Conservative Party

The queue to get into the cavernous union hall stretched around the block and the merchandise stand was doing a roaring trade as Canadian rock blared from the sound system.

If the comparison with a Donald Trump rally was not obvious enough as thousands of supporters filed into a Toronto suburb on Tuesday evening, it came when Pierre Poilievre took the stage.

He promised a “Canada First reinvestment tax cut,” a capital gains break dressed up with a nationalist title.

During his campaign for the Conservative leadership in 2022, Pierre Poilievre said he would never pivot.

“I am who I am,” he said.

To a great degree, that has held true — despite periodic suggestions from the commentariat that he should change course.

With just days to go before election day and millions of Canadians already having voted, both the Liberal and Conservative parties have finally dropped their full platforms. And the two are as different in substance, structure and style as the two campaigns — for better and worse.

Substance-wise, the Liberals offer a slew of big-ticket items: a $5 billion Trade Diversification Corridors Fund, billions for Arctic sovereignty, major housing and health infrastructure, and — refreshingly — a serious uptick in defence spending to exceed current NATO commitments. They also promise to drop the deficit in the “operating budget” to $220 million by 2028-2029 (more on that math later).

The Toronto Police Association announced Tuesday it was supporting Pierre Poilievre in the race to become prime minister.

“We asked the leading contenders for prime minister for their position on the policing and public safety issues that matter the most to our members and the communities we serve,” said the union in a Facebook posting.

OTTAWA — Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives will run $100 billion in deficits over four years thanks to a bevy of tax cuts and $34 billion in new spending, according to their costed platform released hours after millions of Canadians have already cast their vote.

Over four years, a Polievre government would incur a roughly $31 billion annual deficit in 2025-2026 and 2026-2027, $23 billion in 2027-2028 and nearly $15 billion in 2028-2029, according to the platform published Tuesday morning.

As the election campaign enters its final stretch and advance voting begins, some Conservatives are voicing concerns that the party’s messaging of focusing heavily on the cost of living and not enough on the pressing American trade war reflects a troubling disconnect.

They warn that this misalignment is putting the party at risk in key strongholds, and opening the door to serious Liberal challenges in seven ridings in Alberta, long considered the bedrock of the Conservative base.

For Cole Theule, age 19, voting day on April 28 will be his first time casting a ballot in a federal election. The Winnipeg native who is studying at the University of Ottawa, comes from a family with a tradition of supporting the New Democratic Party, provincially and federally. His father even worked to help local NDP candidates.

“Acceptance, inclusion, encouraging immigration, those kinds of ideas, as well as wealth distribution such as higher taxes for the rich and more government-assisted programs, were all things I was taught growing up,” Theule said.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has thrown his weight behind withholding federal funding from Canadian universities who don’t do enough to fight antisemitism.

Speaking in French at a news conference in British Columbia on Sunday, Poilievre said public funds should not be used to support hate.

TORONTO — On a bright early spring evening, a queue of Canadian rallygoers snaked through a hotel lobby and around the block. Some had waited in the cold for an hour. Cars jammed roads and parking lots. So many people had shown up that the venue could not accommodate them all.

Inside the hotel ballroom, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre served up a polished 35-minute set of the classics, kicking off his bid for prime minister. He assailed a “radical, borderless, globalist ideology” and “net-zero environmental extremism.” He promised a “big, patriotic, bold and beautiful” tax cut and to stop “crime, chaos and disorder.”

Mainstreet has the Cons ahead again …

Canadian Federal Daily Tracker Poll, Day 28https://t.co/GX6aCyCtT1 pic.twitter.com/JoTWjBzC2b

— Mainstreet Research (@MainStResearch) April 20, 2025

h/t DS

OTTAWA – It’s a Monday evening in an industrial building just south of Edmonton. Pierre Poilievre is on stage, surrounded by a massive crowd of supporters.

He’s been talking for nearly an hour and his speech is hitting some of his biggest applause lines.

“What binds us together is the Canadian promise that anyone from anywhere can achieve anything, that if you work hard, you can have a great life in a beautiful home on a safe street under our proud flag. That is the promise that I hold out as hope to those who are on the brink of giving up,” he says.