Over the 40 years he spent in elected politics, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has seen it all.
Yet, the 91-year-old career politician admits the current federal election is unique among the many he’s observed in his lifetime.
While he’s been part of campaigns fought over important, country-defining issues – like free trade in 1988 – this one has a more existential quality about it, he says. That, of course, is the doing of U.S. President Donald Trump.
U.S. President Donald Trump has been threatening to cancel funding for some universities unless they accede to his demands to change ideological policy, similar to a pledge Pierre Poilievre has made for Canadian post-secondary schools.
But so far, the Conservative leader has been sparse on details of exactly what kind of action he might take.
Trump’s demands, which have sparked condemnation about interference in academic freedom, made headlines this week after the White House said it’s freezing more than $2.2 billion US in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University.
Trump is simply refusing to fund whacko academics propagating whacko ideas.
That’s not a threat to academic integrity it’s common sense.
The whackos remain free to be whackos just not on the public dime but of course Carney’s CBC paints this as a conservative attack on academic freedom.
OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised to strike down a key element of the Liberal government’s environmental policy Friday as he and other party leaders got back onto the campaign trail following the national leaders’ debates in Montreal.
Related …
BREAKING: Liberals confirm that the carbon tax is coming back.
Only Conservatives will axe the carbon tax for good, for everyone, for a change. pic.twitter.com/N8zQZIavo1
— Branden Leslie (@BrandenCPC) April 18, 2025
h/t Mauser
Giancarlo Zorrilla attended a campaign rally for the first time in his life in March. It was a rainy night near Vancouver — typical weather for Canada’s west coast — but that wasn’t stopping the 29-year-old Canadian from seeing Pierre Poilievre speak.
“It’s time for a change,” Zorrilla said on his way in to see the Conservative leader give a fervent, hour-long speech on skyrocketing housing prices and the failures of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Sure, Trudeau has stepped away from politics, but even a Trudeau-less Liberal Party is “still the same rock band,” Zorrilla mused.
Let’s start with what isn’t true, what never happened and what’s upside down and backwards about which party in the federal election campaign has been most keen to introduce American manic disorders into Canadian politics.
Joining other leaders around the world in extending pro-forma congratulations to U.S. President Donald Trump on his narrow electoral victory last November, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is said to have said: “I congratulate President Trump on his victory and look forward to joining him in his war against woke, leftist ideology.” Except Poilievre never said that, despite what you might have read on social media. Poilievre is not an admirer of Trump, and Trump certainly isn’t fond of Poilievre.
Any feasible path to victory in the federal election for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party runs through the Greater Toronto Area, a region dominated by the Liberals since 2015.
There are 31 seats up for grabs in this election in the GTA, often nicknamed the 905 for its area code. These suburban cities stretching in an arc around Toronto from Burlington through Vaughan to Oshawa are home to more than 2.5 million eligible voters.
The Conservatives came into this campaign with just four MPs in this region, so making gains here is essential to their success at the national level.
On Monday, during a campaign stop in Montreal, Pierre Poilievre had the audacity to suggest that his government would use the notwithstanding clause to overturn a Supreme Court decision that ruled that consecutive parole ineligibility periods for multiple murderers was “cruel and unusual punishment” and violated the murderer’s human dignity. For most reasonable Canadians, this is a no-brainer. Liberal Leader Mark Carney, however, rushed to condemn the move as “dangerous,” while CBC’s Power and Politics host David Cochrane and his panel guest Rob Russo suggested it was a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist. But the problem of light murder sentencing does exist, and not just for mass murderers.
The pearl clutchers are at it again.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised Monday that, if elected, he and his government would use the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to allow people who commit multiple murders to be imprisoned for life without possibility of parole.
There are two big questions about who will show up for the first leaders’ debate this week: Which Pierre Poilievre will we see? And how forgiving will the audience be?
The Pierre Poilievre who appeared on the Radio-Canada talk show, Tout le monde en parle, was a creature that had rarely been spotted in front of TV cameras.
The Conservative Leader was smiling, self-effacing, foregoing attacks on his Liberal opponent and talking to people rather than at them. It was style rather than substance, but it left a warmer impression than his usual too-hot-for-TV, aggressive style.
Doug Ford and Pierre Poilievre agreed on one subject this week: change is needed.
The federal Conservative leader is saying that Canada needs change. The Ontario premier is saying that Poilievre needs to change his campaign team.
It is a remarkable feature in an already remarkable Canadian election campaign, this public airing of differences between Poilievre and Ford. Two conservatives, who would normally be allies against the federal Liberals, are openly at odds over who is best placed to win the April 28 election.
This *with us or against us* attitude is going to cost PP and the CPC the election.
*My way or the highway* combined with *I will burn down your village* may even cost him his seat.
I am quite surprised you took the time to think thru, write down and post such a ridiculous &… https://t.co/kbk4bXeXmO
— realNickKouvalis (@NickKouvalis) April 16, 2025
OTTAWA — Ontario Premier Doug Ford fired off another salvo in the on-again, off-again battle between his provincial Progressive Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party, saying his own campaign manager would have avoided the federal party’s current election woes.
With the Conservatives lagging behind Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s party since the beginning of the campaign, after enjoying a huge polling lead for the better part of two years, Poilievre’s strategy has been the subject of wide-ranging scrutiny.
Lots of flack over this statement below.
I think a lot of people are upset with Doug Ford – and I understand all of it.
But, everyone’s ire is one sided. Some balance and being better informed is required:
For months/years, Pierre did not reach out to Ford.
During Ford’s election in February 2025, Pierre and the CPC… https://t.co/XWS87wo8x8— realNickKouvalis (@NickKouvalis) April 14, 2025
Finally, some good news for Canada’s Conservative party. For the first time since the federal election was announced, a poll last week showed them in the lead, and polls over the weekend show them closing in on the Liberal party. They’re not where they were, but it’s progress.
In early January, the much-loathed Trudeau was stepping down, both Liberals and the New Democrats were highly unpopular, and the Conservatives, with a no-nonsense economic platform were considered a shoo-in for the next election.
A number of prominent business leaders are throwing their support behind Pierre Poilievre in the upcoming federal election because they feel his Conservative Party will best handle Canada’s slowing economic growth.
The group of more than 30 current and past executives includes Fairfax Financial CEO Prem Watsa, Canaccord Genuity CEO Dan Daviau, former Royal Bank of Canada CEO Anthony Fell and former Scotiabank CEO Brian Porter.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has not moved to the GTA, it just seems that way as he goes door to door with candidates, searching for a pathway to the Prime Minister’s Office.
After three elections in which Halton, Durham, York and Peel voters elected enough Liberal MPs to be dubbed the “Greater Trudeau Area,” opinion polls as recent as January suggested the seat-rich 905 belt was ready to swing back to Conservative domination.
Two Liberal Party staffers attended last week’s Canada Strong and Free Networking (CSFN) Conference where they planted buttons that used Trump-style language and highlighted division within the Conservative Party.
The conference, often referred to by its former name, the Manning Conference, is an opportunity for conservative-leaning Canadians to talk about policy proposals and network. It was held at the Westin Hotel in downtown Ottawa.
