Justin Ling has built a reputation as one of Canada’s leading investigative journalists, covering national security, politics and technology for outlets ranging from the Toronto Star to his own Substack, Bug-eyed and Shameless.
In his new book, The 51st State Votes: Canada versus Donald Trump (Sutherland House), Ling examines Canada’s recent federal election and the political stakes it revealed.
In a conversation with Canadian Affairs, Ling spoke about the election and how the political landscape looks going forward.
On binaries and the Carney–Poilievre choice
SF: You write that Canada’s 45th federal election was about binaries: ‘pocketbook pressures and existential threats, the choice between Canada and America, the choice between returning to the past and change, the choice between Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney.’
My sense is that most Canadians had an easy time viewing the two frontrunners as having very different styles and temperaments. But I have also heard from a lot of people who struggled to grasp the substantive policy differences of these men. Which of the political contrasts between Poilievre and Carney do you think were most consequential in this election?
JL: Mark Carney ran an election that was fundamentally predicated on this existential threat posed by Donald Trump and Pierre Poilievre ran a campaign largely on those pocketbook pressures.
Both men, of course, kind of foray to the other side as well, but they allowed their core issues to become those A and B choices. [But] fundamentally the actual policy prescriptions from both these men were not that radically different. These were largely in some cases branding exercises. …
I think people struggled a bit because there really aren’t a lot of great solutions for the problems that face us, whether they be pocketbook [issues] or the existential threat posed by Donald Trump.
On immigration and the Century Initiative
SF: You talk about immigration in the book, and specifically reference Poilievre’s condemnation of the Century Initiative, an organization that has advocated for more ambitious immigration targets.
Do you think Poilievre would have been more successful if he had advocated for restricting immigration? And do you think that’s something we’ll see more from him in future?
JL: No and yes in that order. Listen, there is a lot of anxiety in this country right now around immigration, and how could there not be? Our population has grown too fast … for the number of supports and systems and reforms necessary for a comfortable transition.
[But] the reality is, our population growth is probably economically necessary, and likely in the order of magnitude we’ve actually seen it.
We were facing labour shortages on a pretty massive scale before and during the pandemic. We were facing a world where the rate of replacement for our population was far too low. We were facing a world where we were going to see an aging population not supported by the tax base … And given that our birth rate is so low, the only real solution is immigration.
On where Conservative messaging is headed
SF: Do you expect Poilievre’s message on immigration to continue in Parliament?
JL: I think so. I’ve talked to Conservative MPs and strategists who have said, ‘Listen, if we lose the 2025 election, the only path forward is either to go harder on immigration or get thrown overboard and have Poilievre replaced with somebody who is even more genuinely hardline on this stuff.’ And I think that’s really unfortunate.
On leaders’ debates
SF: You write critically about the leaders’ debates. You argue they should surprise voters, expose impractical promises and showcase overlooked issues. Did their poor quality affect the election outcome?
JL: Probably not. And there’s a couple of reasons for that. The first one is that the results of this election were largely baked in from the beginning. You saw that from the static poll numbers that existed throughout the race.
But I think more fundamentally, part of the problem is also the debates themselves …
I’ve been covering Canadian politics for more than a decade now, been to a ton of these debates, both at the provincial and federal level. I’ve even done some of the post-game commentary for some of these debates. And I can tell you they have gotten worse.
We’ve engaged too far into the spectacle of it. There’s now an unending stream of Vox [man-on-the-street] interviews … or pundits coming in to appeal to the ADHD of the crowd a little bit.
There’s a lot more rules these days. The fact that we now limit so many of the answers to these questions to 30, 45 seconds, no more than a minute, shows you the degree to which the debate organizers think of these things in terms of sound bites and quick answers as opposed to complex thoughts and actual explanations for policy and governance.
On media access and credentialism
SF: One throughline in the book is your dissatisfaction with the level of access that campaigns provided to media in this election. As someone who straddles the line between legacy media and new media, how do you think political campaigns and parties ought to approach the process of credentialing journalists?
JL: I generally believe that we still lean too far into credentialism.
There is this sort of liberal-left solution, which is to generally stick with the establishment media … to wrap yourself in the cloak of traditional media access to talk about the importance of traditional journalism in a healthy democracy while simultaneously choking off the actual flow of information and worsening the conversations you’re having with those journalists. That is the standard, whether you’re talking about the NDP, whether you talk about the Green Party or the Liberal Party.
The communications that have flowed from politicians and parties to journalists has gotten orders of magnitude worse. It’s gotten stupider, it’s gotten simpler …
The other side is the Conservative side, which has rejected the gatekeeper role of the traditional media — not entirely incorrectly — and who have opted more for upstart and alternative media in both really positive ways … and also really, really bad, dangerous ways that I think are taking us towards the edge of the cliff …
I actually think it’s a really good thing that there is a healthy attitude by Pierre Poilievre to go sit down for an hour-long podcast that goes into the specifics of policy …
Where it goes wrong is [Poilievre’s] constant attacks and undermining of the traditional press, which is still the centerpiece of news gathering, news collection, and analysis in this country — and really around the world.
On the NDP’s collapse
SF: The NDP is in shambles. They lost their official party status. Do you think there is someone in Canada’s progressive movement that has the sort of political acumen to revive the party in the near future?
JL: I really don’t know. Everybody who has thrown their hat in the ring thus far has been around this movement for ages, and they haven’t been helping.
I don’t really see anyone in that party — either in the caucus MPs who lost their seats or people from the outside — who are talking about this in a way that is substantially different from what the party has been doing for years.
I don’t know where that party’s internal democracy is anymore. All I see are a handful of institutional figures who are pretending like they’re proposing a radical shift and they’re not — and then a whole bunch of outside figures who are largely too captured by online discourse.
On election timing and Trump
SF: How long until the next federal election?
JL: Four years. I think the next election will be called by Mark Carney. I don’t think it will be a confidence vote.
You could see a world where Mark Carney gets his majority between now and the next four or five years. He’s pretty close as it is — a couple of by-elections, a couple of defections basically puts him in majority territory on top of that …
Canada does not need a bunch of elections between now and Donald Trump leaving office, if he does by choice, which is an actual possibility we have to think about.
*This transcription has been edited for the sake of clarity and concision. The entire interview with Mr. Ling can be viewed here:
I read Mr. Ling’s book. I was shocked that P.P. used social media platforms like freedom convoy and podcasts by conspiracy theory people and radical news outlets to entice voters. I don’t believe the general public knew this. My friends certainly didn’t. I think he would lose votes if the general population knew this. A page out of Trump’s book. Sad. It worked.