OTTAWA — No matter how many clicks a candidate has on social media or dollars they have in the bank, what it’s going to take to win the Conservative leadership race is votes.
But both the likes and the bucks are part of getting that vote out.
Get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of all five campaigns are shifting into high gear with just a month remaining in the contest, and even less time to get ballots back to party headquarters to be counted.
OTTAWA — Ontario MP Pierre Poilievre remains the heavy favourite to be the next Conservative party leader but he trails opponent Jean Charest for support among Canadians as a whole.
A new Leger poll conducted in collaboration with the Association for Canadian Studies suggests 44 per cent of Conservative voters believe Poilievre would make the best party leader. His chief rival, former Quebec premier Jean Charest, is backed by 17 per cent.
These Poilievre hit pieces are getting a little more subtle.
Leader of the People’s Party of Canada Maxime Bernier said the Conservative Party of Canada is “infiltrated” by the “woke far left,” after blasting the party’s President for using so-called “trans-inclusive” pronouns in his Twitter bio.
“This woke guy with pronouns in his bio is the president of the Conservative Party of Canada. Still wondering why I left this morally and intellectually corrupt party?,” tweeted Bernier yesterday.
The president of the CPC Rob Batherson’s Twitter bio reads, “Business person, community volunteer, husband, father, son (he/him).”
Well that’s settles it not voting the CPC next election.
Conservative leadership candidate Jean Charest has pledged to implement a “low carbon fuel standard” – a policy that would tax the excess carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
In Charest’s environmental plan, Charest opposes the Trudeau government’s consumer carbon tax but pledges to “replace it with an industrial carbon price to slash emissions while giving provinces the flexibility to choose their path to emission reductions.”
It doesn’t matter. All costs will be paid by consumers. They think we’re stupid.
Stephen Harper’s endorsement of Pierre Poilievre for the Conservative Party leadership may have soured some voters on the Ottawa MP, a new poll suggests.
The former Conservative prime minister recently said Mr. Poilievre is his preferred choice, from a field of five candidates, for the party’s leadership.
Jean Charest will not commit to supporting the Conservative Party of Canada in the next federal election unless he wins the party’s leadership next month. That makes his campaign nothing more than a vanity project.
When three Conservative leadership hopefuls met this past week for a debate, the same word kept getting repeated.
Unity. Or more precisely, the need for it.
In a contest largely seen as a battle for the party’s soul, which has put decades-old fissures on display between groups that make up its very coalition, what might it take to achieve unity after results are revealed Sept. 10?
Some social conservatives view the massive influx of new Conservative Party members as an “opportunity” to strengthen their movement’s influence within the party.
It remains to be seen, however, how successful “socon” groups will be at recruiting from the roughly 400,000 new members the party claims to have signed up over the current leadership race – or how beholden the likely next leader, Pierre Poilievre, will be to the faction.
The press never really lets up on the “Conservative hidden agenda” schtick. But to be frank I suspect the Socons will be ignored and silenced if not exiled by the CPC “braintrust” regardless of who is elected leader.
On Wednesday night in Ottawa, three of the five Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidates took part in the third and final official debate of the 2022 race.
Candidates Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber and Jean Charest delved into some of the top issues of the campaign.
The half-English and half-French debate saw the trio discuss leadership, Indigenous issues, transportation, climate change, affordability, rural affairs and health.
TERRAZZANO: Not all Conservatives oppose second carbon tax — but they should
When it comes to scrapping the Trudeau government’s carbon tax, the hardest decision Conservative leadership hopefuls have to make is whether they would scrap it before or after lunch on their first day if elected prime minister. The bigger question is whether a Conservative government would scrap the impending second carbon tax.
We’ll be LIVE for the Conservative Party of Canada’s final leadership debate!
True North’s Andrew Lawton will be hosting tonight’s discussion, and will be joined by Harrison Faulkner, Rachel Emmanuel and Elie Cantin-Nantel.
Only three out of the five leadership candidates will be attending tonight’s debate, as both Pierre Poilievre and Leslyn Lewis declined their invitations. Will this still be a lively and worthwhile debate? Tune in tonight to find out.
Our show begins tonight at 5:30pm ET / 3:30pm MT and we’ll be streaming the debate afterwards, which begins at 6:00pm ET / 4:00pm MT.
The slow bleed of younger millennials and older Gen Zers to the Conservative party has turned into a torrent that could realign Canadian politics in unexpected ways.
Abacus Data’s latest survey of how Canadians would vote if a federal election were held tomorrow finds 37 per cent of 18-29 year olds in favour of the Conservative Party of Canada. This represents a massive 17-point surge since January when just 20 per cent of this age bracket preferred the CPC.
With the CPC releasing Q2 financial numbers, the information regarding the CPC leadership race is quite something.
Unsurprisingly, Pierre Poilievre led with over $4 million raised.
Charest was in second with nearly $1.4 million.
Leslyn Lewis raised over $700,000.
Roman Baber raised over $500,000.
And Scott Aitchison raised just over $360,000.
But the real shock was in total donors – a number more indicative of true support in the party.
While former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper occasionally writes, speaks and makes public appearances, it’s very rare for him to issue a political endorsement. When he decided to do just that for Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre, many people were caught off-guard and took notice.
MONTREAL, Que. — Is the Conservative leadership race tightening? Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, but it may already be too late for Jean Charest.
New data on the Conservative Party of Canada leadership contest was unveiled last week. While Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre remains the unquestioned favorite, former federal Progressive Conservative leader and Quebec Premier Charest has significantly improved his standing in recent months, both with the general electorate and among CPC supporters.
Is Canada’s venerable Conservative party going nuts?
Whatever happened to the old “sensible shoes” party known as the Conservatives?
As Pierre Poilievre, a radical populist, prepares to become the party’s new leader, it’s a question that has taken on new urgency.
Poilievre was already the odds-on favourite for winning his party’s leadership in a race that concludes next month. But his candidacy received a new boost this week, when he won the endorsement of former prime minister Stephen Harper.
