OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Mar-a-Lago dinner with president-elect Donald Trump and the Liberals’ sales-tax holiday aren’t convincing Canadians of his ability to handle the economy, according to a new The Logic poll conducted this past week by Abacus Data.

Since Nov. 23, Abacus found, the proportion of respondents who trust Trudeau most on economic issues has risen from 18 per cent to 19 per cent. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre gained four points, from 37 per cent to 41 per cent.

The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh is static at 13 per cent on that question, and other leaders are in single digits.

Since the last poll, Trump has threatened to put 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods—over migration and drug trafficking across the U.S. border, Trump said at the time, though now the American trade deficit with Canada has joined the list.

Trudeau called an emergency meeting with provincial and territorial premiers, dispatched ministers to soothe Canadians’ worries about the potentially devastating economic consequences and flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club for that unannounced meal with Trump and some of his cabinet nominees.

A fiercer response from Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, facing an identical tariff promise, seems to have drawn a more respectful reply from Trump, though he hasn’t rescinded the threat.

Trudeau recalled Monday, at an appearance in Halifax, that targeted retaliatory tariffs were key to getting the first Trump administration to stop levies on Canadian steel and aluminum.

At the Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump joked—according to Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who was there—that if U.S. tariffs would be so damaging, Canada shouldn’t be a separate country.

If it’s a quip, Trump seems fond of it. More than a week later, just after midnight Tuesday and following Trudeau’s remarks about retaliation, Trump posted to his Truth Social network that it was “a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” He wrote he hopes to see the “Governor” again soon to talk more.

Meanwhile, on the home front, the Liberals quick-stepped a bill to temporarily cut sales tax on food and holiday-related goods through the House of Commons. It’s awaiting a final vote in the Senate.

The move has annoyed small business owners who have to revise their sales systems twice—to apply the tax break and take it off again later—and decide what to do about goods that fall in grey areas. Provinces with harmonized sales taxes might also need to be compensated, expensively.

A flat $250 payment for Canadians who earned up to $150,000 in 2023, which Trudeau announced at the same time, hasn’t made it to Parliament yet.