There is a growing chorus of Conservatives who want Pierre Poilievre gone. They should be careful what they wish for.
This isn’t necessarily a defence of Poilievre. He has made mistakes, his critics have legitimate arguments and nobody is entitled to lead a political party forever. And maybe the Conservatives will eventually conclude that somebody else should lead them into the next election.
For Pierre Poilievre, this summer was meant to be one of reset.
Instead, it brought public infighting sparked by a remark Poilievre made about a prominent Conservative organizer, a tightening fundraising race and the loss of another caucus member, leaving some MPs and insiders worried more departures could follow.
“I think anyone that tells you that everyone’s feeling great right now is either lying to you or to themselves,” said Ben Woodfinden, who worked as Poilievre’s communications director until after last year’s election.
Who are the complainers? What savior do they offer?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana famously wrote in his 1905 work, The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress. While this aphorism is commonly associated with tragic events such as the Holocaust, it can actually be applied to many moments in history.
HALIFAX—So, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is making an image adjustment.
He has decided to exchange his signature smirk and the snarky remarks that go along with it for a more positive pose. He is now offering to work with all parties to prevent American tariffs on Canadian exports from happening. “Conservatives are here to help and fight for Canada,” he recently said.
The seemingly endless loop of slogans appeared to have stopped, too.
The CBC has learned nothing since it stood on the precipice and stared down its annihilation at the hands of a Conservative government.
Last month, Pollara released its annual Trust in Media survey, revealing the CBC’s net trust score among Conservative voters is now just +9, compared to +78 among Liberal voters—the widest trust gap of any Canadian outlet. Conservative trust dropped 13 points in just three years.
The Conservative Party faces the problem of a changing country, not a change in ethnic diversity or gender identity, but a change in age brackets. In fact, the electorate is aging out of their preferred conservatism, and they are not getting any younger.
In this changed country, appeals to tax cuts and smaller government simply do not have the attraction they once did. Dependence on the state has grown. Part of that dependence stems from the outsized expansion of the public service since 2015, but that is not the main culprit. The real culprit is the growing share of the population made up of retirees and pensioners.
There’s a lineup of imperfect candidates who could make the case for Canada ahead of Alberta’s referendum-to-have-a-referendum on sovereignty in the fall.
There’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, of course, the most prominent federalist in the country and one who happened to spend the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Alberta. But Mr. Carney is Albertan in the same way that I am royalty; just because I spent some years putting on princess dresses doesn’t mean Queen Camilla sees me as a peer. Mr. Carney spent much of his pre-political life talking up net-zero and indirectly talking down Alberta industry. He simply cannot speak to Albertans with the same air of provincial kinship as prime ministers Pierre Trudeau or Jean Chrétien could with Quebeckers.
OTTAWA—Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will launch his campaign against Alberta separatism on Monday, beginning with an address that will argue that national unity is not about stronger ties to Ottawa, but on fighting against it.
“Listen carefully to the concerns of those saying that they want to leave. And you will find that they do not have a problem with fellow Canadians or even with Canada. They have a problem with the federal government,” reads an excerpt from Poilievre’s remarks that his office shared with media ahead of his Calgary speech.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has baffled Conservatives. This can be seen in the party’s failure to update a strategy that was targeted towards Justin Trudeau’s obnoxiously progressive tenure in office. Whether they like it or not, Carney is not Trudeau. All this approach has accomplished has been to permit the current prime minister to remain high in the polls by simply being a different person than Trudeau, who had become so broadly unpopular that anyone displaying a modicum of competence would have succeeded with voters.
More than half of past Conservative voters want Pierre Poilievre to lead the party into the next election, although a growing minority would like to see him replaced before then, a new poll has found.
The public-opinion survey for the non-partisan Angus Reid Institute found that 30 per cent of past Conservative voters want Mr. Poilievre to step down before the next election compared with 18 per cent surveyed in August.
The message that worked against Trudeau will work against Carney who has not lived up to anyone’s expectations.
Be patient while the MSM devotes itself to coverage of Poilievre’s real & imagined shortcomings while granting Carney a free ride.
And remember even the RCMP has predicted riots.
It’s already political legend. In 2025, Justin Trudeau stepped down as prime minister just as Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives were cruising toward a massive majority government. Within weeks of Mark Carney taking the helm of the Liberals, the political landscape was transformed. By April, the Liberals had secured another mandate—a turnaround with virtually no precedent in Canada in terms of scale and timing, and one that few observers would have predicted at the start of the year. Yours truly included.
Don’t often link to the Walrus but here it is.
h/t Ogie
It’s like déjà vu all over again.
Yet another Conservative MP, uncomfortable with the direction of the party or doubtful about its electoral prospects, has decamped to the Liberals. The fourth floor crossing from the CPC in six months — with more MPs reportedly considering the move.
Although the first three departures smacked of opportunism with a side of dissatisfaction at the culture of the party under Pierre Poilievre, the most recent defection speaks to a more concerning issue: the abandonment not only of the leader, but of conservative ideology itself.
What started out as a small scrape is turning into a long bleed. On Wednesday, 11-year Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu left caucus and joined the Liberals after denouncing floor crossers. You can actually make it make sense if you really squint, but for Pierre Poilievre, that doesn’t help much.
Gladu should repulse the Liberals: she’s dined with Freedom Convoyers; stood up for an alleged constituent whose bank account was frozen for buying a convoy T-shirt; spoken at the National March for Life; praised Donald Trump before he was president.
OTTAWA—Up to 40 Conservative MPs are worried that they could lose their seats if Pierre Poilievre leads the party into the next election against Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney, said two federal Conservative sources after the party lost a fourth MP on Wednesday.
Dissatisfaction and worries about their future under Poilievre’s leadership has many questioning whether or not a bolder move to spark change is required, with some MPs discussing whether to invoke caucus powers to force Poilievre out, according to one federal Conservative.
40? I bet.
And tell me who among the conservatives is going to lead them post Poilievrre?
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is shuffling his deck, sending Elon Musk-style letters to his shadow ministers asking them to prove their worth.
Monday’s email was referred to by one Conservative as “DOGE-like” — a reference to Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” which sent emails to U.S. federal government workers last year demanding that they list their past week’s accomplishments or resign.
Bonus, Poilievre’s latest podcast appearance.
