Mark Carney and Donald Trump: What Changed in Canadian Politics by April 2025

As of early April 2025, Canadian politics looks nothing like it did a few months earlier. Justin Trudeau has been replaced by Mark Carney, Joe Biden has been replaced by Donald Trump, and the polls that once pointed to a Conservative win under Pierre Poilievre now favour the Liberals. Trump's tariff war is the reason.

I'm Moe Asgarian, a real estate broker in Toronto and ranked 47th at RE/MAX worldwide, so most of what I write about is the Toronto and GTA housing market. Politics gets a post when it moves money, and this one does.

How the polls flipped before April 2025

A few months earlier, every poll result I was following pointed the same way: the Conservative Party of Canada, led by Pierre Poilievre, was going to win the election. Trudeau was still prime minister and Biden was still president. Back then the thinking was simple, that the problem was Liberal policy and the Conservatives had to replace them. Then Trump arrived, started threatening Canada, and opened a tariff war against Canada and most of the world. The priority changed. Polling in March 2025 showed the biggest worry for Canadians was the fallout from Trump's tariffs, and that one question reshuffled the whole race.

Mark Carney was never an unknown face

Carney was not new. He ran the central bank of Canada and then the central bank of Britain, and most people knew him as a banker rather than a politician. A few months before, nobody would have guessed the political and economic situation in Canada would turn in a way that gave the Liberal Party any chance at all. As soon as he took power, Carney warned that Trump was attacking Canadian workers, families and businesses, and said Canada could not let him succeed. That hard tone from day one told you the relationship between the two men was going to be tense.

He kept the same emphasis through the Liberal leadership race, and once he became interim prime minister he introduced measures against the tariffs. He became, formally, the man who intends to stand up to Trump. His critics say he does not have the political experience. The hope among his supporters runs the other way: that Carney's banking and finance background is exactly what shifts Trump's position on Canada.

The first Carney and Trump phone call

To a point, that seems to have happened. Trump congratulated Carney fourteen days after he was sworn in, which is an unprecedented delay, but he has publicly stated his willingness to work with him. After their phone call, Trump posted on his own social network that the call had been very productive and that he and Carney agree on a lot of things, and he said the two would meet in person after Canada's coming election. The tone was friendlier than anything he had said about Canada before, with no more talk of taking the country over.

Carney's read on the same conversation was different. He said the era of the old, close relationship with the United States is finished. As of April 2025, I would not call this optimism strong or durable.

Off the newest tariff list, still under the car tariffs

Some of that hope came from Canada being absent from the new American tariff list. Apart from the tariffs that were already in place, Canada and Mexico were not hit by the newest round. But the auto tariffs are still there, and that is genuinely worrying. The bigger issue is that Trump is not predictable. One day everything is fine, the next day there is a tariff, then it is cancelled, then there is an exemption, then a fresh threat. That churn creates a general distrust across the country, and distrust is not what the Canadian economy needs.

On the Canadian side, the move I thought was smart was the answer to the car tariffs. Carney put tariffs only on the American vehicles that fall outside the Canada, United States and Mexico agreement. Not passive, but not pouring fuel on the fire either. That is roughly how public opinion seems to read him so far: respectful, still diplomatic, and not rolling over.

The bill the tariffs are covering up

Here is the part I think gets lost. The Liberals have been in office for nine years, and some of the results are in front of us. The federal government is heading into the new budget year with a severe deficit. Immigration went too far, and now a lot of visas are being rejected, with no plan for the people who came on work permits to reach permanent residency. Unemployment and the wider economy are soft, and interest rates in this country were being cut one after another as of early April 2025. None of that is Trump's fault, and the tariffs have not even landed their full effect yet. Honestly, without the American tariff story I think the Liberals would have been swept out and the party name would barely have survived this election. Luck knocked on their door.

Getting ready for a different three or four years

Whoever wins, Canada has to prepare for at least the next three to four years in a world that has changed. That means building different trade relationships, and at the same time using the advantage we still have, which is sharing a border with one of the largest trading partners on earth. For housing, the practical effect through early April 2025 was hesitation. People wait until they know what the rules are, and then they move.

If you are trying to work out what all of this means for your own purchase or sale in Toronto or the GTA, fill out the form at the bottom of this page or book a free consultation and we will go through your numbers together. Stay well and take care.