The Liberal leader is leading in all demographic groups except for men aged 35 to 54

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 7, 2025.

OTTAWA—Women are stampeding to the Liberals in this election.

The most recent Ipsos Reid poll showed that, for women over the age of 55, Prime Minister Mark Carney holds a 27-point lead over Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

The Liberal leader is leading in all demographic groups except for men aged 35 to 54.

But the startling gap between women and men is worth examining.

Poilievre didn’t help himself last week when he launched his housing strategy claiming that women’s biological clock would run out before a Liberal housing program would help.

“I don’t think any woman wants to hear Pierre Poilievre talking about their body, period!” was the immediate retort from New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh.

Critics on social media questioned why Poilievre plans to cancel national childcare if he is so interested in women having babies.

The social gains introduced by the Liberals over the last decade are particularly important for women.

Obviously, childcare is huge, and the dental care program is especially important for older women on fixed incomes who cannot afford dental work. Ditto for school lunch programs and pharmacare, including free birth control, IUDs, hormonal implants, and the morning-after pill.

Poilievre is definitely not on board with national childcare, and has been ambiguous about dental and pharmacare. He has promised that no person currently covered under those programs would be cut off, but is silent on the extension of the programs to others. He also voted against the National School Food Program, and is silent on its continuation.

These are issues of particular interest to women.

It is not lost on them that several dozen members of the Conservative caucus have pledged to support limitations on abortion through private members’ bills. Poilievre himself, in his very first speech to Parliament, spoke out in opposition to public health funding for transgender medical services.

The Trump Supreme Court nominations that resulted in an end to reproductive choice in the United States, and the United States president decision to abolish equal rights policies for women, minorities, gays, and transsexuals has frightened Canadian women, as well. If it could happen there, what about us? Poilievre doesn’t pass that smell test.

Carney leads dramatically in net-positive favourability. That sum is the number achieved when you deduct unfavourable from the favourable viewpoints to discover what people think about each candidate.

Carney is enjoying a positive favourability among men and women. With men, the net range is 18-plus while for women it is 26-plus, according to the same poll.

The difference between Carney’s favourability rating and Poilievre’s unfavourable is stunning. Three in five women—at 61 per cent—say they have an unfavourable view of Poilievre.

Carney has also managed to attract the majority of young voters, a crucial element in Justin Trudeau’s 2015 majority government victory.

Forty-five per cent of young men between the ages of 18 and 34 now support the Liberals, and 46 per cent of men over 54 years old support the Liberals.

We are almost four weeks away from the vote, and the leaders’ debates could both have an effect on the outcome.

Poilievre has been cautioned publicly by members of his own party that he needs to pivot away from the anti-Liberal message to an anti-Trump stance.

But the challenge for the Conservative leader is that a significant percentage of his base also supports Trump. So if he is too tough on the American president, he will lose supporters, as well.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who is busy courting Trumpian podcasters and running her own “Trash Canada” campaign, is stoking the flames of separation in Alberta, which is decidedly unhelpful to her federal leader.

Poilievre not only has had to pivot on message that Canada is broken, he also has to attack Trump. The “lost Liberal decade” phrase, which peppers all his public declarations, seems to reinforce the notion that Canada is broken, even while his Bring it Home/Canada First mantra sounds like a page out of the Trump playbook.

Of course, Trump’s chaotic approach to government is ensuring that his prints are all over this Canadian election.

His ill-advised Liberation Day announcement of worldwide tariffs on April 2 has certainly caught everyone’s attention. Even if the American Senate is successful in reversing the emergency resolution that allowed the president to impose tariffs, it is going to take time for this to happen.

Financial markets and ordinary citizens in the United States are already very nervous about the cost of these tariffs.

But Trump’s tenure is four years, and Poilievre only has three weeks.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The only party that must navigate this issue with great difficulty is the Conservative Party.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 9, 2022.

OTTAWA—The f-bomb was allegedly dropped in the House of Commons on May 4 by a frustrated prime minister.

It was not picked up by any microphone and even though Conservatives vociferously demanded an apology, even they were at odds over what exactly was said.

Upon exiting the House, Justin Trudeau himself mimicked his own father’s explanation when Trudeau senior was accused of using the same language in 1971.

Members of the official opposition jumped on the transgression, but their voices were muted when a clip of leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre emerged on social media, saying, “Fuck you guys” at a legislative committee.

An f-bomb may have been fatal a half-century ago, but today it barely makes a ripple in news coverage.

In the same way as language has been liberated, so too have social attitudes.

The notion that a non-binary leader could be the head of a Canadian political party was unheard of 50 years ago.

In fact, no one really even knew what non-binary meant.

Today, the interim leader of the Green Party is non-binary and it is common to state his/her/their declaratory gender preference.

Fifty years ago, the notion of legalizing abortion was hugely controversial. Even the most liberal of politicians had to tread carefully when the issue was up for debate.

Today, it is accepted that the majority of Canadians are in support of a woman’s right to choose.

Even in the Conservative leadership, only one candidate is openly promoting an end to abortion in Canada, even though two other candidates with similar views have been been kept off the leadership list.

The same cannot be said for Conservative party members, many of whom have public views opposing abortion and have promised to vote against the procedure in any private member’s bill brought forward in a parliamentary session.

In the last election, observers attacked the Liberals for raising the spectre of a renewed abortion debate based on the number of Tories who had promised to do so.

But now that the United States Supreme Court is preparing to rescind the law legalizing abortions in that country, the issue will move to the forefront in Canada too.

The only party that must navigate this issue with great difficulty is the Conservative Party.

The prime minister has already said that the government is looking at a regulatory amendment to the Canada Health Act to guarantee a woman’s universal right to reproductive choice. No time limit has been put on the move but one thing is certain.

The amendment will force the Conservative Party to take a solid position on the issue once and for all.

The longer it takes to bring in any changes, the better it is for the Liberals. The government would love nothing better than to have that wedge issue to present to Canadians in the next election.

Six months ago, the issue was not even on the general public agenda.

But with the bombshell leak on Roe v. Wade last week, there is no doubt that a woman’s right to choose will be an ongoing political issue south of the border. And what dominates in the United States will undoubtedly have a spillover effect in Canada.

According to the Pew Research Center in Washington, 59 per cent of Americans support abortion access. That number jumps to more than 70 per cent in Canada.

A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, expected in June, would immediately impact access in all states across the country, including those that currently offer the right of abortion to all.

The result of a legal reversal to reproductive access by the United States will embolden the minority of Canadians who have been actively opposing abortions for years.

It will also mean that more money, and more volunteers will be crossing the border with the same fervour enjoyed by the cross-border movement of ‘freedom fighters’ who joined the Ottawa truckers’ occupation.

There is no law in Canada on the issue of reproductive choice, but there are standards of care that have been developed by the medical profession.

However, there is an uneven application of these standards, with some provinces offer little or no access while most other provinces make abortions readily available.

The Liberals promised in the last election to introduce regulations forcing less-compliant provinces to open up their abortion access requirements.

In 2020 and 2021, New Brunswick suffered federally-imposed financial penalties totalling almost $300,000 for refusing to offer access.

Expect last week’s abortion bombshell, not the f-one, to dominate the fall agenda.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.