As a federal election nears and the Liberals appear poised to pull off the comeback of the century, some observers have actually begun to shed a tear or two for Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. Apparently they view him as some sort of tragic Shakespearean figure, the helpless victim of unanticipated events beyond his control in the form of the tariff war launched against Canada by deranged U.S. president Donald Trump. If only Trump had not done this, they opine, Pierre would have been fine.
Nonsense. Nothing could be further from the truth. A case can easily be made that Pierre Poilievre’s seemingly secure majority victory was already endangered long before the American president’s actions began in earnest. Moreover the Conservatives’ subsequent steep fall from grace over the past two months has been driven by their leader’s own tone deaf acts and failure to respond meaningfully to Trump, thereby turning a potential opportunity into disaster.
The polls provide solid support for the argument that the Conservative leader has no one to blame but himself for his likely electoral disappointment. Consider the timing of the party’s spectacular rise and even more spectacular fall from grace. Poilievre was elected leader of the Conservative Party in September 2022. By mid-2023 the Conservatives were 5 points ahead of the Liberals (at 35% to 30%) and by January 2024 they had a commanding 15 point lead (40%-25%). This lead, in turn, was partly the result of typical voter fatigue with a government that had been in power for nine years. It was heightened by the post-pandemic voter discontent roiling all western democracies, discontent that had seen all incumbent governments turfed in elections during 2024. But the Conservatives had also contributed to the size of their lead, primarily through their unprecedented vitriolic attacks on the government and the prime minister personally, based often on half-truths and disinformation, and masterfully communicated through the use of social media.[i]
The Conservatives’ lead grew dramatically throughout the year. By December 2024 they had been riding high for a year with a 20-plus point advantage that put them in majority government territory. In fact, at one point they appeared poised to capture the largest majority in Canadian history, at 220 seats, or nearly 50 more seats than needed for a bare majority.
The unprecedented margin of their lead in the polls apparently led the party, and certainly its leader, to behave as if their job was done. Indeed, for all of 2024 both Poilievre and his caucus conducted themselves as a government-in-waiting. Poilievre himself was consistently smug and supercilious, apparently measuring the drapes for the prime minister’s residence. At the same time he did not let up on his vitriolic attacks on the Liberals and, more specifically, on prime minister Justin Trudeau, whom he appeared to personally despise and who he actually accused of lying on several occasions. In short, while his party may have seen itself as a government-in-waiting, Poilievre happily continued to behave as a pit bull Leader of the Opposition, constantly on the attack, and gave no evidence of prime ministerial demeanor.
Throughout 2024 another thing Poilievre and Co. did not do was provide any indication of where they might take the country once they gained control of the levers of power. The only policy direction Poilievre offered was provided by a series of three-word slogans, all negative in nature, that were repeated ad nauseum, from “Axe the Tax” to “Stop the Crime” and “Jail, not Bail.” Questioned on such issues as his party’s plans to address climate change, once he had “axed” the so-called consumer carbon “tax”, the Conservative leader offered no alternatives at all, leaving many to wonder if he and his government would actually do nothing. This perception was heightened when Poilievre repeatedly refused to even answer questions about the industrial carbon tax that was also put in place by the Liberals. After more than a year of this mindless rote repetition, even the Conservatives’ most ardent supporters were beginning to tire of the routine.
Then came the 2024 fall parliamentary session, and the NDP’s foolish (and, as it turns out, disastrous) decision to rip up the Supply and Confidence Agreement that had kept the minority Liberal government in power to the mutual benefit of both parties. Almost from the beginning Poilievre and his caucus took advantage of the situation to increase their obstruction of House business. They also seized on any possible opportunity to delay or derail the government’s agenda. This was partly because they were concerned that some initiatives – such as national pharmacare and childcare plans, or the school lunch program – would become entrenched faits accomplis with formally signed federal-provincial funding agreements, making them far more difficult to dismantle once the Conservatives took office. But their obstruction was also a deliberate attempt to force the Liberals into an early election, believing they would win in a walk.
By late October the Conservatives had essentially stalled all progress in the House, aided and abetted by the NDP and the Bloc. They launched a filibuster which absurdly saw them repeatedly amending their own motion in an effort to prolong the stalemate. At the same time they launched an extensive public relations campaign, funded by their bottomless war chest, to demand that the Liberals call an election immediately, rather than wait until the October 2025 scheduled election date.
Seen in this light, the growing signs of unrest in the Liberal caucus, some public calls for Trudeau to step down and the eventual chaotic departure of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in mid-December, can only be seen as the direct result of the unrelenting pressure placed on the Liberal government by the Conservatives throughout the fall.
In the end they got what they asked for. On January 6, 2025, Justin Trudeau announced his intention to resign as soon as the party could hold a leadership race to replace him. That day the Conservatives were at 44% in the polls while the Liberals trailed badly at 20%. On January 10 the party announced the new leader would be picked on March 9, and the following day Mark Carney announced his candidacy. Like fellow candidate Chrystia Freeland, Carney also immediately said he would cancel the so-called consumer carbon tax opposed by Poilievre.
The Conservatives’ decline in the polls began almost immediately, slowly at first and then picking up speed. Interestingly, January 20, 2025 – the day that Donald Trump was inaugurated as president – was the last day the Conservatives held their high point. And that was several days before Trump began to muse seriously about tariffs. Since then the Conservative lead in the polls steadily declined. By February 3, when Trump’s plans were still only a possibility and he announced a 30-day delay in implementing them, the Conservatives had already fallen to a mere ten-point lead over the Liberals.[ii]
So what would account for the Conservatives’ early decline? The obvious answer is that the two factors on which Poilievre had counted for his entire election strategy – waging the battle against Justin Trudeau and against the consumer carbon tax – had been eliminated, a classic example of “be careful what you wish for.” But there are other elements to this story. For example, as polls have repeatedly demonstrated, many voters were parking their vote with the Conservatives because they wanted to be rid of Trudeau, not because they actually liked Poilievre. If the Liberals were able to come up with anyone at all whom these voters liked better, they were gone. And judging from other polls about positive and negative personal ratings, (Poilievre at minus 49%) it would not have taken much to find someone who fared better than Poilievre in those ratings.
