SATURDAY RECAP: Leaders have packed itineraries, Liberals maintain slim lead
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Follow the Toronto Sun’s live coverage of Canada’s 45th general election and tariff-related news, with contributions from Brian Lilley, Bryan Passifiume, Lorrie Goldstein and columnists Joe Warmington and Warren Kinsella, as well as contributions from the Sun’s editors and reporters covering the election ahead of the April 28 vote. Plus, you can find all of our election coverage here.
KESSEL: DOES CARNEY KNOW WHAT GENOCIDE MEANS?
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At a recent Liberal Party rally, Prime Minister Mark Carney responded to a heckler who accused Israel of perpetrating a genocide in Gaza with the words: “I’m aware. It’s why we have an arms embargo.” That sentence was not just a deflection — it was a tacit endorsement of one of the most dangerous and legally baseless accusations circulating in today’s global discourse.
Unfortunately, it was not an isolated incident. During the French-language leaders’ debate on April 16, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh invoked the charge of genocide in Gaza. Carney had an opportunity to push back, clarify, and reject the slanderous misuse of the term. He did not. Instead, he remained silent in the face of Singh’s framing, effectively allowing the accusation to stand unchallenged.
Then, in the English-language debate on April 17, Singh again accused Israel of committing genocide and directly criticized Carney for failing to acknowledge that fact and do more to stop it. This time, Carney responded by focusing entirely on humanitarian aid, stating that $100 million was ready to be sent to agencies assisting Gazans. He made no mention of Israel’s right to self-defence, nor did he challenge Singh’s inflammatory rhetoric. Once again, the moral asymmetry was stunning.
And yet, across both debates, not a single federal leader made reference to the eight Canadians who were brutally murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
Read the guest column here.
LIBERALS BANKING ON CARNEY EFFECT IN QUEBEC
On a crisp but sunny afternoon recently, Nathalie Provost took to the residential streets of Châteauguay to do some door-to-door campaigning in what has come down to a race between Provost, a star candidate for the Liberals, and her Bloc Québécois rival Patrick O’Hara.
Accompanied by former Liberal cabinet minister Catherine McKenna, who’d come from Ottawa to offer support, Provost approached an elderly woman on her way to an afternoon line dancing class.
Provost asked the woman what issues she cares about in this federal election. The woman told her she is 82 years old and a retired nurse, implying seniors’ issues top her concerns. The conversation was light and friendly, but when the candidate asked the voter to pose for a photo or to pledge her support, she politely declined.
The exchange underlines how hard candidates, even star candidates like Provost, must work to win support, voter by voter, in this tense and fraught federal election campaign.
Read the full story here.
KITTY CANDIDATES SPRING UP AROUND MONTREAL
It has been a tight race between Pistache and Théodore, with Charli, Basil and Luzerne trailing behind in the polls.
At first glance, their posters look like any other campaign sign — a common sight in Montreal as the federal election nears. But these faces are feline, not human.
The spoof election posters were spotted across the city this week, including in downtown Montreal.
They were created by Café Chat L’Heureux, a restaurant-café in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood where patrons can enjoy the company of free-roaming cats while they sip their coffee.
Read the full story here.
GOLDSTEIN: CARNEY WILL CUT OUR ECONOMIC THROAT
Of all the reasons not to elect Mark Carney as the next prime minister of Canada on Monday, his history as the world’s leading corporate booster of achieving “net zero emissions” by 2050 is the biggest.
Putting Carney, the UN’s Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, and co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero — “relentlessly, ruthlessly, absolutely focused on the transition to net zero” in Carney’s words — will mean cutting our own economic throat.
Carney believes carbon taxes are too low, when in the real world most of the world’s countries, including the United States, do not have a national carbon tax.
This already puts Canadian industry, and in particular our oil and gas sector, at a competitive disadvantage.
Read Goldstein’s column here.
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LEADERS CAMPAIGN IN ONTARIO, B.C. BATTLEGROUNDS
Party leaders blitzed key ridings in southern Ontario and British Columbia on Saturday with the final vote in the federal election now just two days away.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney took his tour through battleground ridings in the Greater Toronto Area, as well as Windsor, Ont., a city where U.S. President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs have created immense anxiety.
At a news conference at the Seneca College campus in King City, Ont. Saturday Morning, Carney focused his message heavily on protecting Canada from Trump.
“President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us,” Carney said, repeating one of his most frequent campaign statements.
“And well, that will never happen.”
Read the full story here.
KINSELLA: FEDERAL ELECTION AN EPIC BATTLE
When the story of the 2025 election campaign is written, when it takes up its place in the history section in the library, what will be said? What will be the moral of the tale?
Every election is like a book. It has a beginning, a middle and the end. It has its protagonists and its antagonists, its lesser characters, its moments of pathos and bathos. It has (usually, hopefully) a plot.
The plot in this one, this election story, was simple. Everything was going one way, towards a conclusion that seemed inevitable: the ascension of Pierre Poilievre to the office of Prime Minister, and a historically-huge Conservative Parliamentary majority — and the reduction of the despised Justin Trudeau Liberals to irrelevance.
And then, at the end of the first chapter in January, a villain entered the plot. The villain was so awful, so rotten, so cruel, he was almost a caricature. But he was real. Simultaneously, Justin Trudeau — defeated, dejected, no longer the right one for the coming battle — left the stage.
Read Kinsella’s column here.
LIBERALS MAINTAIN SLIM LEAD: POLL
With election day fast approaching, poll numbers have largely held steady over the past week.
New numbers released Saturday by Leger suggest Monday night’s election is either party’s to lose — with the Liberals maintaining their slim four-point lead over the Tories.
The Liberals are currently pulling 43% of decided support to the Tories’ 39%, making this a clear two-horse race in what’s turned out to be a relatively uneventful election campaign.
“When I think back on it, I don’t think either campaign had bad weeks, I don’t know if they had brilliant weeks,” said Leger’s Andrew Enns.
“They stuck to their message.”
Read the full story here.
WHERE THE LEADERS ARE SATURDAY
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is set to hold a rally in Delta, B.C., in the morning and a whistle stop in Sudbury, Ont., in the evening.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney is set to spend much of the day in the Greater Toronto Area, first holding a media availability in King City before visiting a small business in Newmarket, holding a meet and greet in Aurora and visiting another small business in Markham.
He is also scheduled to hold rallies in Mississauga and Windsor, Ont.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is set to hold a campaign event in London, Ont., and attend a Unifor rally in Windsor, Ont.
He is later expected to attend a Lapu-Lapu Day party in Vancouver and an Eid dinner in Burnaby, B.C.
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