The Conservatives’ ‘bread-and-butter’ messaging needs a sharper focus on national issues and Liberal failures as governing party keeps lead, says digital strategist Harneet Singh.
Even amid a more than two-to-one digital advertising deficit and an ongoing six-figure Conservative campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberal government are maintaining double-digit polling leads heading into the summer sitting break.
Yet while some recent polling suggests Liberal support may be softening ahead of looming trade negotiations with United States President Donald Trump and amid growing tensions over Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s energy agenda and pipeline development, the Liberals and Conservatives are increasingly operating in separate political universes, says digital strategist Harneet Singh.
“They have both chosen their focus areas. [The Liberals] are leaning more towards macro issues, which is exactly what they did in the election, and the electorate rewarded them at the ballot box, while the other side is still sticking with micro, bread-and-butter concerns like affordability,” explained Singh, managing principal with EOK Consults.
Pointing to the Conservatives’ digital advertising on Google and Meta, which includes platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, Singh observed that the Conservatives have continued to promote the pair of ads the party launched at the beginning of April as part of a $1-million campaign scheduled to run until the end of June in both official languages across television, radio, and digital platforms.
The first video ad, The Same Aisle, and its radio equivalent focus on the rising cost of groceries and food inflation, highlighting Carney’s (Nepean, Ont.) early call for Canadians to judge his government by their grocery bills. The second video ad, Affordable. Safe. Strong. Here at Home, features Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s (Battle River–Crowfoot, Alta.) Feb. 26 speech at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto, highlighting talking points on affordability, public safety, national security, and calls for “unbreakable leverage abroad.”
While Meta’s Ad Library does not provide granular breakdowns of spend per creative, Singh noted that between Feb. 22 and May 22 — the most recent 90-day reporting window — the Conservative Party spent just over $210,500 on Facebook and Instagram ads. Nearly half of that total was directed to more than 150 placements tied to the two main video campaigns across both English- and French-language markets, according to Meta’s available spending estimates.
The remaining bulk of the Conservatives’ digital advertising purchased over that period consists of static-image voter-identification ads urging Canadians to support Poilievre, along with issue-based messaging on immigration, temporary foreign workers, free speech, religious freedom, and, more recently, property rights, including video ads highlighting the party’s candidate, Stephen Curran, in the yet-to-be-called byelection to replace outgoing Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson (North Vancouver–Capilano, B.C.).
Over the same period, the Liberal Party spent $54,262 on official Meta advertising, with an additional $29,437 spent through Carney’s official page, for a combined $83,699. The vast majority of advertising on both pages focused on voter ID, with appeals for participation in one- to two-question surveys asking: “Do you support Mark Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada?”
While affordability continues to dominate public concern, the Liberals have effectively neutralized Conservative attacks on cost-of-living pressures by reframing the national conversation toward what Singh called “the big things”: defence spending, nation-building projects, and Canada’s broader global positioning.
“Those big initiatives from the Liberals make it harder for the Conservatives to focus solely on affordability,” Singh said, adding that many Canadians have “moved on” from exclusively blaming the federal government for inflationary pressures.
The most recent Abacus Data survey released on May 26 found 66 per cent of Canadians rank the rising cost of living among their top three concerns, followed by the economy (38 per cent), the Trump administration (34 per cent), and housing affordability (32 per cent).
However, among those who identified cost of living as a top issue, the Liberals now lead the Conservatives 45 per cent to 32 per cent on vote intention, and are narrowly ahead 37 per cent to 35 per cent on which party is best equipped to address it.
The Liberals also maintain commanding advantages among voters most concerned about Trump (56 per cent to 18 per cent), health care (45 per cent to 29 per cent), and housing affordability (46 per cent to 29 per cent), while the Conservatives have maintained the lead on immigration, crime, and public safety.
The same poll found Carney’s government approval rating has reached 59 per cent — its highest level since Abacus Data began tracking — compared to 29 per cent disapproval. Carney’s personal approval stands at 56 per cent, while Poilievre holds a 38 per cent positive impression against 44 per cent negative.
Among likely voters, Abacus Data places the Liberals ahead by 13 points nationally, 48 per cent to 35 per cent, with regional strength across most of the country except the Prairies and the 30-to-44 age cohort, where Conservatives remain competitive.
Combined with Carney’s favourability, the Liberals’ high poll numbers, and their focus on “bigger-picture issues,” the Liberals’ communications strategy is “almost completely riding on the Carney brand,” Singh said.
