Trump’s Tariffs Are Helping Liberals Win In Canada — But Not Here

BRANTFORD, Ontario, Canada — The low-rise factories that pepper the perimeters of Brantford, Ontario — just an hour away from Toronto and an hour and a half from the U.S.-Canada border — produce the paper cartons for eggs, steel wire used in construction and precision tooling for auto parts. They may not be glamorous, but they are essential components of the global supply chain, and they happen to be the largest employers in this city of 104,688, too.

So, for a city like Brantford, President Donald Trump’s tariffs — 25 percent on steel and auto imports — are catastrophic. As businesses grapple with the rising cost of trading with the U.S., manufacturing plants are temporarily shutting down, workers have been fired and the looming question for those who remain is, “Will I be next?”

“We’re continuously dealing with the ups and downs,” says Chris Holland, an executive member of a steelworkers union chapter that encompasses many of the manufacturing workers in Brantford and its surrounding cities. Recently, his days have been filled with termination meetings and bargaining leave agreements. “We don’t really see a decent future.”

The conventional wisdom these days is that Canada’s Liberals will solidly win against the Conservatives in this month’s race to elect a prime minister thanks to the tariffs, because Canadians believe current Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney will be better suited to negotiate with Trump than the Conservatives’ Pierre Poilievre. Most would think this attitude would be even more prominent in a working class-town that’s been hit hard by the tariffs.

Yet in Brantford, which has been ranked as the fifth most vulnerable Canadian city to tariffs due to its manufacturing industry, there’s a divide, especially as Conservatives try to maintain their 17-year grip on the city. Even when Carney showed up on Friday, drawing hundreds of supporters donned in his party’s signature red, a virtual split screen emerged as a smaller group of counter-protesters flanked the area with megaphones and anti-Carney signs.

And on the ground, outside of Liberal events, many locals say they’d still vote for the Conservative party for an array of reasons: an abiding wariness of Liberals, the shadow of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a general liking for the local MP, Larry Brock. Carney may be a banker with an extensive background in economics — a fitting portfolio for a potential Trump-induced global recession, some supporters say — but to the residents of Brantford, he’s still a Liberal.

People here tell me that Conservatives would be better at fixing the economy, and that sentiment alone shows how in places like Brantford, political identity can eclipse the terror over tariffs that has been boosting the Liberal party elsewhere. And it is cities like Brantford that Poilievre will have to win definitively to maintain any hope of victory on April 28 — or to just avoid the embarrassment of a complete blowout.

It’s not that the city isn’t frustrated with Trump’s tariffs and the disintegrating relationship between the U.S. and Canada, two countries that have relied on each other for a century. On the contrary, Brantford is going through a period of mourning and high anxiety. Factory workers are riddled with worry about their future, facing each day with bated breaths as they wait to hear if layoffs have hit their team. Grocery stores loudly advertise Canadian-sourced products, often marked with a maple leaf. Even Brantford Mayor Kevin Davis, whose family shares a long history of traveling between Canada and America, says he was hit with a wave of anger when he saw the tariff announcements.

“There's a sense of betrayal. When times are tough, Americans and Canadians have stuck together. We've backed one another, whether it's the Korean War or Afghanistan, World War II,” Davis says, seated in his office within Brantford City Hall, which is filled with over 150 years' worth of memorabilia — old maps, artwork, fireplace andirons made in 1845.

“Canadians and Americans have been there for one another because we also defend, jointly, North America. So it felt like, ‘Why us?’”

This anger, however, hasn’t been channeled into as many votes for Liberals as they’d probably hope for. Although poll aggregator 338Canada found that support for Liberals increased by 11 percent since Carney became prime minister in early March, Conservatives are still ahead by 12 percentage points.

One reason the Conservative brand is so strong in Brantford is because of the persistent appeal of MP Larry Brock, who is a member of Poilievre’s Shadow Cabinet. Brock has represented Brantford-Brant since 2021 and spent a large chunk of his career as the assistant Crown attorney for Brantford, working for the state to prosecute people accused of crimes — a role that has helped him craft his signature tough-on-crime messaging. It’s an approach that continues to be popular with residents, as can be seen in the blue Larry Brock lawn signs that line the streets in the city.

But there’s also a different understanding of the stakes in Brantford that helps Brock’s — and Poilievre’s — chances: In Brantford, this isn’t an election about tariffs or Trump. This election, still, is a referendum on the last decade of Liberal rule.

At an auto parts store near downtown Brantford, Khaled Abo sits at the register, waiting for customers to arrive.

“The work is very slow now; it’s supposed to be very busy nowadays as the seasons change over,” Abo says. “But people don’t have money.”

