Reversal of fortune

Is it Mark Carney's election to lose? Earlier in the year, the Liberal party was in the doldrums, then Donald Trump made a move on Canadian sovereignty

- Leyland Cecco

Every election, the pundits and pedants say the same thing: Canadians don't vote directly for their prime minister.

But on a rural intersection south of Ottawa, residents could be mistaken for thinking otherwise as they prepare for election day on 28 April.

Hammered into the mud are campaign signs for Liberal leader Mark Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre at the only place in the country where the dividing line between parties is as literal as two signs facing off on opposite sides of the road.

The figurative showdown between the leaders is a rare instance of two frontrunners running for parliamentary seats in adjacent electoral districts. And the intersection, the briefest of meeting points for the two districts, captures the stakes of a "highly presidentialised" race.

For nearly two years, Poilievre, a brazen and belligerent seven-term lawmaker, was the heir-apparent to Canada's top job. In poll after poll, his party trounced the governing Liberals in a hypothetical matchup.

Poilievre's attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were effective and relentless. With a finely tuned sense for what angered voters, he took the unpopular prime minister to task over a cost of living crisis, housing unaffordability, mass immigration and a controversial tax on carbon emissions.

The gambit appeared to be paying off. In early January, Trudeau announced he was resigning after more than a decade in power. The Liberal leader's reputation was tarnished by party infighting and a fatigued electorate. In the days after, the Conservatives hit their highest polling to date and with an election due this year, looked poised for a generation-defining win.

And then Donald Trump barrelled into Canadian politics. The unpredictable US president threatened to impose tariffs on Canada and even to annex the country to make it the 51st state. He addressed Trudeau as "governor" and threatened to use economic coercion.