MONTREAL — Mark Carney’s Liberal Party is holding on to a narrow lead in opinion surveys with less than a week to go before Canada’s election, as U.S. tariff threats remain a top issue in the campaign.

Among decided voters, 43% support the Liberals, compared with 39% for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party, according to a new Leger Marketing survey conducted for The Canadian Press.

Carney has found broad support in Ontario and Quebec — two provinces that combined have 58% of the seats — while Poilievre’s party dominates in most of western Canada. The Liberals have an advantage of seven percentage points in Ontario; the Conservatives must close that gap to have a chance of winning Monday’s vote.

The ballot question for many voters is who’s best to deal with US President Donald Trump, who has dominated the election with his tariff policy and his comments that Canada should be the 51st U.S. state — an idea that’s opposed by the vast majority of Canadians.

Carney, who has been Canada’s leader for little more than a month, is seen as the best option to be prime minister by 41% of respondents in the Leger poll, three points higher than last week. Poilievre stands at 31% on that question. Televised debates were held on April 16 and 17.

Female voters prefer Carney’s Liberals over the Conservatives by a wide margin — 46% to 35% — while men are roughly equally split. The Conservatives are doing better among younger voters than older ones.

“It’s a long-term trend in Canadian politics that women tend to favor more progressive alternatives,” said Sebastien Dallaire, executive vice president with Leger. “The size of the gap may be a little bit wider, and that can be related to maybe the style of politics or the style of discourse and the tone that Pierre Poilievre has used over the past couple of years.”

Leger surveyed 1,603 Canadians, among which 189 were still undecided, yielding a margin of error of about 2.5%.

Carney was on the offensive Tuesday in Quebec, campaigning in three districts currently held by the Bloc Quebecois, a political party defending the French-speaking province’s interests in Ottawa. Leger’s poll shows that the Liberals have a 16-point lead on the Bloc in the province. In the last election in 2021, the two were in a near tie.

Only 8% of Canadians in the Leger poll are siding with the New Democratic Party, which finished third in the 2021 election with about 18%. The NDP slide is helping the Liberals, as it means fewer opportunities for Conservative candidates to come up the middle and take seats where the progressive vote is split.

Voting day is April 28, but 7.3 million Canadians already cast their ballots at advance polls, a 25% increase from the 2021 election. Canada has a population of more than 41 million people.

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(With assistance from Brian Platt.)

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