The biggest storylines of this federal election campaign

The Liberals hastily orchestrated a revival and reversed their tanking fortunes.

The Conservatives wrestled with message discipline in the face of a rapidly diminishing lead.

The New Democrats found themselves cast in the shadow of a gripping two-way race.

And amid it all, the Greens prepared to enter a national contest with two leaders, instead of a deeply embattled one.

Here’s what’s at stake for Canada’s federal parties as a monumental campaign begins.

For the Liberals, everything now seems possible.

In the fall of 2024, Justin Trudeau’s party appeared poised for a catastrophic election wipeout. Many Liberals were talking about an election that would potentially reduce the party to third place in the House of Commons.

But now, with former central banker Mark Carney at the helm and U.S. President Donald Trump a major figure in the campaign, the Liberals believe they will be able to not only hold their current seats, but grow their footprint.

The Star spoke to numerous Liberal campaign officials about the coming election, all of whom spoke on background to discuss campaign matters openly.

Several officials said that all of the 184 seats the Liberals won in their 2015 majority victory, and potentially more, are in play for the party.

The Liberals’ polling numbers have changed dramatically since Trudeau’s resignation, with the party slowly closing a 25-point gap with the Conservatives in public support. The Star’s poll tracker, The Signal, predicted as of Friday that the Liberals would win the most seats in an election if it were held that day. 

The Liberals are behind the rest of the parties in candidate nominations, with just 195 candidates out of 343 in place as of Friday afternoon, but party officials said many people have stepped forward since Carney became leader.

The party has also reported strong fundraising, announcing early this month that it had seen its best ever first quarter fundraising total. The precise numbers won’t be announced until early April, but officials have said they will be able to spend to the full Elections Canada expense cap of slightly more than $35 million. 

Liberal campaign staff believe Trump’s threat to the Canadian economy will be the ballot box question in the campaign, and the issue voters will most be focused on.

“They want the best person, best leader to deal with the threat,” one source said.

Another source said they aim to portray Carney as a serious and steady hand on the wheel at a time of peril. 

Liberals expect Trump to disrupt the campaign and anticipate that Carney might have to stop campaigning at times to handle his duties as prime minister. 

None of the sources the Star spoke to believe the Liberals’ current lead in public support is locked in, and they expect the campaign to be dynamic. But they said they also believe that Canadians have been paying more attention than usual to politics and have started to make up their minds.

The Conservatives, and more recently the NDP, have targeted Carney with a series of negative ads, with the Liberals estimating that the Tories have spent millions of dollars attacking Carney since before he became leader. Nevertheless, sources noted that Liberal polling numbers have stayed strong and, in some cases, even increased despite the barrage.

The Liberal rise has coincided with a drop in support for the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois. The party believes declines for the New Democrats and Bloc will give them a strong chance in ridings that have traditionally been three-way splits such as Trois-Rivières, which is held by the Bloc but has seen close challenges from the Liberals and Conservatives.

In British Columbia, those three-way races include ridings like Port Moody—Coquitlam, an NDP seat where the Conservatives and Liberals have both been competitive.

For Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, the pressure is mounting as the party launches its third attempt to wrest power away from the incumbent Liberals.

But Poilievre will be hitting the hustings after his enviable polling lead was quashed by a Liberal surge induced by an American tariff war and Trudeau’s exit.

The challenge for the Conservatives now to recapture lost ground without appearing to deviate too far from the issues they have long insisted must define this campaign: axing the federal price on carbon, building homes, fixing the budget and stopping crime.

“I don’t think that the conversation we’re having around tariffs and economic nationalism is really that far removed from affordability and cost-of-living issues,” said Kate Harrison, vice-chair of Summa Strategies.

“In fact, I think the Conservatives will have a really strong argument when talking about how it’s actually the policies of the last 10 years that have made us vulnerable to the threats from the White House.”

Tim Powers, a former Conservative strategist and chair of Summa Strategies, said the Liberals could wedge Poilievre on issues where he aligns with Trump, like gender identity.

Other wedge issues could include federal industrial carbon pricing, which the Conservatives have vowed to eliminate, compared to Carney’s decision to fully scrap only the consumer carbon levy.

Powers expects the Grits and the Tories to attack each others’ leaders, with Poilievre being framed as nothing more than a career politician, and Carney being painted as a member of the “Davos bro-hood.”

Nevertheless, Powers said the party must be prepared to accept the necessity of pivoting, despite the party’s objections to such framing. 

“The game that was designed to be played, that they had so well set up, is not the game that’s being played right now,” Powers said.

So where exactly will the Conservatives be playing the game the hardest? 

