Trump helped, but in the end, Poilievre couldn’t get out of his own way

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This article was published 28/04/2025 (194 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

History is replete with stories about political leaders who went down to defeat because they were unable to recognize the moment when their fortunes began to change. For Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives, that moment may have come on Jan. 2.

While most Canadians were still wiping the sleep from their eyes after New Year’s Eve and Day, far-right academic Jordan Peterson posted a YouTube interview with Poilievre. Given that Poilievre was infamous for refusing to do sit-down interviews with traditional news organizations, his two-hour chat with Peterson was quite remarkable for a variety of different reasons.

Over the course of the interview, Poilievre talked confidently about what he was going to do to reshape the federal government and its programs to remove the stench of “wokeism.” Poilievre seemed almost gleeful in discussing how broken Canada had become, overrun by drugs and criminals with “foreign conflicts… spilling onto our streets.” He claimed the alarming increase in racist incidents was largely a backlash against the Liberal government’s indiscriminately progressive world view.

Under the normal political rules of engagement, no political leader with serious aspirations to form government would go anywhere near Peterson, a toxic commentator whose quotes about immigration, feminism, reproductive choice and gender identity have made him the enfant terrible of the culture wars.

But here was Poilievre, the consensus pick as the leader who would become prime minister, basking in Peterson’s radioactive personal brand.

Although misfortune did play a role, it’s not fair to describe the Conservative defeat as a simple case of bad luck. Monday night’s results, and Poilievre’s profound absence of self-awareness, have cemented his place as one of the most myopic political leaders in recent memory.

When you ignore warning signs and insist on closing your eyes and stepping off the curb into the path of an oncoming truck, you are not only reckless. You are also guilty of a massively misjudging both the risks and consequences of wandering blindly into traffic.

One of the most important questions that should be posed to Poilievre and his advisers in the aftermath of their crushing defeat is whether they ever had a contingency plan to fight a campaign without Justin Trudeau leading the Liberals.

Just four days after Poilievre exchanged far-right tropes with Peterson, Trudeau took himself off the board when he announced he was stepping down. That, and the leadership race that it triggered, profoundly changed the landscape of the campaign.

Undeterred, Poilievre forged ahead with the same hyperbole and tone that he had used over the previous two years to build a commanding lead over the Liberals.

Then, two weeks later, U.S. President Donald Trump was inaugurated, allowing him to launch a torrent of executive orders and issue-pointed threats to Canada and Mexico that he would levy across-the-board 25-per-cent tariffs on all imports to the U.S. Within days, Trump and officials from his administration were talking openly about making Canada the 51st state.

Although those threats ignited a wave of nationalism that captured the imagination and stoked the anger of voters across the country, Poilievre stayed the course. Tory advertising continued to howl about how broken Canada had become under the Liberals, but largely ignored the existential threat coming from south of the border.

When the Conservatives did pivot, it was to embrace a new “Canada First” slogan. In their rush to jump onto the nationalistic bandwagon, nobody in Toryland seemed to realize their new slogan seemed less a call to arms, and more like an echo of Trump’s “America First” mantra.

So, it was a bad strategy, compounded by bad luck. But the election result also reveals a fundamental truth about Poilievre the man: he was never as popular as Trudeau was unpopular.

The nation’s dislike of Trudeau afforded Poilievre the luxury to embrace fringe constituencies: anti-vaxxers; xenophobic anti-immigration crusaders; truck convoy militants; and anti-LGBTTQ+ activists. In a more competitive political landscape, Poilievre might have been punished for hobnobbing with extremists. But Trudeau remained a powerful mitigating force that overshadowed the Tory leader’s political indiscretions.

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Once Trudeau was gone, Poilievre’s lack of personal popularity and his reckless political alliances served as a millstone that dragged the entire Conservative party down.

Conservatives may take some comfort from the fact that they won more seats than they did in 2021 and, given how tight the results are, that they will be able to hold a metaphorical knife to prime minister-designate Mark Carney’s throat over the next four years.

Did the Tories have a contingency plan? Given the way Poilievre behaved in the years leading up to Trudeau’s resignation and Trump’s inauguration, perhaps the question is whether any alternate campaign strategy could have saved the Conservatives from the excesses of their leader.

The answer, which thundered across the country Monday night, is probably not.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.