1 week Ago By [email protected] (Raisa Patel)
OTTAWA–For Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre , Canada’s 45th election was meant to deliver change. It did, by heralding a new era for a now road-tested Mark Carney, whose Liberal party was projected to form government Monday night, though a minority or majority mandate was not yet known as results continued to roll in across the country. That victory has cemented Poilievre’s legacy as the third Conservative leader to fail to topple the Grits since Justin Trudeau’s Liberals first came to power in 2015.
He was the only one of those leaders to bring the Conservative party to its largest pre-campaign lead in recent memory — and watched it evaporate as Carney supplanted the unpopular Trudeau amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s expansionist and protectionist threats .
Entering election day virtually neck and neck with the Liberals, the Conservatives appeared poised to post two key losses to the Liberals, with South Shore—St. Margarets’ Rick Perkins losing his seat and Peterborough’s Michelle Ferreri also on the ropes in her riding. The fate of Poilievre’s own seat, the sprawling Ottawa-area riding of Carleton, was also unknown late Monday.
The riding drew the largest advance voting turnout of Canada’s 343 ridings, but also fell victim to an electoral reform protest movement that saw 91 names on the riding’s ballot, gumming up the count. In the final week of the campaign, party staff funnelled extra resources into the riding , over fears the leader winning back his seat was no longer guaranteed. Monday’s result opens the door to questions about the 45-year-old’s political future and how the Conservative party will reshape its identity.
The mood was subdued inside a downtown Ottawa convention centre where an eclectic mix of supporters and party faithful congregated, many of whom had clung on to hope earlier in the evening that Poilievre would make history by ending a so-called “lost” decade of Liberal rule. By the time the major networks projected a Carney victory, the cheers that accompanied each Conservative win as the final results became more clear had dwindled. The atmosphere as the results took shape was a far cry from the thousands of sign-bearing and merchandise-clad supporters who flocked to Poilievre’s rallies across the country.
It was those rallies his team pointed to when Poilievre fended off criticisms about his party’s polling slump and whether his decision to fixate on threats within Canada’s borders — rather than outside them — was resonating . The first week of the race saw the Conservatives grappling with reports of internal disarray and discontent, including concerns that Poilievre’s innermost circle was dismissing calls to refocus their campaign on Trump and move away from relentless sloganeering, like the preoccupation with the consumer carbon price Carney had already abandoned. The Conservatives’ response was denial, arguing that Poilievre had long been seized with protecting Canada from outside harm.
In some ways, he had; before Poilievre launched his “change” and “Canada First” themes of this campaign, he rallied supporters for two years with a message to “bring it home.” That morphed into campaign promises like accelerating approvals for resource projects, a capital gains tax deferral aimed at reinvesting in Canadian businesses, and a pledge to drop the rate on the lowest income tax bracket from 15 per cent to 12.75 per cent.
But Poilievre never deviated from the domestic issues he insisted should define the contest: crime crackdowns and criminal justice reforms, gutting foreign aid, defunding the CBC and cutting government bloat. In announcing those policies, the Conservative leader embarked on a cross-country tour that saw him make multiple swings through key battlegrounds in the GTA, B.C.
’s lower mainland and Atlantic Canada, while seeking to defend Conservative territory in cities like Calgary and Saskatoon and capture new ground in southwestern and northern Ontario. His final campaign stop on Sunday night was at a farm in his home riding of Carleton. “I want you to know that no matter what happens tomorrow, I will be there to fight for you, for your quality of life, for your future, for your hopes and aspirations, to bring home the Canadian promise that this country made and kept to my wife, Ana, and I,” Poilievre told an enraptured crowd.
“We both come from very humble beginnings. It is only in this country that we could be standing in this place.” Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request.
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