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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is riding a popularity high after his speech at last month's World Economic Forum in Davos. But as Sheena Rossiter reports, he has a lot of work to do at home to overcome internal challenges.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: End liberal rule.
SHEENA ROSSITER: Even a post-Davos poll bump won't win you total approval back home. In Canada, Mark Carney still has a handful of critics. Some of them recently organized this decidedly lackluster cross-country demonstration.
DYLAN KNUT: Largely, I'm tired of feeling defeatist in regards to the future of my country.
ROSSITER: With his neatly trimmed mustache and black cowboy hat, Dylan Knut (ph) stands out among a tiny contingent of protesters outside Edmonton City Hall. From Alberta's separatism to rising prices, their grievances with the prime minister span a wide range.
LOUISE MACCABEE: He promised to lower the price of the groceries, and it's just going up. The cost of gas is just way too much. He doesn't spend our money properly.
ROSSITER: That's retired teacher Louise Maccabee, who is originally from Quebec. She says she is exhausted by the liberal government. But right now voices like hers are outliers after this moment on the world stage helped boost Carney's popularity.
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PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY: It seems that every day, we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must.
ROSSITER: In Davos last month, Carney's eulogy about the fading world order won over the global elite and earned him a surge in popularity at home. According to a recent poll by Canadian pollster Angus Reid, Carney's approval rating is at an all-time high, sitting at 60%. His ruling Liberal Party leads by three points in the polls. But as the protesters in Edmonton make clear, nothing is perfect. Rising grocery prices, a housing crisis and a slim hold on a minority government are reminders that even Carney's popularity can be tenuous.
ANGUS WATT: He's got, in reality, nine months to pull the rabbit out of the hat and say, OK. This is what we're going to do. I think it's six to nine months before Canadians start looking for different options.
ROSSITER: Angus Watt is a senior wealth adviser at National Bank Financial and founding partner of the Angus Watt Advisory Group.
WATT: With what President Trump has done, everybody around the world is looking for someone else to do business with. It's not that they're going to stop doing business with the United States. But they're all going to be looking for, where else can we do business?
ROSSITER: And that dependence is now catching up with Canada.
WATT: We have been punched in the nose. We have been punched in the gut. But that was our fault because we got fat and lazy. We're like big salesmen with big accounts or, like, a big account. And 85% of our exports were going to the United States, and that was easy to sell.
ROSSITER: And it's a vulnerability President Trump has repeatedly seized on.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.
ROSSITER: At least one thing is constant - Canadians' antipathy towards Donald Trump. It helped Carney pull off an election victory last year that few saw coming, and it may help him in the months to come.
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JEAN CHRETIEN: I think that we're living a very important time in the world. It's a big shift. It is probably what I will call the beginning of the end of the American empire.
ROSSITER: Canadian unity was the heart of a recent fireside chat at the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, where former prime ministers - longtime rivals Jean Chretien and Stephen Harper - praised Canadians for standing together through adversity. Here's Chretien again.
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CHRETIEN: We have managed quite well to survive, you know? And at this moment, our friend from the south has created a mood that a Canadian have never been so proud to be Canadian.
ROSSITER: And Canadian unity in the face of these threats may be Carney's greatest weapon - if it holds. With a minority government, a snap election could come at any moment, putting everything to the test.
For NPR News, I'm Sheena Rossiter in Edmonton, Canada. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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