Life without U.S. President Donald Trump will likely be immensely more complicated for the Prime Minister and his government, writes Ken Polk. / WHITE HOUSE PHOTO
Like many successful prime ministers past, Mark Carney has been blessed with his political adversaries.
First, President Donald Trump's assault on Canada's economic and political sovereignty created a cause, a sense of national urgency, and a political opportunity that seemed ideally matched to the Prime Minister’s professional resume and generally calm, even-handed personal demeanour. Additionally, Trump has furnished the Prime Minister with a ready-made scapegoat for Canada’s economic problems.
Second, in Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, Carney has a primary adversary who, notwithstanding his many political skills, has yet to forge a solid bond of trust and support beyond the hard-core base of his own party.
Trump, as is his wont, has more or less blotted out the Canadian media and political sun, pushing aside other pressing national concerns and other politicians.
Not altogether surprisingly, in this politically congenial context, the Prime Minister has become something of a political colossus. The political poll aggregator 338canada currently gives Carney a Pierre Poilievre-sized, between-election lead over the Conservatives, and a projected seat count approaching 250 were the election held now.
But it won't be held now. Under the federal fixed-date elections law, the next election is scheduled for Monday, October 15, 2029. Of course, the Prime Minister still has the constitutional option to call an election before then.
But the unfortunate example of the now former NDP Premier of British Columbia demonstrates that calling an election early because you think you have a good chance of winning against an apparently weak opposition is not without risk.
The end of Trump comes into view
Beginning November 3, the clock begins to wind down on the Trump Presidency. Even if the Republicans pull off a miraculous comeback victory by holding Congress in the mid-term elections on Tuesday, presidents, as a rule, become “lame ducks” in the final two years of their second administration because they are constitutionally prohibited from running for a third term.
Yes, I know there are worries out there that Trump will try to get around that term limit, but the 22nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution imposing the two-term limit is air-tight. But I digress.
Should the U.S. poll aggregators be correct and the Democrats win the House or the Senate, or both, Trump’s lame-duck status will become more vivid as a result of his strategy of making the mid-terms a referendum on his second-term leadership and policies, which have grown steadily more unpopular.
True, Trump will be influential in determining the next Republican presidential nominee. His MAGA base pretty much remade the Republican Party in Trump’s image. But what we have seen throughout the Trump era is that his MAGA base does not turn out in full force when Trump’s name is not on the ballot.
The imponderable for Carney’s election brain trust is how durable Trump's second-term economic issue set will be after he is gone. Right now, Americans’ disapproval of the President’s management of their economy is 65%, a level not seen since the post-COVID inflation hike, which fueled Trump's re-election in 2024.
Should U.S. economic policy return to something like the pre-Trump norm, a significant pillar would be knocked out from under Carney’s “Canada Strong” pitch. It would at least make his core proposition — that Canada's economic relationship with the U.S. is irrevocably broken — less certain or politically saleable.
All of this suggests that Carney needs Trump in the Oval Office when he calls the next election in order to maintain his voter coalition.
Life without Trump: Build Homes Canada
As indicated above, another reason Carney needs Trump is that the President’s predatory foghorn diplomatic and economic policies have, in a sense, bought Carney a pass from voters when it comes to delivering results. The Prime Minister’s messaging at home and his many influential speeches abroad drive home the novelty of the “rupture” in global economic relations that Trump has provoked.
This has been used both as justification for the Prime Minister’s strenuous globe-trotting efforts to diversify Canada's security and trade relations away from the U.S. and as a case for the fact that “Canada Strong” will be built overnight.
Build Homes Canada (BCH) is a case in point.
Pre-Trump and pre-Carney, all political parties agreed Canada was in the midst of a generational housing affordability crisis, affecting all income levels, and of particular concern among young Canadians who are finding it so hard to buy their first home compared to their parents.
Governments at all levels made improving housing affordability a priority by cutting sales taxes, easing financing terms for developers, streamlining complex zoning laws, and offering financial incentives for reductions in municipal property development charges.
Certainly, a residue of this urgency carried over in Carney's 2025 election platform. Indeed, the Liberals pledged $20 billion to promote housing affordability: $7 billion to incentivize cutting development charges in half and $13 billion on the centerpiece of the Carney approach to housing — BCH.
In the words of BCH’s CEO, Ana Bailão, at a recent speech at the Empire Club, BCH is about getting “the federal government back onto the front lines of the delivery of affordable housing.”
BCH’s mandate is a huge mandate by any standard. It is a task that has involved, among other jobs, the creation of a new Crown Corporation, successful alignment of housing policies across governments, and a commitment to spur the creation of a scaled modular housing sector — something that has never been commercially viable in Canada.
In her address, Ms.Bailão said that through its various programs and partnerships, some 23,000 affordable homes are currently in the construction pipeline, though identifying the actual number currently under construction is a tougher job. Commenting on BCH’s first-year results, she said “If you ask me if I'm satisfied with the results, the answer is no. But if you ask me if I'm encouraged, the answer is yes."
The Trump cushion has helped protect BCH from high-profile media scrutiny, as has the fact that housing affordability has improved in the last year due to market conditions. The supply of purpose-built rentals has jumped impressively, leading to lower rents. And the softening of the Canadian housing market has led to a reduction in house prices across many markets. This week’s Bank of Canada interest rate increase will likely lead to more softening in the housing market and a slowdown in construction in the next year.
The recent Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation report on housing affordability found that current home construction is running at less than half of the over 400,000 new homes Canada will need to build each year to restore housing affordability by 2036 — 10 years from now! In this context, 23,000 homes in the BCH pipeline is but a fraction of a drop in the bucket.
Without Trump, how would the BCH be judged in terms of delivering results? Likely not very high. And you can be sure that, at the end of the day, it is the number of new homes built that will matter to Canadians, nothing else.
So life without Trump will likely be immensely more complicated for the Prime Minister and his government. I would expect that January 19, 2029 — the date Trump leaves office — is certainly figuring prominently in advance of Liberal election scenario planning.
