— Feature, Musings —03.15.2025 12:28 PM
Ten reasons Poilievre could still win
Justin Trudeau – finally, blessedly – is gone.
Mark Carney, the charisma-free zone who takes showers in three-piece suits, is the Selected Prime Minister. The polls suggest he could soon become the Elected Prime Minister. So, is Pierre Poilievre toast? Could he still win?
No, he’s not toast. Yes, he could still win. Ten reasons.
1. Poilievre has lots of money. In 2024, his Conservatives raised $41.8 million. That’s just about double what the Liberals and the New Democrats raised – put together. The year before, 2022, Poilievre had another record-smashing year, and raised $35 million – more than doubling what the Liberals raised. Now, money doesn’t always guarantee wins – recall the fates of billionaires like Ross Perot and Pete DuPont, for example – but the absence of money always guarantees defeats. Money buys ads.
2. Poilievre has organizational strength. Money alone doesn’t win elections – people do. And, right now, Poilievre has many more candidates nominated than his opponents. And, critically, he has a Tory-blue army on the ground, from sea to sea to sea. The Liberals, meanwhile, have entire ridings that exist in name only – they are effectively political ghost towns. To win, you need people to knock on doors, put up signs, and get out the vote. Poilievre has that.
3. Poilievre has a disciplined team. In 2015, Stephen Harper lost because of lack of discipline – substituting a focus on the economy for scaremongering about veils. His successors lost, in 2019 and 2021, because of lack of message discipline, too – Erin O’Toole embracing a carbon tax, Andrew Scheer allying himself with social conservative causes. This time around, Poilievre and his team have run a much tighter ship: there have been no big verbal missteps about abortion, equal marriage or other policy Vietnams. Voters have noticed.
4. Poilievre sticks to his key messages. When hunting bear, the legendary Romeo LeBlanc once said to this writer, don’t get distracted by rabbit tracks. Poilievre didn’t and doesn’t. After becoming leader in 2022, the Ottawa-area MP maintained a laser-like focus on pocketbook issues, and mostly stayed away from everything else. The top issue for voters was cost-of-living, too. It worked.
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Warren,
The strategist says Pierre could win. The second strategist says Yes, theoretically he could win. But what does the gut say when you throw into the mix the two personalities of the leaders, such as they are? In short, two personalities that are at least disappointing for lack of a better word. It becomes a choice of the lesser of two “evils” and what does the gut say to that? My gut says if Pierre doesn’t retool and come off as more statesman-like, he loses. So far, people are looking for an excuse not to vote CPC, while giving Carney and the Liberals a free pass. Only Pierre can remedy that by the way he approaches retail politics going forward. If he stays the same, we lose. Period.
I think you’re right, and I think it’s too late for Poilievre. The Liberals have to fight like they’re losing, and then they’ll win. The conservatives have to shed a lot of the trump style baggage, but when they do that they risk leaking votes to the People’s Party, and I don’t think, considering Pierre’s style, that those center of the road voters will vote for him anyway. Not when they can pick a safe, sensible and pragmatic Carney.
Ronald,
It always comes down to the swing vote, especially in the vote rich 905.
Which means: whoever controls the ballot-box question, wins.
Poilièvre and his team have the street smarts.
Carney is backed by MSM as well as Liberal friendly pollsters, whom sheep-minded voters are deeply influenced by.
Advantage: Carney
Blaming MSM and the pollsters is such a “it’s not my fault I’m unlikeable” cop-out give me a break. You’re forgetting that even in the 905 there are NDP supporters. Those supporters are scared AF of Trump and feel PP will not be an effective bulwark against the great orange turd. They feel Carney will be, and aren’t going to let their like for Jagmeet get in the way for their hatred of Trump. Ergo Liberal support increases.
Captain Canada Carney is off to Europe.
Lots of photo ops.
Problems in Canada: they can wait.
Yup: give me a break
Derek,
True to some extent but putting your faith in a blank slate that is Carney is a fool’s gamble. The Brookfield thing tells you all you need to know about Carney’s true perspective: don’t rock the boat and put the monied interests above all else. Hence the billionaire’s legion supporting Carney. The globalist capitalist agenda above the Canadian agenda. No surprise there.
Those 905 NDP supporters are going to vote for a guy that ran a union busting company? I have lots of questions.
