TRENTON, Canada

Elections Canada reported Tuesday that a record 7.3 million voters cast ballots in the four-day advance polls during Easter weekend.

“This is a 25% increase from the 5.8 million electors who voted in advance in the 2021 general election.” Elections Canada posted on its website.

While the report did not speculate on the cause of the increase in voter turnout, US President Donald Trump’s goal of annexing Canada and tariffs that could cripple the economy were the main talking points in the 37-day election campaign.

It centered around what party -- the governing Liberals, main opponent Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrat Party (NDP) -- could best deal with the mercurial Trump.

Voting day is April 28 and with less than a week to go, the governing Liberals under Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh are hard on the campaign trail.

While polls showed Poilievre and his party were way out in front for months, after the deeply unpopular former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in January that he would resign, the landscape changed.

In a remarkable turnaround, the latest polls released Tuesday show Carney and the Liberals are six points ahead of the Conservatives -- 42.6% to 37.1%, respectively -- while NDP is lagging at 10.4%.

The most recent population figure for Canada is a little more than 41 million.​​​​​​​