With the end of the election campaign in sight, I asked David Coletto, the head of the polling firm Abacus Data, what stood out for him. His answer, given the exceptional political and economic turmoil in Canada, was a bit surprising.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, with his wife, Diana Fox Carney, in Georgetown, Ontario, on Friday. President Trump’s trade war with Canada has changed his party’s fortunes.Credit…Carlos Osorio/Reuters
“As much as this election has been interesting,” he told me, “not a lot has happened during the election — which is really interesting.”
There were no moments of drama as in 1984, when Brian Mulroney challenged Prime Minister John Turner over making a raft of political appointments. (“You had an option, sir, to say no,” Mr. Mulroney said, jabbing his finger, in a debate that many believe brought him to power.) Nor was there anything like the rerun between the two men four years later, when Mr. Turner said of Mr. Mulroney’s free trade deal with the Reagan administration, “You have sold us out.” (That time Mr. Turner was the one to jab his finger.)
And Monday is unlikely to bring anything as unexpected as the Orange Wave of 2011 — the New Democrats’ sweep, under Jack Layton, of Quebec that made the party the official opposition for the first time in Canada’s history.
Instead, the campaign is ending much as it started: a contest between the Liberals under Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre, with all the other parties sitting on the sidelines.
