By Shachi Kurl, President
Not even the cleverest show runners of the most binge-worthy series would be capable of inventing the tilt-a-ride-inducing whiplash this country has been experiencing.
It’s barely three months since a blow-up between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-finance minister Chrystia Freeland over her ouster in favour of a putative new finance minister in Mark Carney. It was an affair so consequential it forced the former from office and launched the latter two into a faceoff over who will succeed him.
Strung out on the on-again off-again nature of those crippling Trump-imposed tariffs? You’re not alone. Polling from the Angus Reid Institute shows more than half of Canadians are literally feeling angry (55 per cent), betrayed (37 per cent) and anxious (29 per cent) about it. Never before have I seen domestic favourable sentiment towards the U.S. as low as it is now, at just 24 per cent. More than half now see America as either an enemy, or a potential threat to our national interests (only 15 per cent of Americans say the same about Canada). National pride has rebounded. Visceral emotion has Canadians wanting to go hard on the U.S. with retaliatory tariffs that include banning critical Canadian exports and stopping domestic sales of Teslas (seven-in-10 of us feel like sticking it to Elon Musk, too).
And now we stand on the edge of new Canadian leadership, one way or the other. Unless everyone is wrong, Mark Carney will prevail as the new Liberal leader. If he’s got the sense God gave a lemon, he’ll call a general election as soon as possible.