Pierre Poilievre is arguably the worst federal Canadian Conservative leader since … well, only since Andrew Scheer, actually.
Still, he’s a political leader who blew a 27-point lead in public opinion polls to lose the 2025 federal elections to the Liberals, who’d been on the ropes for months.
The same night, he lost his own seat in Ontario’s Carleton riding and had to bump, as they say in a union contract, an MP with less seniority in an Alberta riding so safe it’s been electing Conservatives since actual dinosaurs wandered through its valleys. Well, almost, anyway.
He’s a lifetime professional politician and an Ottawa insider who’s basically done nothing else, and accomplished very little while doing it, throughout his adult life. He’s never held what most of us would consider a real job. If he hadn’t by happenstance been born in Calgary, he’d be the perfect example of the much talked about but seldom seen “Laurentian elite.”
He’s a profoundly negative politician, nowadays seemingly deep into the MAGA cult, or at least willing to play at it to keep his Trumpified base in Alberta and Saskatchewan sweet.
By any sensible measure, then, facing a post-election leadership review by Conservative Party of Canada delegates in convention in Calgary tomorrow, Mr. Poilievre would be looking for a new political job, and possibly a new career, by next week.
Instead, in all probability he will be endorsed for another term as leader of the Opposition party, and allowed to take another stab at becoming prime minister of Canada.
All the evidence suggests that, whatever his acknowledged talents as an energetic campaigner, Mr. Poilievre lacks what it takes to change his approach to deal with the exigencies of a changed political and economic landscape. In other words: same stuff, different era.
Will Mr. Poilievre match Stephen Harper’s 85-per-cent leadership vote after his loss in the 2004 election?
What do you want to bet he exceeds it?
The situations are not without similarities, one supposes. The Liberals lost their majority in 2004, at any rate, setting the stage for Mr. Harper’s minority victory in 2006. But Mr. Harper was a politician on the way up. Conservatives presumably can make themselves believe Mr. Poilievre, who is no Stephen Harper, can pull off the same trick.
But the Liberal leader of the time, Paul Martin, was not an inspiring leader on the rise. And Prime Minister Mark Carney, despite the screams of protest this will arouse among some Prairie Conservatives, does look to a heck of lot of Canadians like just the man for the current crisis.
What’s more, the perpetually angry Mr. Poilievre is no incrementalist like Mr. Harper. He simultaneously frightens and annoys large numbers of Canadians, even quite a few out here on the Prairies.
Like Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, Mr. Poilievre has a large Alberta caucus full of separatist loons. Since he aspires to lead Canada, presumably he’s not an Alberta separatist or 51st-state annexationist himself, as Ms. Smith is widely suspected of being. But like Ms. Smith, he’s going to have to tippy-toe around the separatist sympathizers in his own caucus, lest they go all Make Alberta Great Again on him.
For this reason, Calgary is probably the worst place for the Conservatives to hold their convention this year. And count on it, a lot of Canadians who are not delegates to the Calgary Conservative clambake will be watching what happens there very carefully.
There’s great danger a MAGA eruption will soon happen on the Prairies anyway. With a Calgary Herald political columnist busy pumping the tires of the Alberta separatist crowd, even Damien Kurek is on the record defending voters in his riding who want to break up our country or sell it out to the unravelling republic to the south.
“It is easier to demonize or slime them than it is to have a rational debate,” Mr. Kurek whinged to columnist Rick Bell.
Well, needs must. Mr. Kurek will probably run again in the rural riding east of Calgary if Mr. Poilievre scuttles back to the familiar embrace of the foothills of les Laurentides. But it wouldn’t be a complete shock, by the sound of The Dinger’s report, if the next Conservative MP for Battle River-Crowfoot had a foot in the door of the separatist caucus himself.
None of this, it is said here, is going to help Mr. Poilievre and his Conservatives the next time he has to face the capable Mr. Carney in an election. Mind you, that may be a while if the prime minister can persuade a couple more Conservative MPs to make the short journey across the floor of the House of Commons.
Short because Mr. Carney is really more of a progressive conservative himself than the kind of Liberal we’ve grown used to. Also short because, well, it’s actually not very far, although it might be momentarily unpleasant for an MP who can’t keep Mr. Sheer from stomping into their office.
We should never rule Mr. Poilievre out completely, of course. He is a formidable campaigner. There is a significant appetite in some parts of Canada for the MAGA meadow muffins he regularly peddles. And circumstances can change. Things may not seem too dire to take a chance on rolling the dice if, say, the current American president suddenly leaves the scene for any reason.
Still, choosing Mr. Poilievre to lead the federal Opposition party at this fraught moment in Canadian history sure seems like a political suicide pact for Conservatives.
Well, good luck to ’em!