Looking for Captain Canuck: Canadians Rush To Vote, Seeking Superhero Rescue

Canadian elections are often marked with a shrug and a sense of ennui. But in this election, voters can’t get to the polls fast enough. 

On April 18, 2 million Canadians turned up for the first day of advance voting, waiting in long lines for hours in often freezing temperatures to choose their next government.  

It was a record turnout, up by 36 percent over the last election’s first day of advance voting, said election officials. The rush to vote in advance of election day, April 28, is because voters say that this is a vital election for Canada. 

“I’ve never had to wait for very long, normally,” James Knight, who was waiting to vote in the capital of Ottawa, told the Canadian Broadcasting Commission, adding the long wait was due to people’s enthusiasm to cast their ballots. “(Voters are) tuned in to the election. It’s a big deal for Canada, what’s going on. So I think they may have decided to turn out early.” 

From Vancouver to Montreal, Canadians came out in droves to vote early, not because of the housing crisis, inflation, immigration, or even who is on the ballot, but because of who isn’t – US President Donald Trump. Canadians say he has initiated a devastating trade war with their country of about 41 million, imperiling its economic security, while also making statements about annexing Canada and turning it into the US’ 51st state, threatening its sovereignty.  

The outrage over his words and deeds have even translated into a resurgence of a decades-old, maple-leaf clad superhero, Captain Canuck – “Canuck” is term used to refer to Canadians. A new release marking the comic’s 50th anniversary shows the former Canadian Mountie fighting a new nemesis, the US president, to defend Canada.  

Observers say that the US threat makes this election unique, with an almost existential quality.  

“Trump’s intervention into the existence of Canada has really traumatized the country,” former prime minister Jean Chrétien, 91, told Canada’s Globe and Mail in an interview. “And Canadians are deciding which of the two main parties can best represent our interests and make sure we remain a completely independent country.” 

The election was set after Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had been in office for a decade, lost the confidence of the nation and stepped down in early January. His successor, Mark Carney, a former Central Banker in Canada and the UK, has been talking tough since he took over the office on March 14. Ten days later, he announced new elections to win a mandate.  

That hasn’t given candidates much time to prepare.  

On April 19, a day after early voting kicked off, most parties released their election platforms.  

A few days before, four candidates faced off in a debate in Montreal: Carney, Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet, and leader of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh. 

Carney made his pitch to voters, with a focus on standing up to Trump.  

“In a crisis, you got to plan for the worst, (and) the worst is that the US actually does want to take us over,” said Carney. “They want our land, they want our resources, they want our water, they want our country. And we’re all going to stand up against Donald Trump.”  

Poilievre, a pugnacious populist who until January was a shoo-in for prime minister, made his focus Carney’s predecessor, Trudeau, and his record.  

“How can we possibly believe that you are any different than the previous 10 years of Liberal government,” Poilievre asked Carney during the debate. “We need change. You do not embody change.” 

Questions like that would have mattered before January, when the Liberal Party’s polling tanked. Now, however, they seem almost like an afterthought, say analysts. 

Polls show that the Liberal Party, which had been trailing by almost 30 points in January until Carney took over, is poised to beat the Conservative Party. 

That’s a remarkable ascent for a candidate like Carney, who has never run for political office. Analysts attribute his meteoric rise in Canadian politics to Trump, who has been a useful “foil.”  

“I’ve never seen polls move like this in my 25 years of polling, I mean it’s incredible,” longtime pollster Andrew Enns of Leger, a research and polling firm, told CNN.  

He noted how, within weeks of Carney taking over, the polls flipped, and he led by 7 points in Leger’s polling.  

Currently, there is a small narrowing of that lead, but the election has already begun, which gives the Conservatives little time to campaign. However, many voters think Poilievre is too similar to Trump, and he has also been criticized by commentators for being too soft on the US president, Politico wrote. 

Still, polls show that many Canadian voters want to focus on more than relations with the US, and want change. Analysts say the election isn’t over until it’s over. 

“The past 10 years, things have not been looking so great, with housing and inflation,” Rizwan Ahmad, 27, of Calgary, who is voting for the Conservative Party, told Canada’s Global News. “Young people are feeling hopeless.” 

Regardless, Canadians of all political persuasions reacted on social media to the rush to vote this time around, calling it a win for Canadian democracy.  

Retired police officer Guy Service was voting in Whitby, Ontario, on April 18, hoping that voters would eject the Liberal Party. He told the Canadian Press agency that the atmosphere at the polls was encouraging.  

“I saw a lot of people who were excited to vote for the first time,” he recounted. “And even people who didn’t agree with each other (when) we talked in line, you know, no one beat each other up.”