As Canada braces for damaging U.S. tariffs, Canadians are split on who they think would be the best leader to take on President Donald Trump, new polling shows.
More than quarter of Canadians (28 per cent) say Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is a tough negotiator who would get the best deal for Canada from Trump, according to an Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News and published Thursday.
Almost a quarter (23 per cent) said the same for Liberal leadership hopeful and former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, followed by 11 per cent for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Fewer Canadians had the same opinion for NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who both polled at seven per cent.
At the same time, despite Poilievre being ranked the best in terms of negotiating with Trump, 31 per cent of Canadians also said the Tory leader would “roll over and accept whatever President Trump demands.”
Canadians were less skeptical of Trudeau on that front, with 22 per cent saying the prime minister would yield to Trump’s demands.
Freeland fared best in that regard at four per cent, followed by Carney at six per cent and Singh at nine per cent, polling showed.
“Canadians are a bit broken up,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Global Public Affairs, commenting on the results of the poll, which asked 1,000 Canadian adults their opinions about different leaders dealing with Trump and the U.S.
“I think these circumstances that we find ourselves in, and with the direct threat that we’re facing from the United States, a lot of things that were tried and true rules in Canadian politics aren’t necessarily going to play out the way that they used to play out.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
“One question that Pierre Poilievre is going to have to answer in order to get Tory support headed in the right direction is whether or not he would be prepared to roll over for President Trump.”
The tariff threats from Trump come at a time of political uncertainty in Canada as Trudeau, who announced his resignation in January, is set to be replaced by a new Liberal party leader next month.
Meanwhile, opposition parties are also pushing for an early federal election this year.
When it comes to uniting Canadians on the changes and investments required to make Canada less reliant on the U.S., Poilievre is seen as the best option as a leader, with 27 per cent saying so.
Carney was a close second at 24 per cent, followed by Trudeau at 11 per cent, Singh at eight per cent and Freeland at six per cent.
Most Canadians also believe Poilievre (26 per cent) and Carney (24 per cent) are capable of implementing effective government programs to counter the challenges brought on by Trump’s threatened tariffs.
However, almost a quarter of Canadians are not confident that any of the listed leaders — Trudeau, Poilievre, Singh, Carney or Freeland — will be effective against Trump.
Canada’s relationship with the U.S. is top of mind for many Canadians right now.
Another Ipsos poll published Wednesday showed the Canada-U.S. relationship was the third-most important issue facing the country today, with 11 per cent of Canadians who were surveyed ranking it as their top priority.
As uncertainty grows about what comes next, the Liberals have, for the first time since 2021, taken a slight lead over the Conservatives, Ipsos polling released Tuesday showed.
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between Feb. 21 and 24, 2025, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,000 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to, coverage error and measurement error.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
