Elbows up! Carney woos Canada with hockey and Trump defiance

In the suburban city of Surrey, an hour-or-so from Vancouver, the red, barn-like building of the Cloverdale Agriplex, surrounded by flat expanses of berry and fruit farmland, is best-known for hosting rodeos, farm shows and agricultural fairs. But on a warm Wednesday evening as the sun sets, it has become a political arena ahead of tomorrow’s pivotal Canadian election.

- Tomos Lewis

“Look, we're Canadians — we are not confrontational,” says Deirde Baird, a 59-year-old school counsellor, who is among 2,500 supporters who have come to see Mark Carney pitch for their votes. “But I think there is a real sense of there being an existential threat from the United States right now. So, let’s protect ourselves.”

Baird is sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with a hockey slogan, “Elbows Up”, that has become a national rallying cry since Trump began calling Canada America’s “51st state”. “I think a lot of people want a strong leader who can guide us through all this - the threats, the tariffs, the trade wars. And I feel like Mark Carney is the person who can do that; I think he has the right skills to pull it off.”

He is a former governor of two central banks and an outsider to electoral politics, but Carney appears to be enjoying himself, often riffing with hecklers during his rallies. At one event in Nova Scotia, after an audience member claimed Carney was a puppet of the World Economic Forum, he put a finger to an imaginary earpiece and joked he was waiting for his orders.

This buoyancy represents an extraordinary turnaround for Canada’s Liberal party, and one of the largest swings in Canadian polling history. When Justin Trudeau resigned in January, the opposition Conservatives were at 44% - a 24 point lead.