Donald Trump, Canada's Conservatives and uncertainties of the 2025 election

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - If there were an election today, the polls show that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party would probably form the next government. This isn’t what is necessarily going to happen. I like to think of polls as ‘point in time’ snapshots which may be 100% accurate right now, but the situation can be very different tomorrow. 

One of the trends I have noticed on 338Canada, which gleans data from many polls, is that support for the Liberals has been tacking upwards since Trudeau resigned (6 points), while support for the Conservatives and NDP has gone down (4 points each). If the Liberals pick a popular leader, we can expect their popularity to rise even higher in the polls - all of which is just to say that the as yet undeclared election is too far away to be certain.  

Anyway Max Thaysen, one of our thought leaders here on Cortes, has been watching what Donald Trump, a Conservative leader in the United States, is doing and getting anxious about what this latest rendition of the Conservative Party might be like if it comes to power.   

Max Thaysen: “Watching Donald Trump do his Donald Trump thing in America is pretty scary. There's a breakdown of the rule of law happening, but also just some really nasty meanness. It's such a tragedy that America was taken over by these goons, In part because 40% of people didn't vote. It's easy and tempting to be cynical.”

“Yes, the result of checking out the whole political game is that sometimes the bad guys win, and sometimes when the bad guys win, they win for a long time. We actually go very far backwards.” 

“Defunding science and making life dangerous for activists, or including journalists such as yourself in the pool of people considered to be activists by the government. Those are all really dangerous things that are hard to recover from.”  

Cortes Currents: This is all about Donald Trump, a Republican leader who many Republicans are now finding alarming.  What do you see in our Conservative Party that's alarming? 

Max Thaysen: “Like most Canadians, I read mostly American news.” (Laughter)  

“Yeah, you're supposed to be quiet while I'm talking! I don't think anybody knows that much about Pierre Poilievre's policies because he hasn't said very much about Pierre Poilievre's policies. But that's true of Donald Trump as well, which is one of the reasons why it's useful to look at what Donald Trump is doing.”

“His policies are being implemented now, whereas before we had some hints, maybe some loud hints from the kinds of people he was planning to work with and what they were saying and stuff like that.  Now the rubber is hitting the road.”

“I think that's true of Pierre Poilievre too. He just seems to say one liners over and over again and indicate his cruelty, but not really delivering that much. I think we can just assume the worst because he's demonstrated a similar style and approach and intention in many issues similar to Donald Trump. That's what I'm most worried about. What he has said, the nastiness towards journalists who are trying to ask honest questions, tells me that he's the enemy of most of us in his intentions and whatever policy comes from that. It's unlikely to be fair, or kind, or honest - based on what I've seen so far.  Those are very dangerous anti-values that he's got.”