Abo, who is manager of the store, feels the weight of the tariffs. He points to a corner of the store, where a mostly empty wall rack displays a few tire wheels. It’s barren, he says, because he’s been putting off purchasing more supplies, trying to see how long he can wait until he needs to restock, likely at a higher price point than in the past. And even if he did stock up, he’s had fewer customers — there are just a handful of cars parked outside for service — reflecting the souring mood of consumers in the midst of deep economic uncertainty.

And yet, in Abo’s book, it is Conservatives who hold the answer to his woes.

“Conservative, it’s better for our businesses. For me, I think I’m gonna go Conservative,” Abo says. “I promise you this: If [Liberals] win another election, they’re gonna put the carbon tax back on. I don’t want that.”

For Abo, Poilievre is the one who holds the answers. Even as just 33 percent of Canadians say Poilievre would be a tough negotiator who could get the best deal for Canada from Trump, Abo is convinced Poilievre “knows what’s good.” As he sees it, it is Conservatives, not Liberals, who can fix issues like affordability and homelessness, which have been a core part of Poilievre’s stump speeches. Poilievre, who has been running on the idea that Canada is broken, has promised to “build the homes” so that supply can match the skyrocketing demand for real estate. He’s also promised a far steeper income tax cut than Carney.

“As an immigrant, Liberal is better. But look, we live in this country. I've seen so many homeless, so many people that are poor,” Abo says. “And the Conservative party, they are promising to take care of these kind of people, right? I think I'm gonna stand with my Canadian people. I don't care about outside — I know we help outside a lot, but I think it's time to help inside.”

Similarly for Alexis Williams, who works at a furniture leasing store, Poilievre’s ability to be a tough negotiator against Trump isn’t top of mind. The more important matter at hand is a struggling economy she blames on Trudeau, and that judgment is likely to guide her vote.

“I don't think Liberals are gonna do anything good for us. I don't have a side in any of it. In my opinion, honestly, politics suck,” Williams says. “But in this situation, I think Trudeau screwed this country. So, yeah, it needs to get away from Liberal.”

If the argument seems familiar, it’s because it’s an attack line used repeatedly by Poilievre on his campaign: Liberals have ruined the economy. Canada is now in a dire state. Only Conservatives can save the country from this mess. For the last two years, he’s told voters that the Liberals are to blame — for the cost of living crisis, for the lack of housing, and now even for the country’s reliance on the U.S.

“We need to reverse the disastrous Liberal economic policies of the last 10 years that made us so dependent on the Americans in the first place,” Poilievre said at a campaign stop earlier this month. That’s an attack line that might have lost its bite in many parts of Canada. But it still resonates within Brantford, where Conservative loyalty persists despite the Poilievre naysayers.

For his opponents, the party’s persistent popularity here is disappointing but not shocking, especially as anti-Trudeau sentiment ran high last year. “People are tired of the Liberals, so it might be, ‘OK, we don't care what Liberals are doing, now we are going to vote for somebody else and next best,’” says Kathleen B., as she sits with other parents waiting for their kids in the lobby area of the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre — named after the national hockey hero who grew up in Brantford and is now under fire for being a Trump ally. In a hushed voice, Kathleen says she is voting Liberal this year — but was granted the ability to not provide her last name to avoid conflict with her neighbors.

But the city isn’t totally immune to the forces propelling Carney to likely victory, if the crowd showing up at the Liberal leader’s Brantford campaign stop is any indication. And that could help his party claw some votes back to pad out their total in the election. The MP Brock, who won by nearly 12 points in 2021, will likely win by a smaller margin this year for that reason, says Mayor Davis, who has shown support for Brock — a sign that debates over tariffs could chip away at Poilievre’s support in this staunchly conservative city.

For those organizing on the left in Brantford, that slight tick to the left is enough to keep them inspired. “We'll see change. It won't happen this term. It may happen the next term, but we've got some rebuilding to do,” says Holland, whose union is backing the progressive New Democratic Party.

Change, however, is in the eyes of the one doing the beholding.

For Martin Greenway, the Conservatives are what represent a new start. He says so with certainty, as he sits on a bench in the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre, rows of Canadian flags dangling above him. Atop his head sits a khaki baseball cap imprinted with a U.S. flag on one side — a remnant of the U.S.-Canada relationship that once was.

The manufacturing plant where he works, located outside of Brantford, has been hit by tariffs, of course. There have been layoffs. There will be a shutdown.

A new path is needed, yes, but only by booting out Liberals.

“The track record that they’ve had the past several years,” Greenway says, “it’s time for a change.”