Canada’s Liberal, NDP, and Conservative parties have rolled out campaign advertising videos as they gear up for the 2025 federal election, with a few details standing out.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is currently facing calls from his own caucus to resign, delivers the message on behalf of his Liberal Party.
Both the NDP and the Liberal campaign videos target the Conservative Party—the current front-runner in the polls—and its leader Pierre Poilievre.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ year-end campaign video, titled “Wackos” and released on Dec. 31, puts the focus on key players and policies of the Liberal government.
The 2025 election will take place on or before Oct. 20.
‘Our Progress Is at Stake’: Liberal Party
The Liberal Party released its latest
video on Dec. 29, with Trudeau discussing his government’s funding for child care, pharmacare, dental care, and housing.
Trudeau says that his party’s work “to build a strong economy that works for all Canadians” is not yet finished and that a change of governing party to a Conservative one could mean the end of certain programs.
“All of our progress is at stake with Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party pushing for deep cuts to the programs Canadians rely on,” Trudeau said.
In an earlier video released on Dec. 22, which the Liberals
said is their “first TV ad of the 2025 election,” the party again put the focus on its aid programs such as the childcare and dental care plans, saying the Conservatives would end the programs.
The election campaign videos come after a tumultuous month for the Liberal Party that saw Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister
Chrystia Freeland resign from cabinet ahead of her scheduled presentation of the 2024 Fall Economic Statement. Trudeau has faced growing calls to step down, including from many MPs within his own caucus.
Popular support for the Liberals has been on the decline, with the
latest poll, conducted between Dec. 27 and Dec. 30, estimating voter support at 16 percent. The most recent levels are “possibly the lowest vote intention the Liberals have ever received in the modern era,” said polling agency Angus Reid.
On Dec. 30, the Liberal Party
posted on X a review of its performance in 2024, highlighting some of the Liberal government’s key policy items that have been enacted, such as the launch of the Canadian Dental Care Plan, the holiday GST/HST tax break, the creation of more $10-a-day child-care spaces, and gun control measures.
NDP Criticizes Liberals, Targets Conservatives
Although the NDP’s video ad targets both the Liberals and the Conservatives, there appears more of a focus on criticizing the Tories.
In his
post of the video on social media on Dec. 30, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh only mentions the Conservatives, saying, “I’m ready to fight to stop Pierre Poilievre before his callous cuts hurt middle class families. I don’t back down, I don’t give up.”
The video starts by describing what Singh calls “the Canadian dream”—a life with a job, access to health care, and basic needs met—which, according to the NDP leader, has yet to become a reality due to the Liberal government’s failure to meet Canadians’ expectations.
Singh then introduces the Conservatives as “another threat to the middle class,” accusing Poilievre and his party of intending to cut health care, housing, and pensions while giving “more to CEOs.” The NDP leader then promises to prevent Poilievre from cutting health care and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump from taking Canadians’ jobs, likely alluding to Trump’s tariff threat.
“No matter who you voted for in the past, together we can fix health care, build homes you can afford, and lower your bills,” Singh said.
The NDP was the last opposition party keeping the minority Liberal government in power by consistently voting to support it in confidence motions.
Singh
said on Dec. 20, four days after Freeland’s resignation, that his party would table a non-confidence motion to bring down the Liberal government in the next sitting of the House of Commons.
‘Weird, Wild, Woke’: Tories Target Liberal Government
In releasing his party’s year-end campaign
video, Tory Leader Poilievre wrote on social media on Dec. 31, “WACKOS: the weird, wild, woke & wonderful world of the people running our country.”
The video features clips of Trudeau and some of his key past and present cabinet ministers, including Freeland, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault, and Health Minister Mark Holland.
Some clips show Trudeau making various gestures, while one shows Freeland delivering a graduation ceremony speech, in which she says, “Does capitalistic democracy still work? That’s the question being posed around kitchen tables.”
Another shows Guilbeault being arrested in 2001 after having scaled the CN Tower in Toronto to raise awareness about climate change.
The narrator, in a British accent in the style of documentaries, says, “There seems to be an overabundance of wacko events in Canada these days. But who is behind them?”
Other parts of the video mock some key Liberal policies, including government-supplied drugs as part of an approach to tackle the opioid crisis.
As Trudeau faces calls from caucus to resign, the Conservatives have said that all of those within the Liberal government should be the focus of criticism, not just Trudeau.
As the Liberal
Atlantic caucus released a letter on Dec. 29 asking Trudeau to resign, Poilievre
said on social media on Dec. 30, “Now, they want to hide Trudeau under the rug right before the election, to trick Canadians into letting them keep power and continue doing the same things they’ve done for 9 years.”
