“Canadian Politics”

The year-in-review phase is over. It’s time to look ahead.

In Canadian politics, 2025 will be remembered as the year of Trump. In 2026, I regret to predict, very little will change. In my last column, I argued that the U.S. midterms — and President

Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the lead-up — will turn Canada into an increasingly convenient political target, spelling trouble for our economy and particularly for the looming CUSMA renegotiations.

That is a seismic risk. But it is far from the only political story Canadians should be watching in the year ahead.

This year was eventful, to say the least, marked in part by a change in leadership in Ottawa, and 2026 is likely to bring further shifts in party dynamics.

The year 2025 had started with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing his resignation amid cratering support for the Liberal Party and poll numbers suggesting a Conservative majority.

As Canada closes out 2025, the Conservatives are suddenly polling higher than at any point since the swearing-in of Mark Carney as prime minister.

In the last days of December, several pollsters posted year-end results finding that the Conservatives and Liberals would be neck and neck in a federal election.

The year 2025 was a sharp reminder of just how unpredictable Canadian politics can be. Events moved quickly, and long-held assumptions collapsed almost overnight.

At the start of last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still clinging to power. The Liberals were far behind in the polls, and it seemed all but certain that Pierre Poilievre would soon lead a Conservative super-majority government.

We all know how that story ended.

OTTAWA—By the time you read this it is entirely possible that everything has changed.

It’s been that kind of year.

Think back to January, when Mark Carney was just a former central banker quietly making phone calls to nervous Liberal MPs. Pierre Poilievre was cruising towards a Conservative majority government that appeared all but guaranteed. And Donald Trump was only getting started.

The House of Commons sat for just 72 days in 2025; the least that Canada has used its Parliament in more than 80 years.

The year’s tally was lower even than in 2021, when the House of Commons saw its sitting calendar obliterated by COVID-19 lockdowns. In the end, however, that year still managed 95 sitting days.

Can’t be all bad.

December 22 (Toronto, ON) – A new national Liaison Strategies poll conducted over the weekend for the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada shows the Carney Liberals continuing to slide and now tied with the Conservatives at 38%. The Federal NDP stays steady at 12% nationally, and maintains 19% in British Columbia.

Conducted from December 19-21, 2025, using Interactive Voice Response (IVR), the survey polled 1,000 Canadians. The margin of error is ±3.09 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

OTTAWA – Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is practising “counterfeit Conservatism.”

Poilievre says while Carney likes to copy his ideas — ending the consumer carbon price, for example — his government won’t do what it says it will.

Carney is widely seen to be moving the Liberals to the political centre after years of more centre-left policies under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

It’s not so easy to remove a politician from office between elections in Canada.

That’s due, in part, to the fact there are few jurisdictions in the country where laws to recall an elected representative are in place. And even where recalls are an option, the requirements to trigger one are challenging, some political observers say.

But the process is currently being played out in a major way in Alberta, where, thanks to citizen-led petition drives, 21 members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) who belong to the governing United Conservative Party (UCP) — including Premier Danielle Smith — are facing recall petitions from constituents. One Alberta NDP MLA is also facing a recall.

Pierre Trudeau famously said that opposition MPs are nobodies 50 yards from Parliament Hill – and today it’s a handful of Conservative nobodies who are laying the foundation for another Liberal dynasty in Ottawa.

Floor-crossings from the Conservatives to the Liberals by Michael Ma last week and Chris d’Entremont after the Liberal budget in November – hardly national figures – put the Liberals at 171 seats, one-seat shy of a majority government in the 343-seat House of Commons.