IT’S ELECTION SEASON IN CANADA — and mercifully, it will be a short one.
That’s fine, because there is only one ballot question that really bears asking this time around.
In 2021, the election was, in part, a referendum on the handling on the COVID-19 pandemic, but there were other matters to consider.
The Trudeau Liberals won a third straight mandate — but their second in a minority position.
The Conservatives, under Erin O’Toole, won the popular vote but came up short in the country’s unique electoral math — in part because of Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party hiving off some Conservative support.
It was almost a carbon copy of the election two years earlier, when Trudeau’s Liberals edged the Andrew Scheer Tories, who once again won the popular vote.
Four years earlier, it was Trudeau’s Red Wave that swept the Stephen Harper Conservatives from power.
Each of these elections — and indeed, almost every election that’s ever taken place in Canada — has seen voters cast their ballots in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons.
People voted on taxation, on social issues, on the economy, on foreign policy, on health care, on reconciliation, on leadership, on scandal and on many more issues of importance.
Here in 2025, it’s different. One issue looms above them all.
The issue that we should all have in mind as we head to the ballots exactly one month from now is this — which party and which leader can best protect Canadian interests in the face of the existential threat posed by the president of the United States?
It’s that simple.
Donald Trump is doing no less than threatening our way of life as Canadians.
Whether it’s a negotiating tactic or not, we need to have strength of strategy, strength of character and strength of resolve on our side of the table.
How Canada responds to this threat will dictate the future of all those other issues we have prioritized in previous elections.
Single-issue elections, if they are to happen at all, typically come in wartime.
Perhaps that truly is where we are right now.
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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.
