Pierre Poilievre Positions Himself as Canada’s Trump Alternative

Just two months after the election of Donald Trump, Canada is on track to receive a Trumpian leader of its own—Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party. 

Poilievre, a 45-year-old from the province of Alberta who has served in Canada’s Parliament for most of his adult life, is poised to become prime minister in the wake of Justin Trudeau’s resignation announcement.

Trump may have been the straw that broke the back of Trudeau’s Liberal Party government. Since Trump’s election, Canadians have been up in arms over his tariff threats if Canada does not better control its border with the U.S., as well as his deliberate taunts of Canada becoming America’s “51st state.”

Trump has only added fuel to the fire shortly after Trudeau’s announcement of his plans to resign, calling Trudeau the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada” on his social media site, Truth Social.

With Trudeau’s government rapidly losing support amid Trump’s recent heavy-handed negotiations and the resignation of some of Trudeau’s top advisors, opposition leader Poilievre seized the moment to present himself as the Canadian antidote to Trump, mirroring the president-elect’s policy proposals with his own threats of aggressive trade policy.

Economics were key to the downfall of Trudeau’s government, with the December resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland serving as the final nail in the coffin.

Kelly Torrance, a Canadian member of the New York Post’s editorial board who has written on politics on both sides of the border for years, told The Daily Signal that Freeland departed amid disagreements over how to deal with Trump.

“She did want to be more combative,” said Torrance. “She dealt with a Trump administration before and actually came through it quite well. But this time, she was more reticent. But there’s also the fact that she was about to present to Parliament documents showing Canada’s terrible fiscal position. And she really believed that change needed to be made to cut spending and deal with deficits.”

It was precisely this weakness in the face of Trump’s threats that Poilievre zeroed in on in the midst of the government crisis.

“President Trump yesterday made an unjustified threat of a 25% tariff on our already weak and shrinking economy,” said Poilievre in a press conference in December as Trump bemoaned Trudeau’s lack of preparedness. 

“We need a plan. A plan to put Canada first on the economy and on security,” he said in a deliberate reference to Trump’s “America First” rhetoric.

In many ways, Poilievre’s brand of free market capitalism combined with aggressive trade policy is identical to that of Trump. 

Poilievre added, “What we actually need to do is stand up for our economy by axing taxes, unleashing free enterprise, having a massive boom in our energy and resource production, and standing up for our country against unfair tariffs abroad.”

But Torrance told the Daily Signal that one must avoid completely equating Poilievre with Trump.

“He is a conservative, but he does have a lot of those libertarian tendencies,” said Torrance of Poilievre. “And I think that plays well in Canada as well. Canada’s not as socially conservative a country as America.”

Torrance added that Poilievre borrows from Trump but differs on key issues, such as his support of socialized health care.

“Pierre has done a good job of taking some of what is really great about what Donald Trump has done and what’s been successful for him, but not becoming just, ‘Hey, I’m Canada’s Trump,’” she said.

Poilievre is not alone in fighting fire with fire when it comes to Trump’s proposed tariffs.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatened in early December to cut off energy to the United States in retaliation for Trump’s 25% tax on Canadian imports. “I’m sure the other provinces will as well,” said Ford. “We will use every tool in our toolbox to fight back.”

It appears that Canada has been backed into a corner where the only response to Trump’s right-wing policies is to adopt right-wing policies of its own. 

This hostile reaction to Trump’s election stands in sharp contrast to the vision presented by many on the right of an international populist uprising through which Trumpian figures might find common cause.

Javier Milei of Argentina, for example, made the case in December for a “right-wing international” made up of leaders such as himself, Donald Trump, and Giorgia Meloni of Italy.

“We could call ourselves a right-wing international … network of mutual assistance made up of all those interested in spreading the ideas of freedom around the world,” argued Milei at a Conservative Political Action Conference in Buenos Aires.

Meloni has also cozied up to Trump in recent days, singing his praises after the two met at Mar-a-Lago Saturday.

“Nice evening with @realDonaldTrump, whom I thank for the welcome. Ready to work together,” wrote Meloni on X after the meeting. Trump returned the praise by calling her a “fantastic woman” who has “taken Europe by storm” on social media.

The varied responses of right-of-center politicians around the globe to Trump’s political comeback are perhaps merely distinct strategies through which these leaders promote the interests of their own nations.

In contrast to Poilievre’s branding as a tough guy to take on Trump, Milei and Meloni have decided that a more friendly tone is a better strategy in dealing with the president-elect. 

Their motives are easily discernible. The “dollarization” of the Argentinian economy was one of Milei’s main campaign promises. This will involve using the United States dollar as Argentina’s main monetary standard and refraining from printing the Argentinian peso. Thus, Milei has a vested interest in keeping Trump as an ally and working toward America’s prosperity.

Meloni, on the other hand, is likely to feel the pressure of Trump’s tariff threats, as well as his demands that European nations contribute 2% of their gross domestic product toward funding NATO. Meloni has apparently decided that it is easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar, joining Milei in calls for an ideological alliance of nationalists in the United States and beyond.

By emphasizing a “Canada first” policy over an abstract idea of an international alliance against authoritarianism, Poilievre has chosen the opposite approach to that of Milei and Meloni.

In his deliberate borrowing of Trump’s rhetoric on foreign policy, it is clear what Poilievre wants Canadians to see in him—a Canadian Trump to protect them from America’s Trump.

Poilievre’s Conservatives will likely increase their share of seats in Parliament when elections are held this year, likely securing him the prime minister’s office.