Good morning. When Justin Trudeau announced he would be resigning as Canada’s prime minister in January, he did so amid surging support for the Conservative opposition and a sense that its Trump-adjacent leader, Pierre Poilievre, might be the right candidate for a new political era. The Liberals’ near-decade in power appeared to be close to an end.

Now, Trudeau’s successor, the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, has called a snap general election against a dramatically different political backdrop. With Donald Trump’s tariff war and musings about Canada’s future as a 51st state the inescapable mood music, many voters who had given up on the Liberals appear ready to give them another hearing – and Poilievre is trying to distance himself from the president whose methods he was once so happy to adopt.

For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Leyland Cecco, who is covering the election for the Guardian, about the Liberals’ resurgent hopes – and why the other parties are struggling to respond. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/25/tuesday-briefing-first-edition-canada-election-mark-carney-pierre-poilievre