His opponent, Erin O'Toole, looked weak, and just like Theresa May before the 2017 UK election, victory seemed assured. Recently elected to lead his party after running a hard-right 'true blue' leadership campaign, O'Toole readily outflanked his more centrist opponent, Peter MacKay. But soon after winning, O'Toole quickly pivoted to the centre, dropping almost everything he promised during the leadership campaign, from defunding Canada's public broadcaster, the CBC, to scrapping the carbon tax. He also quickly distanced himself from his previous dalliance with the anti-abortion crusaders within his ranks, proclaiming himself as proudly pro-choice. Like a political chameleon, he transformed himself with the help of UK political consultants who previously worked with Boris Johnson and the Vote Leave campaign. His team were inspired by Johnson's ability to steal working-class votes and win 'Red Wall' seats. It has even led him to make appeals directly to union members - raising many eyebrows among political observers.

Inspired by Johnson's example, O'Toole quickly began a top-down re-organisation of how his party presented itself to the public. This culminated in a widely-publicised moment at the Conservative Party convention, in which delegates voted down a resolution acknowledging that climate change was real. It looked as if as he wanted to reform the Conservative Party, but it simply did not want to be reformed - and was simply not ready to govern. Some writers even went as far to say that it was even conceivable, though not likely, that the near-ceaselessly third-place New Democratic Party could end up with more seats than the Conservatives.

Justin Trudeau dissolved parliament and called a snap election on 15 August, the same day that Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. Immediately he was hounded by the press and the opposition with questions as to the timing - in the middle of a pandemic, and a foreign affairs crisis. It only got worse from there. Two days after the election call, the Nova Scotia conservatives won a surprise majority government, besting the incumbent liberals who too called an early election without giving people a clear reason for re-electing their government - and simply expected to coast to a majority on vaccine gratitude. This suddenly broke the commonly-held assumption in Canada that pandemic elections return incumbent governments to power.

Beginning to drop in the polls (and the Conservatives starting to rise), Trudeau tried a series of wedge issues that could catch his opponent flat-footed - mandatory vaccines being one, gun control being another. Each time, O'Toole pivoted, and immediately abandoned a position if it was hurting him electorally. He even went so far in one case as to update his election platform in writing, stating that all guns currently banned would remain banned. Without a foil and a bogeyman, Trudeau's attempts to land punches on his opponent continue to miss - and he is having a harder time scaring NDP voters into 'strategically' voting for the Liberals to prevent the Conservatives from taking power.