OTTAWA — A new poll conducted by Abacus Data and shared with The Logic has bad news for federal Liberals who hoped their previous practice dealing with Donald Trump as U.S. president would give their public support a bump.

Vibes over experience: Nearly three out of four respondents said they think Trump’s dislike of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be a more important factor in the leaders’ relationship than Trudeau’s experience in dealing with the president-elect. 

Even current Liberal supporters are split almost evenly on it, with 48 per cent believing the Liberals’ history with Trump is more of a liability than an asset.

Respondents were also almost evenly split on whether they want a Canadian leader who will work with Trump (42 per cent) or one who will challenge and confront him (39 per cent). Nineteen per cent said they didn’t know.

Advantage Poilievre: Forty-five per cent said that among national party leaders, they think Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has the best chance of getting positive outcomes for Canada in dealing with Trump. Twenty per cent said Trudeau does; nine per cent said it’s the New Democrats’ Jagmeet Singh.

Poilievre’s and Trudeau’s numbers on the question mirror respondents’ broader party preferences. Abacus found 43 per cent saying they’d vote for the Tories if there were an election now, and 21 per cent each for the Liberals and NDP.

(Abacus surveyed 1,892 adult Canadians from Nov. 15 to 19, through an online panel. The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size would be 2.253 per cent, 19 times out of 20.)

New envoy: Thursday evening, Trump indicated whom Canada’s leaders can expect to deal with most, announcing he would nominate former Michigan congressman Pete Hoekstra as ambassador to Canada. Hoekstra was a founder of the Tea Party caucus, the right-wing populist movement that presaged Trumpism in the Republican party, and a contributor to the recent Project 2025 effort to set the policy table for the new administration.

As ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump’s first term, Hoekstra made the wrong kind of headlines for unfounded attacks on the country’s Muslim population and hosting an event for a far-right Dutch party at the embassy.

Last time Trump took office, in January 2017, he didn’t nominate an ambassador to Canada—Kentucky Republican figure Kelly Craft—until that June, and when he moved Craft to the United Nations in 2019, he left the post vacant for the rest of his term. Career diplomats at the Ottawa embassy filled in.

USMCA tea leaves: Trump’s Hoekstra announcement included a note of hope for anyone looking for stability in Canada-U.S. trade. Trump praised the current continental trade treaty, negotiated during his previous presidency: “We brought Trade with Mexico and Canada to a level playing field for our wonderful Farmers and Working Families,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.