Martin,
A+
Poilievre’s albatross is Donald Trump. Like so many have noted – he’s Trumpy. His talking points, style – he’s Trumpy. His base loves Trump, so you have to ask yourself – do you want somebody in charge of Canada who is influenced by Trumps fans?
Nonsense, of course but do you want someone in charge that spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs while they basically stole from widows and orphans before the 07/08 financial crisis? And then in some kind of weird inverted world, folks like you are patting him on the back for claiming he got us out of the mess he and his ilk created in the first place. I sure don’t but his billionaire friends that you seem to be strangely arm and arm with know they can count on him like they did during 07/08 and Covid when they took their wealth to a whole other level thanks to his inflationary policies.
He’s less Trumpy than Trudeau, who was practically a clone of the man, what with his illiteracy and sexual assaults, and arguably less Trumpy than Carney, a New York millionaire.
Trump is a bigot, PP is married to a woman of color.
Trump is an imbecile, PP is well read and intellectual
Trump is an isolationist, PP is an internationalist
How is Pierre like Trump in any way? He doesn’t even like the guy and took shots at him while Trudeau called him a “smart man.”
I always thought it was projection by the Liberals.
Gary, correct but the legacy news has decided that Art is their man and will be PM. Outside of the Sun media and National Post this narrative will be repeated and all dissent quieted or refocused till he is crowned :
JD Vance is married to a woman of colour – I am just saying…
JD Vance also fucked a couch so he’s a bit of an outlier
Gary,
But was it good for both of them?
Not a projection – Trump has fans in Canada, they sit in the CPC ranks, he wanted to keep their votes so he mirrored Trump for a long time – now he wants to distance himself and ain’t that convenient
They’re both obnoxious and offensive people who adopt whacky ideology on the right – he’s Canadas Trump
Yes. We know you hate him but this one trick pomy thing you have had going for 2 years means you have literally not answered one question when you are challenged.
I should also note that many Canadians seem worried that LGBT rights may face backsliding under a Poilievre government, but (while this is in no way a virtue on Pierre’s part) Pierre’s adoptive dad came out as gay when Pierre was a kid (possibly teenager, I can’t remember–check for yourself), and he now attends Pierre’s rallies. Mr Poilievre isn’t a racist, he isn’t a sexist, he isn’t a homophobe; he’s a normal Canadian who wants to bring free market policies to government after 9.5 years of what has been, in essence, command and control economics on the part of Mr Trudeau.
Gary,
The problem Pierre has is that the left is counterfactual, just like Trump! They create their ideal projection of Poilièvre, which is generally not based on reality and then ram it home. They love being dishonest and disingenuous. They take great pride in that. That’s why Pierre must not play into their phoney narrative. When he speaks in attack mode at a rally, he unintentionally plays right into their hands and creates a false confirmation bias. Unfortunately, none of us can get that into Pierre’s head. Were I running his campaign, I would be pushing Laurier’s sunny ways and relating every mistake that the Trudeau and Carney Liberals made, but doing so without going into pit bull mode. That’s how the leader turns polling around. He needs to remember that the sand is rapidly flowing out of the hourglass. He doesn’t have much time to turn this around. If he doesn’t get out of attack mode, he loses. Period, full stop, as he might say. Three-quarters of our campaign should be about what the CPC will do for Canadians, and ONLY the remaining 25 percent attacking the Liberals with our secret sauce: using humour and kindness to serially knock them down as incompetent, inept when it comes to sound budgetary management and only out for themselves. The Liberals are condemning future generations to pay for their reckless spending, and that should be our main talking point at every single rally between now and voting day. Will Pierre listen? If I’m lucky, maybe.
And number 5 – they’re in his tent. He can’t shake them, we all saw him cheering on the occupiers in Ottawa – the anti-vaxers are so influential in his tent that they’ve coerced the Alberta government – his base, to publish a report riddled with pseudo-science. He caters to them and if he doesn’t they’ll move to the peoples party.
You have billionaires and anti-semites in your tent. What’s your point?
Martin Dixon, just drink the kool-Aid. : )
Warren’s point number 7 deals with the fact that Pierre will chew Art up in the debates. That is why I think there will only be 2. It is also too bad they won’t go head to head in the House. We are going to have an election despite the fact that the Liberals’ talking point 30 seconds ago was we couldn’t afford to have one with all the Trump chaos.
