Polls opened in Canada on Monday morning after a turbulent election season in which the ruling Liberals have attempted to make President Donald Trump the top issue of the race, while the Conservatives offer a departure from what they call the “lost Liberal decade.”

The Canadian general election will ask voters to choose among the Liberals, Conservatives, and several smaller parties, most prominently the far-left New Democrats (NDP). This election is the first for Prime Minister Mark Carney, who had never before campaigned for or held a public office when the Liberals coronated him their leader in a closed election in March. With a background in finance, Carney had served as the president of the Banks of Canada and England prior to his entry into politics and most recently held a high position in the finance firm Brookfield Asset Management.

Hoping to replace him is Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who has endeavored to convince voters that Carney would not implement any policies different from his highly unpopular predecessor Justin Trudeau, who led the government for a decade before being forced to resign after an embarrassing meeting with then-President-elect Donald Trump in late 2024.

The election was prompted by Trudeau’s resignation in January, which in turn occurred after his closest political ally, former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, resigned in disgust at Trudeau’s handling of Trump. Freeland then attempted to use her resignation to replace Trudeau at the head of the Liberal Party but lost in a landslide to Carney.

At the time of Trudeau’s resignation, the Conservatives experienced a massive surge in polling support. At their peak, the Conservatives were 26 points ahead of the Liberals, trouncing the Liberal Party and the NDP combined. As of Monday, the CBC average of polling shows Liberals holding onto a slim lead over the conservatives, at 42.8 percent to the Conservatives’ 39.2 percent. The NDP’s polling average stood just above eight percent, a significant erosion of support following Trudeau’s resignation.

“The Conservatives are on track to finish with their highest vote share since 2011 but it is unlikely to be enough as former supporters of the Bloc Québécois and New Democrats have flocked to the Liberals,” the CBC observed.

Even if Conservatives lose, their support has increased significantly under Poilievre with one demographic: Canada’s youth. Reuters observed on Saturday that young users on the Chinese social media app TikTok have been flooding the platform with videos of them attempting to convince their parents to vote Conservative for their future. One recent poll, by the firm Nanos, found that almost half of voters aged 18 to 24, 49.3 percent, support Poilievre, almost 20 percent more than said they supported the Liberals.

“I’ve lived through the struggle of trying to get groceries, paying your bills, and trying to save and start a family,” one such voter, identified as 24-year-old Joshua Dwyer, told Reuters. “It doesn’t work under the Liberal government. We’ve tried it for 10 years and it doesn’t work.”

Canadians received a brief period of early voting last weekend that resulted in record turnout; 7.3 million Canadians chose to vote early, according to the country’s election authority. Observers expect high turnout and most polls indicate that the Liberals will continue to hang onto power — a stunning turnaround of their disastrous loss of support during the final days of Trudeau’s prime ministership.

The Liberals have campaigned largely on convincing Canadians that Trump is the greatest threat to their sovereignty — disregarding reports of Chinese interference in the election in Carney’s favor and the Chinese Communist Party admitting to killing multiple Canadian citizens this year on dubious drug charges. Carney himself most recently visited Beijing representing Brookfield in October, enthusiastically supporting more foreign investment in the repressive, genocidal state, according to Chinese state media. Carney also appeared in photos with individuals allegedly linked to China’s United Front Work Department, its global influence agency, but denied knowing the people in the photos.

China never materialized into a major campaign issue, in part as a result of Poilievre not emphasizing the threat it poses to Canada. That created an opportunity for Carney to campaign against Trump, asserting in debates that he was the only leader tough enough to adequately challenge Trump’s claims to wanting to annex the country. Absent from much of the Trump discourse in Canada is the fact that Trump himself endorsed Carney for prime minister in an interview in March, asserting that Poilievre was “stupidly no friend of mine” and “it’s easier to deal, actually, with a Liberal.”

Carney returned to the alleged threat of Trump annexation and increased tariffs — most of which Trump paused for Canada at press time — in his final bid to voters, emphasizing his experience in finance as essential to building up the Canadian economy.

Poilievre, in contrast, offered voters a message of change, focusing on Canada’s poor record on crime, health care, housing costs, and quality of life under Trudeau.

In a final pre-election interview, Jagmeet Singh, the embattled leader of the NDP, urged voters to choose his party to prevent Carney from having total power in Parliament.

“The math is just not there for the Conservatives,” Singh told the Toronto Star. “People have chosen and this is the way it looks like they’re headed. And I’m saying don’t give (Carney) all the power. Mark Carney is going to do things that are really problematic, and his track record is one that’s very problematic.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.