Eight months after Pierre Poilievre won the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, the evidence suggests he is on his way to becoming prime minister.
In politics, nothing is inevitable, and by the time of the next federal election, circumstances could have changed. But if an election were held today, Mr. Poilievre would probably be on his way to whatever residence substitutes for 24 Sussex Dr.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should be cautious about making the same mistake with Pierre Poilievre as Stephen Harper did with him when the Conservative prime minister mischaracterized his Liberal opponent only to see him surpass expectations.
Back in 2015, Harper’s director of communications, Kory Teneycke, told reporters that expectations of Trudeau were so low going into the first election debate “that if he comes on stage with his pants on, he will probably exceed expectations.”
A hint of a triumphal smirk crept across Justin Trudeau’s face as he launched a partisan salvo at his fiercest rival.
“Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada — no relation to the Progressive Conservatives of Ontario, sorry, that was a joke, you can chuckle — came out and said that this project was a waste of money,” Trudeau said April 21 as he touted massive federal and provincial subsidies for the Volkswagen “gigafactory” near London, Ont.
In the face of repeated threats to defund the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the network’s president requested a meeting with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to “discuss the implications” of the vow to cut funding.
That’s according to a letter, dated Nov. 29, 2022, and obtained by the Ottawa online outlet Blacklock’s Reporter.
Conservatives hatred of journalism is damaging their brand
Conservatives get confused when they see a media attack on one politician as proof of partisan loyalty to another.
The first conservative to destroy his party through a hatred of journalists was, of course, Richard Nixon. The next was Donald Trump, who has delivered three defeats since his razor thin single victory, all the while ranting his denunciation of “fake news” media.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre appears to be genuine in his contempt for many Canadian journalists. Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper always appeared more theatrical in his, given how close he was to journalists before he won power. This hatred is, of course, dangerous for democracy, but it is also damaging the Canadian Conservatives’ brand.
MONTREAL — More than six months after his election as Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre has yet to meet Quebec Premier François Legault one on one.
That stands in stark contrast with his two immediate predecessors. Notwithstanding the pandemic, Erin O’Toole and Legault met face-to-face less than a month after the former became leader in August 2020.
Andrew Scheer showed up for a meeting with the premier two short weeks after the CAQ was first elected to government in 2018.
Or maybe Quebec just isn’t worth the effort.
OTTAWA—Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are the reason the interim ethics commissioner quit, Liberal House Leader Mark Holland said Thursday as the government remained on the defensive over its ethical track record.
Martine Richard’s appointment to the post drew criticism late last month after it was revealed she’s the sister-in-law of Liberal cabinet minister Dominic Leblanc.
Still, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended the choice, noting she joined the office under the previous Conservative government, was second-in-command and there are procedures in place to guard from conflicts.
The current political environment is much more favourable for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to unseat the prime minister—compared to how it was for the last three party leaders who went head-to-head with Justin Trudeau in general election campaigns—but it’s too early to conclude that he is “the strongest challenger Trudeau has faced,” say veteran political players.
“He’s the only challenger that got Justin Trudeau in his third term, in that type of political environment that he’s in,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs in an interview with The Hill Times. “The circumstances that he [Poilievre] finds himself in compared to the other two Conservative leaders is quite different. So I don’t agree that it’s an evaluation of the three leaders. The environment here is more important than the people.”
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
When the guy who wants to be Canada’s next prime minister takes no time at all to go after what he calls “pointy-headed professors,” the elitists and know-nothing experts who have been proven wrong about crime and social disorder, you know this one-on-one encounter will not be a waste of time.
OTTAWA – If Pierre Poilievre wants to “defund the CBC” while maintaining its French-language programming, he’ll have to overhaul the country’s broadcasting law in order to do it.
That’s according to the corporation, which has found itself in a back-and-forth with the Opposition leader over his pledge to axe the roughly $1-billion in taxpayer dollars it receives annually.
“You come at the King, you best not miss.”
Ayo, lesson here. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre might not be a gun-for-hire like the fictional Baltimore street thug Wee-Bey from David Simon’s TV classic The Wire. But Omar Little’s wise words to his failed executioner should be kept in Poilievre’s mind as he guns to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister.
… Somewhere along the bumpy post-Harper road, Poilievre and his Reform-era sidekicks calcified their old-school principles and appear ready to accept a dug-in defeat over a softened-image victory.
Why? It would seem so easy for Poilievre to stick with a few economic policy essentials, advocate for inflation-whacked demographics, harp on Trudeau’s endless stream of missteps and steer clear of flirting with Freedom Convoy alumni, far-right European politicians and controversial commentator Jordan Peterson.
And yet . . . he doesn’t.
Few will change their mind about Justin, he has a stubborn base and a bought media. Poilievre can make some cosmetic changes to his line of attack but the fact remains there is little difference between the LPC and CPC on substantive issues such as mass immigration. I wonder if the ever increasing numbers of non-voters reflects the resigned acceptance of a Canada lost.
Erin O’Toole, the former Conservative party leader, has exited federal politics in mild disagreement with his old boss, Stephen Harper.
While both men agree that the Conservatives are headed back to power, they aren’t exactly in sync on how that will happen.
O’Toole said in his resignation statement on Friday: “The Conservative party is the party of Confederation and I know it will return to government offering the hope and ideas our country so desperately needs.”
The federal Liberals are trending downward on three key measures while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has surpassed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when it comes to the question of who Canadians would prefer now as their prime minister, according to Nanos Research.
Ballot support has been trending negatively now for weeks for the Liberals, while it’s remained steady for the Conservatives; meanwhile, support for Trudeau as prime minister has taken a sharp downward turn as Poilievre’s personal numbers have risen to the point of surpassing Trudeau’s.
Two Conservative Party riding executives in Southern Ontario have resigned because of what one of them labelled a “troubling” nomination race that she says was unfairly tilted in favour of one candidate.
Catherine Agar and Brian Kaufman, former president and vice-president respectively of the Electoral District Association for the riding of Oxford, are both exiting their positions just days after Arpan Khanna, a lawyer from Mississauga, Ont., won the riding’s Tory nomination race, according to a Globe and Mail article.
Khanna won the party’s nomination in the Conservative stronghold riding on March 25 after a tight race.
This sounds so Ottawa.