Apropos of nothing but I tried to do a bit of reseacrh t0day on the definition of an Order In Council. Anyone know if Art’s imitation of T with whatever he signed yesterday was anything meaningful? Or was it just show? And if not show, why do we bother to have votes on legislation?
Martin,
An O-I-C is roughly our equivalent to a presidential executive order. They originate with the GG, who represents the Executive. When Carney signed, part of the carbon tax immediately went away. One assumes that this decision has to be based on existing or pending legislation in the House. It can and will be challenged in the courts.
Martin, you’re not helping the Conservatives at all by pre-emptively crowing that Poilievre will crush Carney in debates. I hear many conservatives say the same. Why are you trying to raise debate expectations on Poilievre so high that it will be impossible for Poilievre to exceed or even meet them?
My presumption is that Carney will be well-practiced and we won’t see a repeat of that disastrous encounter in 2020 when Poilievre left Carney sputtering to explain why he supports pipelines in Brazil but not in Canada. I’m fairly convinced that Gerald Butts will train him well enough to avoid that. So my base case is that the debates will be a wash.
Fair point but I didn’t say it. Our host did. I don’t know if you are a subscriber to his substack but here is the specific quote:
“7. Poilievre is better on his feet than Carney. Poilievre has a killer instinct, and knows how to swiftly go for the political jugular. Mark Carney – the phlegmatic, plodding banker – wouldn’t know a political street fight if he was dropped into the middle of one. This will become a big, big problem for Carney during the televised leaders’ debates, when you can reasonably anticipate the Tory leader will leave the Grit leader in a bloody heap on the TV studio floor. It won’t be pretty. It matters.”
His words not mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtafIkIwNsc
Take it up with Warren.
I don’t crow. These conclusions are not crowing. I would think most folks would agree with them:
“That is why I think there will only be 2(debates). It is also too bad they won’t go head to head in the House.”
Ah, my mistake.
Well anyway, I’m still not betting on any debate moving the polls meaningfully.
This is probably the most unpredictable election in my lifetime. Anything from a Liberal landslide to a Conservative landslide is plausible.
One thing that I think we *can* predict – the NDP caucus is likely to halve and Singh will lose his seat.
Hey CV, by all means, let’s judge people by the company they keep.
‘Two years after Carney took over, Brookfield was still stonewalling the U.S. Senate Finance Committee over a peculiar $1.2 billion Brookfield payout to Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, while Kushner was deployed as Trump’s envoy in the Middle East. It was also in 2022 that Brookfield poured $250 million into Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in a deal that Bloomberg News called the consequence of a “longstanding relationship” between Brookfield and Musk.”
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/terry-glavin-who-is-this-mark-carney-guy-anyway
Thoughts?
Martin,
It could only look worse if Carney had been CEO rather than Chair. But it isn’t a good look. But you know people. So many will simply whistle past the graveyard while deluding themselves that they absolutely must vote Liberal. There’s no hope for people like that. Their convenient hypocrisy is spell-bounding.
Warren,
This is just another example of everything I detest about the Liberals. I wouldn’t vote for them, even if they paid me. For them, power is the only thing.
Is Carney about to get another free pass? You bet he is.
First, they fixed the leadership race, and now the fix is in for the election.
Warren,
The Canada First ad is a great step in the right direction. Finally.
So Guilbeault says he has no plans to resign despite possibility of more carbon tax carve-outs prior to Zoolander leaving as Prime Minister and has said nothing when moved out of position as Enviro Minister and Carney “ending” the carbon tax. Makes you wonder if he took the move to quiet the crowed till Carney wins the election as he knows what is coming and it is worth the wait.
IMHO, during a time of anxiety, the public is looking for stability and a safe harbour. I think Carney will be able to demonize his opponents and frighten the electorate. So, I believe Poilievre will have his work cut out for him trying to convince the Canadian public that he deserves to be PM. Ironically, I think Poilievre will actually be more effective in negotiating with President Trump. He is more combative and understands his future depends on it. On the other hand, I think Carney will react like a typical technocrat; that is, he will look for making the best deal he can regardless of how it effects Canada. After all, he hasn’t spent much time here, is more comfortable with other global elitists and if things don’t work out as PM, he will have much better options some where else.
