In the lead up to Sunday’s election call, anxiety and confusion has set in among some Conservatives, including within Poilievre’s office
In the lead up to Sunday’s election call, anxiety and confusion has set in among some Conservatives, including within Poilievre’s office
In the lead up to Sunday’s election call, anxiety and confusion has set in among some Conservatives, including within Poilievre’s office
OTTAWA — Not only has U.S. President Donald Trump upended Canada’s trade relationship with its closest neighbour, but also the affordability fight Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wants to have in the next election.
Soaring Conservative confidence has now been tempered by the departure of Justin Trudeau and the upheaval south of the border, two events that have collapsed Poilievre’s 20-point lead in the polls, with some surveys now suggesting he is trailing Prime Minister Mark Carney.
In the lead up to Sunday’s election call, anxiety and confusion has set in among some Conservatives, including within Poilievre’s office, over how the leader is navigating the current moment and what an election campaign overshadowed by an unpredictable U.S. president may bring.
How much that post-Trudeau reality has sunk in — and will stick — for Poilievre remains an open question, given his long held confidence that he can drive his own message and the brand he has built for himself as having unchanged views in politics after 20 years.
“I believe that the biggest challenge for Mr. Poilievre is focusing on all those things that he is going to do and focusing less on Mark Carney,” said Dimitri Soudas, a former director of communications for Stephen Harper, the country’s most recent Conservative prime minister.
“This is a change election. So truly, all you need to do is lay out your change agenda and all you need to say is, ‘You know, these guys have had 10 years.’”
To understand where the party finds itself and what it must do to win, National Post spoke with more than a dozen Conservatives, including strategists, party activists, MPs and veteran campaigners. Many were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation.
For the past two months, there have been internal debates around the merits of Poilievre sticking with his call for a “carbon tax election” and pushing his “axe the tax” message, which some Conservatives believe has staying power as a larger rallying cry for cost-of-living issues.
Last month, Poilievre debuted his response to Canadians worried about the Canada-U.S. relationship at a packed “Canada First” rally in downtown Ottawa. He delivered a speech linking the economic situation the country finds itself back to the past nine years of Liberal rule.
He has kept hammering that point since, while at the same time not abandoning the slogans and pocketbook issues Conservatives have successfully championed, including the carbon tax, which he revisited earlier in the week, even after Carney announced he was reducing the consumer tax rate to zero, beginning April 1.
Poilievre’s announcement that he would scrap the industrial carbon tax came after his office had in fact been considering keeping it. The Conservative leader himself had offered support for Alberta’s model in past speeches in the House of Commons.
The politics of the moment, however, changed the calculation.
Should gas prices fall by 18 cents a litre as estimated once Carney’s change takes effect in April, the push to “axe the tax” will lose its effectiveness, some sources say.
“It just seems like they’re very unsure of themselves,” one insider said. “There’s no narrative.”
All of this has led to some members of his entourage recently making it clear to Poilievre: He is no longer in the lead.
That, one senior Conservative source suggested, has pushed the 45-year-old leader to reach out to people outside his tight circle of usual confidants to seek advice on how to best take on Carney.
Poilievre has sought input on his campaign pitch from multiple caucus members, former advisers and even Ontario Premier Doug Ford, which resulted in a media report that Ford had rebuffed Poilievre but that both men disputed on Friday.
Poilievre has also been working the phone with candidates who have been out door knocking and helping produce the slickly made videos the party plans to release with each new policy promise.
In public, Poilievre has adopted a less biting tone and ratcheted down his attacks against Carney, who the party has running been ads against, painting him as “sneaky.”
Campaign material sent to candidates still features familiar attacks against the new Liberal leader, branding the party the “Carney-Trudeau Liberals,” saying they are responsible for “out-of-control immigration” and support for “job-killing carbon taxes.”
Poilievre’s main tag line for the campaign remains “bring it home,” with the material featuring other well-known slogans of “stop the crime” and “fix the budget.”
Overshadowing the Conservatives’ point that the Liberals are responsible for the economic vulnerability Canada faces and the price of food and housing remaining too high, especially for those under 40, is that, in the shadow of Trump, voters may choose to stick with what they know and deliver the Liberals a fourth mandate — a rarity in Canadian politics.
“In times of crisis, people like incumbencies,” said Scott Lamb, who served as the Conservative party’s president from 2016 to 2021, comparing the situation to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is noise in the system because people will be distracted, ultimately, from the things that they’re unhappy with for only so long.”
Getting Canadians to focus on the Liberal record instead will be Poilievre’s task for the campaign.
Election day could either be April 28 or May 5, with it widely anticipated that the Liberals will opt for the shortest legally allowed timeframe to take advantage of the party’s surge in the polls.
In advance of that, Poilievre has begun pitching himself as the agent for change by calling the preceding years “the lost Liberal decade.”
Nova Scotia Sen. Michael MacDonald suggest Liberals prefer to run against Trump, which is serving as a distraction. He also dismissed Trump’s comments on annexing Canada as simply “rhetoric.”
“The election’s about the economy, it’s not about Donald Trump,” he told National Post.
“Donald Trump’s not running Canada,” he said. “Donald Trump didn’t run Canada into the ground.”
Heading into the campaign, the Liberal party released new ads pitching Carney, a two-time central banker, as having the economic experience to stand up against Trump’s tariffs, countering Poilievre’s “Canada First” message with Carney’s pledge to keep “Canada Strong.”
Behind-the-scenes, the Conservatives, who have long called for an election, have been busy staffing up a war room, with exact jobs still being defined, and dispatching Parliament Hill staffers to act as campaign mangers for candidates.
In battleground ridings, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area, which is key to win for forming government, the focus is also on the plummeting support for the NDP, as their supporters look to the Carney-led Liberals.
A two-way race between the Tories and Liberals could spell trouble for the Conservatives, which have historically depended on New Democrats splitting the left-of-centre vote for victory.
Jenni Bryne, Poilievre’s top adviser, and the Conservatives’ national campaign director, notified media this week that reporters would not be permitted to travel with Poilievre on the campaign, breaking with longstanding tradition of how media outlets provide federal election coverage for Canadians. (They pay their own way.)
As Poilievre prepares to hit the hustings, a complaint mentioned on the doorsteps and in calls MPs have been making to voters has been around his tone, especially for older voters, wary of Trump.
He has also received feedback that he is not talking enough about the U.S. president.
When confronted with concerns about Poilievre and Trump, one candidate said they point to how Trump himself has said Poilievre is not a “MAGA guy” and suggests that his style may be exactly what is needed to go toe-to-toe with Trump.
It is the explanation Poilievre himself has given to voters, at least to those in Quebec through a new ad where he admits his style is seen as “too direct” and “too blunt.”
The Conservatives were quick to embrace Trump’s most recent comments that he would rather have a Liberal in office than Poilievre.
Speaking at an event on Friday, Poilievre also made it clear what he sees as the question Canadians will answer in the coming election.
“Do we want a fourth term of Liberals who block resources, tax our people, drive up our costs, unleash crime in our community and make us weak and defenceless facing the Americans, or do we want put Canada first for a change.”
Poilievre will soon find out.
National Post, with files from Christopher Nardi and Stuart Thomson
staylor@postmedia.com
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