Testing Campaign Slogans to See if People Like What They Hear - For a Change
The Liberals and Conservatives have each had multiple slogans since the start of the year, with some resonating much more positively than others.
Findings in this post are drawn from North Poll Strategies’ online election survey of 1,135 likely voters conducted April 4-9, 2025. More details on the methodology are here.
Political slogans are an imperfect science. The most effective slogan is not always the one that voters say they like the most - you also need a slogan that is memorable, meets the moment, and prods voters to think about the ballot box issue you want them to consider.
Let’s begin by testing memorability. This polling was conducted a couple of weeks ago, so awareness will have gone up for the slogans campaigns have been focusing on since, but it’s very clear that a few slogans have broken through among English-speaking Canadians:
“Axe the Tax” has been a Conservative party mantra for years now, so it’s hardly surprising to see it lead the way, even with the Conservatives trying out a few other slogans more recently.
What’s impressive is that Canadians have quickly become almost as familiar with the “Canada Strong” and “Elbows Up” slogans that have been used by the Liberals since Carney rose to leadership.
The Conservatives stopped using “Canada is Broken” a while ago, but it’s not so easy to shed a slogan that has been a part of your identity for a while - as many Canadians say they’ve heard this phrase used during the election as the more recent Conservative slogans “Bring it Home” and “Canada First, For a Change”. For reasons that will be clear later in the post, the CPC are probably unhappy that Canadians still associate “Canada is Broken” with their brand.
Near the bottom of the list, the NDP “In It For You” and the Green “Change: Vote For It” slogans haven’t broken through. Each has been noticed by less than 1-in-5 Canadians, and some of those are probably lying about hearing it. I included the “Continuity with Change” slogan that Selina Meyer uses in Veep to see if respondents were exaggerating their familiarity, and 5% said they had heard it during the campaign. No Canadian party has embraced that slogan yet1, so it’s safe to say recall of the NDP and Green slogans may be even lower than reported.
Which Slogans Resonate with Voters?
I asked voters which slogans are good or bad at capturing what they want to hear from a political party right now, attempting to measure not just if people like the words, but if they feel like they are the right fit for the moment we find ourselves in.
“Canada Strong” is the clear winner by this metric, with 58% saying it’s a great, compared to only 7% saying bad. Carney has found the words Canadians have been looking for from their leadership in the face of the Trump threat.
Both Canada Strong and “Elbows Up” are messages that focus Canadians on the Liberal ballot question of who can stand up to Trump, but the latter doesn’t unite Canadians as effectively (the polling suggests it’s mostly older Liberals who are embracing this message) and Mark Carney would be wise to focus in on the Canada Strong message in campaign materials.
Meanwhile, the Conservative slogans are a mixed bag. “Canada First, for a Change” is broadly supported, and “Axe the Tax”, while a bit more divisive, is considered great by 44% of voters. I had wondered if the “Canada First” language might be too close to Trump’s “America First” for some voters, but 88% say it is at least an okay slogan.
The Conservatives are on murkier ground with “Bring it Home”, which has middling scores. I’ll be honest in that I didn’t really understand what this slogan meant, so I watched a 5 minute explainer video on it that’s featured on Poilievre’s YouTube page, and I’m still not entirely sure I get it.
It’s certainly not harmful to the Poilievre cause in the way the “Canada is Broken” slogan has become though. A majority of Canadians now say the phrase is not at all what they want to hear from their politicians, and only 13% still see it as a great message. It was always a risk to run on a slogan criticizing the country Poilievre wants to lead, but they never would have expected it to backfire the way it has with the massive surge in national pride that has risen up to oppose Trump’s threats. The Liberals are absolutely right to using quotes of Poilievre saying his old slogan in their new ads.