The small group of young advisors who ran Pierre Poilievre’s campaign to become leader of the Conservative Party of Canada two years ago started out worried. Politicians in their large and sparsely populated country tend to avoid holding rallies; to get to meetings, people have to drive distances that the British mind might find hard to fathom. There’s a constant paranoia about not being able to fill the room.
“Within about a week we realised that wasn’t going to be a problem,” says Ginny Roth, who was in charge of communications for the campaign. “We knew Pierre was popular online but we didn’t know how that would translate on the ground. In fact, we were soon having to book bigger venues.”
