Is Pierre Poilievre too 'in sync' with Donald Trump?

The most controversial statement of the federal election so far was uttered before the campaign even started — not by a federal politician, but the premier of Alberta.

In an interview taped on March 8 with a right-wing American media outlet, Danielle Smith said that, while there would always be disagreements, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would be "very much in sync with … the new direction in America" and that Canada and the United States would "have a great relationship" for as long as Poilievre and Donald Trump were in office.

"If we do have Pierre as our prime minister, then I think there's a number of things that we could do together," Smith said. "Pierre believes in development, he believes in low-cost energy, he believes that we need to have low taxes, doesn't believe in any of the woke stuff that we've seen taking over our politics for the last five years."

Liberals have, for months, been trying to link Poilievre and Trump, either substantively or stylistically — Chrystia Freeland, for instance, used the term "maple syrup MAGA" to describe the Conservatives last fall. And so Smith's comments — which only came to wider attention last weekend — were a gift to the governing party.

Standing in front of Rideau Hall on Sunday, Mark Carney said Canadians would have to decide "whether they want a government that is unifying, standing up for Canada and is taking focused action to build a better economy" or whether they "want division and Americanism." 

"That's what Mr. Poilievre seems to be offering," Carney said. "Just endorsed by the premier of Alberta."

Last month when Trump himself said that Poilievre was "not MAGA" (referring to his Make America Great Again movement), Poilievre was quick to note the comment. But the Conservative leader has avoided offering a direct rebuttal of Smith's analysis.

"People are free to make their own comments," he said on Monday, before arguing that he would present the strongest response to Trump's threats.

As recently as a few months ago, any similarities between Poilievre and Trump might not have seemed to matter. It at least didn't appear that the Conservative leader's loud populism and aggressive tactics were imperilling the Conservative Party's chances of forming government.

But this past Wednesday night, a Conservative strategist made the same comparison that Smith did — only this time as a lament.

"He looks too much like Trump. He sounds too much like Trump. He uses the lexicon of Trump," Kory Teneycke, who managed the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party's campaign earlier this year, told an audience in Toronto.

Canadian politicians accusing each other of importing "American-style" politics is nothing new. But to some degree or another, this federal election is actually about the American president. And Trump is a very different kind of political figure.

As people, Trump and Poilievre have some obvious differences.

But 55 per cent of respondents to a recent survey by Abacus Data said they thought Poilievre would have either strongly or somewhat supported Trump in the last American presidential election.And it's not hard to see how Canadians might have come to that conclusion (above and beyond simply connecting Canadian Conservatives with U.S. Republicans).