Of course it is impossible to address hypothetical situations, but it is reasonable to at least question the assumption that Pierre Poilievre, the pit bull of the House of Commons, would also be the winner in any leaders’ debates during a federal election, even without the Trump factor having reared its ugly head. After all he has never participated in one. He was elected after the 2021 federal election that saw then Conservative leader Erin O’Toole decimated by Justin Trudeau, who had proved himself a formidable debating opponent in three elections.
Note that Poilievre’s reputation as a talented performer in the House of Commons is based on his role as Opposition Leader, asking questions of the government. But in leaders’ debates the situation is reversed. Party leaders are the ones who are asked questions. Failure to answer those questions, or responding with mere slogans, is problematic to say the least. And Poilievre is well known for his dislike of unscripted questions. Note also that Poilievre’s campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, recently announced that the Conservatives will break with longstanding practice and bar all reporters from their campaign plane, making them the only party to do so. The upshot? Poilievre will not have to answer any questions at all from pesky journalists in situations he does not control. (He already limits questions at so-called press conferences, where he speaks for most of the time and takes only 2 or 3 questions from pre-determined sources.)
In those leaders’ debates, even without the Trump factor in play, Poilievre would also potentially be at a disadvantage when asked about future policy initiatives, since he and his party have consistently refused to offer any concrete solutions on a wide range of issues. They have ignored other issues entirely. More than once Poilievre has actually instructed his entire caucus to refuse to discuss specific policies or events. And despite spending the past 24 years in the House of Commons, he has never demonstrated mastery of any particular policy area.
Of course no one could deny that the sudden unexpected emergence of Trump’s tariff wars and 51st state threats have changed the tone and tenor of the election. Poll results since then indicate this has become the major issue of the campaign. It is also true that since the Trump tariff wars entered the picture the Conservative decline has accelerated and support for the party has been in freefall. As of March 16, the Liberals and Conservatives were neck and neck. By March 18 the Liberals had actually taken a slim lead and many new polls were predicting a Liberal victory, if not an actual majority.
But there also can be little doubt that it is Poilievre’s inability to respond meaningfully to the Trump threat that has contributed significantly to his party’s decline. His initial efforts to simply parrot the ideas of others, such as the need to reduce interprovincial trade barriers, have only been bolstered in the past week or two by actual policy initiatives. Even then, his northern press conference promising to increase defence spending, and his announcement this week to spend billions more on the Ontario Ring of Fire mining project, have both appeared makeshift and superficial.
Nor does Poilievre himself appear convincing, let alone passionate, about the projects or even his defence of Canadian interests. Instead, he has moved with painful slowness to add a small pro-Canada component to various appearances at which he has continued to promote the same negative discourse and slogans he has used all along. His reluctance to give up on his predetermined election script first led him to refer to Mark Carney as Just Like Justin, and then as Carbon Tax Carney, even though the winner of the Liberal leadership race had already announced he would scrap the consumer carbon tax. The Conservative leader’s perverse determination to use these phrases led to a farcical event this past week, when Poilievre – framed by an old Axe the Tax placard — desperately declared that, unlike Carney, he would also cancel the industry portion of the carbon tax, something on which he had refused to speculate only weeks earlier.
Then there is the question of Poilievre’s handling of Carney. Many would argue that the Conservative leader should have had a clear advantage. He could easily have chosen to label Carney as an outsider who knows nothing about politics and has never run for public office of any kind, making him completely unprepared to deal with high level negotiations and the political implications of policy-making. Instead, Poilievre chose to paint the former banker as a consummate insider, “just like Justin”, and accused him of having been involved in government policy development for several years. In addition, with Conservative ads focusing exclusively on Carney for several weeks before he was even chosen as the next Liberal leader, Canadians were not only given heightened exposure to Carney’s candidacy but left with the clear impression that Poilievre sees him as a serious, even dangerous opponent.
Finally there is the issue of Poilievre’s own performance during this existential crisis. Countless articles have been written asking why Poilievre has not “pivoted”, or when he will “pivot”, or what new approach he will take in his pivot. The sad truth is that he has demonstrated no ability whatsoever to pivot. It appears that his only gear is attack mode. One fascinating analysis of this behaviour was provided recently by well-known physician and author Jillian Horton, who described Poilievre’s problem in Freudian terms as “destrudo”, or “the impulse to vanquish, conquer or destroy.”[iii] (Interestingly, this term has also been applied to Trump himself.) Simply put, she argues that Poilievre is not merely unwilling but incapable of transforming himself into a positive, disciplined and inspirational leader. And that, as Horton has said, is “the crux of the matter.”
It is true that the Liberals have found someone as their next leader who is almost exactly what the situation calls for. But it is also true that Pierre Poilievre would never have been the right person for these times. A different Conservative leader might well have been able to salvage or even master the situation. Under Poilievre, the massive majority has been squandered, and no amount of blaming Trump should obscure that fact if the Conservatives go on to lose the upcoming election.
[i] https://brookejeffrey.ca/so-called-experts-is-pierre-poilievre-heading-for-another-cultural-revolution/
[ii] See the polling charts at Canada 338 for more detailed polling data for the entire period. https://338canada.com/polls.htm
[iii] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-theres-no-pierre-poilievre-without-justin-trudeau-thats-why-the/