In contrast, the Conservatives have been left with “slim pickings” for identifying issues capable of cutting through nationally now that they no longer have a minority government led by an unpopular prime minister to frame as the antagonist.
“Carney is not running a typical Liberal government,” Singh said, pointing to the prime minister’s openness to pipelines, resource development, and taking steps to limit immigration. “There’s limited space available.”
As a result, Singh said the Conservatives are increasingly seeking wedge issues that can be scaled nationally, including property rights disputes related to development and Indigenous consultation battles in British Columbia, but that the challenge lies in translating those issues to other provinces. While the issue is most evident in B.C., Singh noted that the messaging could be expanded to address future disputes over national infrastructure projects, such as high-speed rail and potential pipelines, which may need to be constructed on First Nations’ territories.
However, despite the effectiveness of the Conservatives’ issue set and messaging with its base, the party needs to be focused on convincing new people rather than marshalling voters already on its side, Singh explained.
Pointing to Poilievre’s most recent social media video, Outrun the Bear, which keys in on energy sovereignty to keep ahead of the “bear” of Russia, Singh said that while it is the kind of “fun” messaging that focuses on an issue of national interest with broader appeal, its impact won’t appeal much further than to those already on his side.
“The Conservative Party has done a phenomenal job of appealing to young people and connecting with them on the issues they care about, but the people who voted for Carney are not watching that video and saying, ‘Pierre is my guy now,’” Singh said. “To win an election, there is a whole section of the population which did not vote for you and went to Carney; the way to divide that support is to focus on defining the failures of the Liberal government when it comes to those federal issues, because clearly that’s where the people are.”
Voters ‘increasingly looking for action’ as Liberal edge softens: pollsters
Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at Nanos Research, said that while the Liberals still hold a roughly nine-point national lead according to his polling, that advantage has narrowed modestly in recent weeks — down from a 16-point lead in the middle of March — as voters begin demanding tangible results rather than announcements alone.
“Our tracking shows the gap between Liberals and Conservatives in ballot support is narrowing incrementally,” Nanos said. “People are increasingly looking for action.”
Nanos warned Carney faces the same political risk that eventually undermined then-prime minister Justin Trudeau: allowing voters to conclude “the announcement is the plan.”
“[Trudeau’s government] talked a lot about doing different things on the progressive front, but they didn’t necessarily deliver, and that became a political vulnerability,” Nanos said.
While voters broadly approve of Carney’s direction on major national projects and economic development, public patience could erode quickly if Canadians do not begin seeing measurable progress on affordability and economic growth, Nanos said.
“I can’t emphasize enough the urgency voters feel for the government to demonstrate that, beyond just saying they want certain things to happen, they are taking concrete action to make it happen,” Nanos said, adding that the looming deadline for an agreement on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) is shaping up to be an “almost no-win situation” for the Liberals.
“If some sort of agreement, whether in principle or otherwise, is reached with Trump, there’s nothing to suggest it will last,” Nanos said. “Trump could easily just change his mind.”
However, Nanos said Conservative gains are not inevitable if the negotiations go sideways.
“For the Conservatives to gain an advantage as a result of Liberal troubles with the negotiations, Poilievre would need to be seen as capable of securing a better deal,” Nanos said, arguing the Conservative leader is still “playing catch-up” on the issue.
Instead, Nanos said the federal NDP could benefit most from any Liberal slippage, particularly among progressive voters uneasy with Carney’s centrist positioning.
“There are lower expectations for the NDP,” he said. “No one actually expects Avi Lewis to be prime minister any time soon.”
Philippe Fournier, editor-in-chief of 338Canada, said there is still little evidence of a major political shift despite a modest Liberal softening.
“The Liberals are slipping slightly, but not enough to suggest a trend,” Fournier said, pointing to weekly tracking by Nanos and Liason Strategies, which also saw the Liberals’ lead dip into the single digits last week before returning to plus-12 this week.
“Even though support for the Liberals has maybe softened a bit, the Conservatives haven’t gained any ground,” Fournier said. “That should be a bit disconcerting for them.”
If Liberal support continues to ease into the summer, Fournier said it would likely amount to “a small regression to the mean” rather than a collapse.
However, while there are significant political risks for Carney’s government on the horizon, Fournier agreed there is a credibility gap over who can present themselves as a better candidate to solve the problems Canada is facing.
“There is an opening,” Fournier said. “I just don’t see anyone taking that space in the short term.”