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The election is officially underway and it’s going to be a knife fight. I know part of the narrative is that the Carney Liberals are running away with this.
That’s not accurate.
The polls have changed, but we always knew they would be closer to an election campaign or if Justin Trudeau left. Trudeau is thankfully gone, and we are in an election campaign.
The polls have tightened more than I expected bu CBC’s Poll Tracker which aggregates public polls has the parties tied at 37% each, 338Canada.com has the Liberals at 39% and the Conservatives at 37%. Both poll aggregators have the NDP plummeting to 11%.
In my latest Toronto Sun column, I argue that while both Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre are claiming they are the agents of change, only Polievre can actually deliver the change Canada needs.
Polls show that almost 6 in 10 Canadians believe it is time for a change in government, and only 21% tell Abacus Data that they believe Carney and the Liberals should be re-elected.
As much as Trump is a ballot question, so too is who can deliver change.
Did you see any of Poilievre’s rally in Toronto on Sunday night? They had so many people that one person swears they turned away 2,000 people.
I can’t confirm that, there were hundreds, whether there were thousands is another matter.
Still, Poilievre’s rally was packed, the excitement in Toronto - Liberal Fortress Toronto - was palpable. Poilievre spoke off the cuff for more than 30 minutes in a speech that was carried by the news channels, which on a Sunday night don’t have huge audiences.
What is more impressive is that Poilievre’s social media channels were livestreaming the event with numbers that would dwarf Canada’s news channels in prime time. He had 45,000 watching on X at the peak, close to another 10,000 on YouTube and 1,900 on Facebook.
His event has now been seen 121,000 times on X, 90,000 times on YouTube and 166,000 on Facebook.
By comparison, Mark Carney and the Liberals didn’t livestream their event and on CPAC’s YouTube Channel, Carney’s rally in St. John’s attracted 12,000 viewers while Poilievre’s was more than 57,000 viewers on CPAC’s feed.
Clearly, the social media war will be won by the Conservatives. Whether that is enough to win the election remains to be seen. It’s always best to remember my rules for politics……
Voters are fickle.
Polls can change.
Campaigns matter.
I wrote a column about that issue here.
If you are still reading, make sure you check out the columns from the Toronto Sun - the best stable of columnists in the country.
Lorrie Goldstein is detailing the fake patriotism the Liberals are currently putting on display to try and win the election.
Warren Kinsella has a piece on how voters look to visuals and how things are said rather than what is said. Image matters more than substance, every campaign needs to know this.
Lorne Gunter points out that Carney’s team is really Justin Trudeau’s old team.
WATCH: Myself, Toronto Sun Editor-in-Chief and Sun columnist Warren Kinsella kick around ideas about the election.
