Liberal Leader Mark Carney compared himself to U.S. President Donald Trump multiple times while campaigning in Quebec on Tuesday, despite repeatedly smearing his opponent and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as Trump-like.
During his campaign stop at a poutine shop in Granby, Quebec, echoing Trump’s visit to a McDonald’s during the 2024 U.S. election, Carney made the comparison himself.
“It’s just like Trump at McDonald’s, huh?” said Carney in French. “Not really,” he followed up, perhaps suggesting that he was just joking as he was searching for a hat to wear.
However, Carney did not regret the comments, considering he repeated the same line while serving a customer just minutes later.
“I’m a bit like Trump at McDonald’s,” Carney told a customer while serving her poutine through the window.
Trump previously surprised customers in the battleground state of Pennsylvania while on the campaign trail in October 2024. During his visit, Trump served fries, complimented the customers, and wished Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris a happy 60th birthday.
While speaking on CBC’s Tout le Monde en Parle, Poilievre responded to the panellist’s suggestion that opponents and columnists were trying to label him as a mini-Trump.
“I have a completely different story. He comes from a very wealthy family, a millionaire. Me, I was born to a single mother with two teachers as parents who gave me a modest background. But this background gives me the ability to understand human beings,” said Poilievre.
The day after Carney’s self-comparisons to Trump, the Liberal party continued its smear campaign to misalign Poilievre with Trump.
The party highlighted a quote from the Wall Street Journal in a post to X.
“He supported truckers who blockaded Ottawa in 2022 to protest Covid-19 lockdowns. He promised to slash taxes, shrink the government, end Liberals’ climate-change policies, and end ‘wokeism’ in the Canadian military. His election slogans, such as ‘Canada First,’ echo Trump’s,” reads the quote.
In Carney’s own post to X, highlighting his trip, many of the X commenters compared him to Trump.
Carney has faced heat for being a copycat before. Poilievre and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet both called him out for copying Conservative policies.
The Liberal leader similarly mirrored Trump when he staged a video signing to “cancel” the consumer carbon tax, mimicking an Executive Order.
However, Carney’s claim that he could “cancel” the consumer portion of the carbon tax is not true, as prime ministers lack the unilateral powers of U.S. presidents. A carbon pricing law remains on the books and can only be axed through a majority vote in Parliament.
Carney could similarly raise the consumer portion of the carbon tax back above $0 whenever he pleases, without parliamentary approval.