Conservative Party

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.”

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.

OTTAWA — It was a version of a speech Pierre Poilievre delivered dozens of times to rallies in months of running for leadership of the Conservative party.

But this time, the audience wasn’t drawn from the thousands of political newcomers who had spilled out of bars and basements, and ultimately helped deliver his win six months ago.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper says Canada is “badly” in need of a “Conservative renaissance” as the movement’s grassroots gather in Ottawa.

In a rare public speech, Harper reminisced about the early days of the Reform Party and suggested a similarly insurgent movement is required in Canadian politics today.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he would expand Canada’s seal hunt if he becomes prime minister, provoking condemnation from animal-welfare groups in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, as well as singer-songwriter Jann Arden and Baywatch star Pamela Anderson.

Mr. Poilievre blamed opposition to the cull on “eco-nuts” in the United States and European Union and said killing more seals was needed to curb a rise in the seal population and protect Atlantic salmon, which he said were “being gobbled up by the excessive population of seals.”

OTTAWA — An anti-abortion group is crying foul – and blaming Pierre Poilievre — after “the most winnable pro-life” candidate was disqualified from the race to decide who should run for the federal Conservatives in a rural Ontario riding.

But party headquarters moved swiftly Wednesday to distance itself from the suggestion that Gerrit Van Dorland’s views were the issue, saying the problem was that he hid information from his candidate application.

In the Mr. Men classic children’s books by Roger Hargreaves, the characters are all defined by a single attribute. Mr. Tickle has long, undulating – frankly, disturbing – arms for administering his greeting of choice. Little Miss Giggles conducts herself like a stoned hyena. Mr. Greedy is shaped like an eggplant, though he recovers from his disordered eating by the end of the book.