Can the Conservatives Paint Carney as ‘Trudeau 2.0’—and Will It Stick?

And here's why they think the carbon tax is the way to do it.

Over the past few weeks, the Conservative Party and Pierre Poilievre have amplified their social media presence with a barrage of posts and targeted ads. Whether it’s clips of Pierre Poilievre in a TV studio denouncing “Liberal insiders,” or tweets accusing Mark Carney of being “just like Justin,” the messaging is direct and unambiguous: the Conservatives want Canadians to see Carney as a carbon copy of Trudeau and, by extension, to lump them both into a disliked, out-of-touch political elite.

On the surface, it might seem like a straightforward strategy—after all, the Conservatives have repeatedly shown that attacking Trudeau personally can mobilize and expand their base.

As I’ve shown in a past post, the correlation between voting Liberal and impressions of Justin Trudeau were almost perfect.

But a closer look at recent public opinion data from my firm Abacus Data suggests that tying Carney too tightly to Trudeau may be more challenging than they think.

I’ve argued often over the past 18 months that the primary glue holding this new Conservative coalition together has been a shared, visceral dislike for Justin Trudeau, not a deep love or affection for Pierre Poilievre.

Some of the Conservatives’ best fundraising days happen when Trudeau is trending. As long as Trudeau remained the Prime Minister and Liberal Leader, Conservatives could portray him as a stubborn, incompetent, and disconnected leader and most Canadians would agree. This narrative resonated with many Canadians, who had grown weary of what they perceive to be Trudeau’s patronizing tone and frequent controversy. The catch? When you remove Trudeau from the equation—the Conservative coalition’s unifying force (or the glue holding it together) risks evaporating.

Indeed, while much of Trudeau’s personal brand remains toxic in parts of the country, many of his policies are far from universally loathed. In a poll Abacus Data conducted for The Logic, the only two Trudeau policies that saw strong opposition were capital gains tax changes (44% opposed) and the carbon tax (49% opposed).

Meanwhile, national dental care, housing incentives, and targeted pharmacare measures all enjoy majority support with little interest in seeing them changed or elminated. Notably, Mark Carney has signalled that he would alter or scrap the carbon tax and the capital gains changes if given the chance. So if Carney is on record as wanting to shift those policies, it becomes a lot more difficult for the Conservatives to tar him with the same “Liberal elitist” brush that’s worked so well against Trudeau.

It’s why they are spending so much time arguing his views on the issue are disingenious.

But, my polling indicates that right now Carney isn’t saddled with the same personal negatives Trudeau carries. In my most recent national survey of 3,000 Canadian adults, I found that 28% of Canadians have a negative impression of Trudeau but either a neutral or positive impression of Carney.