By: Mike Colledge
Much of the support for Mark Carney’s build agenda has centred around sovereignty concerns and the need for urgency. The prime minister’s argument has not just been that Canada should build more housing, energy infrastructure, trade corridors, defence capabilities, or home-grown AI; it has been that Canada must do so quickly because the world has become less forgiving.
The less forgiving “world” in Carney’s tale of rupture has been personified by one person: U.S. President Donald Trump. Last week’s U.S. midterm election results may or may not reduce the level of urgency facing Canada and it may or may not change Canada’s real sovereignty concerns. What will matter is whether it changes the perception of Canadians when it comes to the urgency of Carney’s agenda. Over the next few months, we will watch carefully to see if Canadians see the geopolitical landscape as less urgent. Will they feel like Canada’s sovereignty is under less of a threat? Will they shift to the view that “in two years’ time” all will be well?
Looking ahead, the challenge for Carney may shift from building a coalition for change, which he has arguably achieved, to maintaining one.
The coalition behind Canada’s build agenda is a coalition of Canadians who believe the country cannot afford to wait. For older Canadians, that urgency has often been framed through sovereignty, security and Canada’s ability to chart its own course. For younger Canadians, it is rooted in the lived reality of declining economic mobility, unaffordable housing and a growing sense that the future may offer fewer opportunities than the past. What they shared was an urgent desire for action.
The U.S. midterm elections could test the durability of that coalition. If Canadians conclude that the geopolitical threat posed by Trump has diminished, or that the midterm results prove that a change in Washington was only a matter of time, the case for urgency may weaken. We may quickly forget the underlying challenges, which remain unchanged. The risk is that Canadians mistake a reduction in external pressure for a resolution of domestic problems.
Viewed through an Endurance Economy lens, the structural forces shaping Canada are largely independent of any single election cycle, U.S. or otherwise. Housing shortages do not disappear because trade tensions ease. Weak productivity growth is not solved by calmer political rhetoric. Nor do demographic pressures, infrastructure deficits or concerns about long-term competitiveness pause while Canadians debate the pace of reform.
We must now ask whether Canadians can successfully shift from a narrative of external urgency wrought by Trump to one of domestic urgency that is independent of the president. External threats are easy to understand because they have a face, a headline and a clear antagonist. Domestic challenges are more difficult. They unfold gradually, accumulate over time and rarely produce a single defining moment that demands action.
If the results of the U.S. midterms do indeed lead to a curtailment of the president’s power and influence, Carney may find that he has lost his foil. Unable to blame Canada’s problems on a singular “rupture of the old-world order,” he may be forced to explain to Canadians — finally — what role we ourselves played in our current circumstances, and how we might now act to avoid such a situation in the future. (If last week’s budget is any indication, he’s not giving up on the sovereignty angle just yet, having specifically framed the argument for massive spending in the context of the threat that America still poses.)
Past major Canadian projects were not defeated by opposition alone. They have been defeated by delay, consultation, and the absence of a compelling reason to act immediately.
If the geopolitical environment becomes less volatile, younger Canadians are unlikely to lose their sense of urgency. Every year of delay still means higher housing costs, postponed family formation and another year waiting for economic progress that feels increasingly out of reach. For older Canadians, it may be a different story. They may become less willing to accept the trade-offs, disruption and investment required to address challenges whose consequences emerge more slowly.
That tension may define the next phase of Canada’s political and economic debate. The sovereignty challenge may have helped create today’s coalition for change, but sustaining it will ultimately depend on whether Canadians believe the country’s economic and social challenges are urgent in their own right.
There will be pressure on the prime minister to quickly strike a trade deal, now that the president is perceived as weak and Canadians believe a Democrat-led Congress will be more sympathetic to Canada’s interests. This assumption would be a mistake. The United States will continue to act in its own interests, which may include tariffs on certain goods, “Buy America” policies and protectionism. Canada must do the same and maintain the resolve to build for its own sake, and not only in response to Trump.
Regardless of what happens in Washington, the fundamental question facing Canada remains the same: can the country rebuild economic mobility and opportunity quickly enough to restore confidence that tomorrow will be better than today? Trump may have prompted us to ask this question, but his apparent weakening should not serve as any sort of answer. We need to answer that question ourselves, and for our own sake.
Mike Colledge is Executive Insights Lead, Ipsos Canada
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