The Liberals have POUNCED on every off message belch and fart from the Conservative election campaign for decades. When that produces thin stew, the next move is to dumpster dive looking for utterances from Conservatives from 20 years ago that fail to pass Liberal high standards.
I’m glad to read that Mr. Kinsella appreciates the message discipline of Poilievre and his team. This will reduce the target area for demonizing and taking things out of context.
The reason I mention this is because the Anointed One has made numerous verbal stumbles and bumbles in the last two months, and this has happened INSIDE the bubble wrapped Liberal Party leadership contest.
When the close scrutiny arrives (and it will), I think there is a serious chance that Carney will make a verbal blunder that the spin machine will be hard pressed to undo, so bad that the fawning media can’t even ignore. I’ll go out on the limb and suggest that the trouble will come from Carney’s green fanaticism, telling Canadians that they will have to make big sacrifices to pay for his master plan.
You underestimate the fawning abilities of the media. Remember blackface? That was so cute.
I have no faith in PP, as he will sell out to Trump. He does not have any experience on the world stage, but Canada. Now is not his time. Sorry that Trudeau didn’t stick around for PP to win, but such is life. Issue with the Cons is they have no plan, and are more of the same as Trump. If we do not work with the EU and parts of Asia for trade, then we will be left to be more focused on the US. I think because we cannot depend on the US, we must diversify. PP says he will diversify, but if the regulations are not in place for the product that would sell the the EU, then we are left working with the US…the “Drill Baby, Drill” is going into Trump’s arms. PP is also “Drill Baby, Drill” and privatization, so we would not be able to diversify the way we need to now. His policy is the same as Trump, thus making the US our largest market.
Art has had lots of experience on the world stage. But it isn’t the flex you think it is. I have said for a few years now that everything has flipped. Folks on the left are now fans of big Pharma(while at the same time criticizing 99 for advertising for same but I digress), against free speech, pro-war, want to control your body, etc etc. But I did not see pro Goldman Sachs on my bingo card. Where Art spent 13 years. Spend a little time with Matt Tiabbi and his writing with Rolling Stone. You will get your eyes opened. Here is just one small sample. Now it will take more than the length of your 1 minute MSM fed pablum that the typical swooning voter is now falling for but I encourage people to read him.
Lots of hilarious(read-scary) stuff in here about the history of Goldman Sachs. And now in some strange inverted world, we are bragging about the fact we have a Goldman Sachs banker in charge.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-195229/
“The moral is the same as for all the other bubbles that Goldman helped create, from 1929 to 2009. In almost every case, the very same bank that behaved recklessly for years, weighing down the system with toxic loans and predatory debt, and accomplishing nothing but massive bonuses for a few bosses, has been rewarded with mountains of virtually free money and government guarantees — while the actual victims in this mess, ordinary taxpayers, are the ones paying for it.”
But, on the bright side, I sure won’t be one of those ordinary taxpayers! Small consolation but better than nothing.
Matt has a huge online presence and it would be nice if he turned his attention to Art but he has enough things to make fun of down south.
And none of this even gets into Art’s inconvenient tenure at Brookfield.
Pedant,
You still kill me. Ha, ha, ha. You better hope that Pierre takes the Elitist’sEliteTM in a debate because if he doesn’t we lose. Right now, we’re behind and it’s slowly slipping right through our fucking fingers! Hopefully, Pierre has a better take on the sad political reality than you do, otherwise we’re already goners.
I’m simply not getting my hopes up that Poilievre will decisively beat Carney in a debate, and I hope the Conservative campaign is not counting on that. When has a debate ever been decisive in a federal election? 1984? That’s 41 years ago. At some point, there will be another federal debate that will prove decisive but I’m not betting this time will be it.
And please don’t give me any of that bullshit about coming from behind to win. It took an exceptional talent to blow a twenty-five percent polling lead. I won’t put it at Pierre’s feet. Not yet.
Warren,
I’m racking my brain trying to think of CPC platform planks that can turn this around. Announce our income tax cuts for personal and small business taxes now and also go with a one percent cut in the GST-HST. Maybe something for first-time homebuyers. I can’t think of anything else so far.
Ring Of Fire.