They’re focused on growing their territory in the seat-rich GTA, a region they believe is key to their path to victory, rather than Quebec, where the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois are expected to battle for dominance.

Also in the Tories’ sights: B.C.‘s lower mainland and Atlantic Canada, along with ridings in southwestern and northern Ontario where they’ll go up against the New Democrats.

At 280 nominated candidates as of Friday afternoon, the Conservatives boast the most complete roster of any federal party, and will enter the election flush with cash. 

And when Poilievre sets out on the campaign trail, he’ll be doing so without media allowed to travel along on his plane or bus. His camp has said it’s too costly for a media contingent to join the campaign, while insisting the leader’s tour will still be transparent to the public. 

Several months ago, things appeared optimistic for the NDP.

Leader Jagmeet Singh had just torn up the confidence-and-supply agreement with the unpopular Liberals, claiming credit for bringing national dental care and pharmacare to life. Trudeau was fighting (and losing) an internal battle for his political future and the New Democrats were ready to present themselves as the only viable alternative to Poilievre’s Conservatives.

Now, the NDP is sliding in national polls while the Liberals have made a comeback.

New Democrats insist it’s not time to panic, and that a national campaign where they are on equal footing with the Liberals and Conservatives will give them plenty of opportunities to make their argument to Canadians: elect more New Democrats and you will get results.

Their pitch will be twofold: presenting Singh and his party as the best option to fight for Canadians against Trump, while contrasting the NDP with its Liberal and Conservative rivals by claiming those parties will make Canada more like the U.S.

That means hammering on key issues like protecting public health care, solving the housing crisis, lowering grocery prices and taxing the rich — all in the context of Canada’s response to Trump.

“I ask you to ask yourself, who do you want in Ottawa fighting for you? Who do you want in Ottawa who’s going to put you and your family first? Who do you think is actually going to prioritize working people over the CEOs? Who’s going to prioritize working families over billionaires?” Singh said Thursday. “That answer is very simple. That’s New Democrats.”

The party expects to spend close to the election spending limit of $35.4 million, run a more efficient and targeted campaign like the Ontario NDP in this year’s provincial election, and to prioritize digital advertising over traditional media for the first time.

The NDP can boast that of the major parties, it will head into the election with a leader who has the most campaign experience at their party’s helm. But five MPs from its 24-member caucus are not re-offering, with the Conservatives and Liberals vying for many of its seats, especially in B.C. where half of the NDP’s caucus is located.

And with three elections under his belt, Singh will also have to face stagnating support for his leadership among Canadians, along with a strong association with the Trudeau brand. 

Still, the party sees an opening for gains in specific ridings, mostly in urban ridings held by the Liberals. The NDP hopes to grow its seat count in cities like Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Halifax and St. John’s. 

By Friday afternoon, the party had nominated 230 candidates.

The Green Party will be entering the race with a new face for the party for the second election in a row. The party is also making history in Canada by having two co-leaders in a national election campaign.

New co-leader Jonathan Pedneault is expected to represent the party in the leaders’ debates, and the party hopes the young, bilingual activist can gain national recognition during the campaign and potentially even give it a breakthrough in Quebec.

He will face an uphill climb winning a seat of his own, however, as he attempts to beat Liberal cabinet minister Rachel Bendayan in Montreal’s Outremont riding. 

Goal one for the Greens will be to return their two MPs — co-leader and longtime Saanich—Gulf Islands MP Elizabeth May and Kitchener Centre’s Mike Morrice — to Parliament in this election.

The party will also target ridings held by Greens provincially, such as Guelph and Fredericton, the latter of which was previously held by the party. Other ridings surrounding May’s, like the Liberals’ Vancouver Quadra and the NDP’s North Island—Powell River, are also on the Greens’ target list.

May told the Star she hopes the coming election produces a minority Parliament, in which Green MPs are able to do what they do best: work collaboratively with their colleagues and scrutinize legislation in a non-partisan fashion.

And in her eyes, it matters more that people vote than how they vote.

Like other parties, the Greens see Trump and his threats as the defining issue of the campaign — and will push Canadians to “envision a different, more democratic future,” Pedneault told the Star.

The Greens are also heading into their first election in several campaigns where addressing the climate crisis may take a back seat to other issues.

It’s a gap they are keen to fill.

“We’re not walking away from the single largest threat to the survival of human civilization,” May said.

Ultimately, the Greens will face a challenge also shared by the NDP: finding a way to convince anxious Canadians their party is worth a vote in trying times, while fending off bigger parties aiming to capture their seats.

The party had nominated 260 candidates as of Friday afternoon.