ally, the United States. Polling suggests the campaign is uncommon in that it is largely dominated by only two parties, Mark Carney’s Liberals and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, while smaller parties such as the NDP, Bloc Québécois and Green Party might have a “catastrophic” election night . The final Leger poll of the election suggested Carney’s party (43 per cent) maintained a four-point lead over the Conservatives (39 per cent), a gap that stayed roughly the same throughout the five-week campaign. “You have two heavyweight political opponents slugging it out. Nobody’s giving an inch, but no one’s getting one either,” Leger executive vice-president Andrew Enns told National Post Friday. In a separate interview on Friday, Leger President Jean-Marc Léger said he had “never seen such a stable campaign” in his lifetime. “Such a useless campaign is also unprecedented,” Léger told the Journal de Montréal , adding that no issue seemed to move the needle as much as Trump’s tariff and annexation threats. He noted that the unprecedented stability in polling numbers suggested that most voters had already made up their minds before the campaign even started. The fact the Liberals are perceived frontrunners in the race points to a stunning reversal of fortunes for the party. Before former prime minister Justin Trudeau resigned in early January, the Conservatives had held a roughly 15 to 20 point lead over the Grits for over one year and many observers believed it a foregone conclusion that Poilievre would be Canada’s next prime minister. But by the time the election began on March 23, the Carney-led Liberals had made a “remarkable comeback” and taken their first polling lead over the Tories since 2023. Polling stations across the country will be open for 12 hours starting at 8:30 a.m. local time in the Atlantic and Central time zones, 9:30 a.m. in the Eastern time zone, 7:30 a.m. in the Mountain time zone and 7 a.m. Pacific time. If you have not received your voter information card by mail, you can see where to cast a ballot in their riding on Elections Canada’s website here . Eligible voters who are not registered can do so at their local polling station. Elections Canada said on Tuesday that a record 7.28 million Canadian s cast a ballot during early voting last weekend, a 25 per cent jump from the same period during the 2021 federal election. That suggests that this year’s turnout could exceed that of the 2021 federal election, when only 62.6 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballot (down nearly five per cent from the 2019 vote). National Post cnardi@postmedia.com Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

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