— Feature, Musings —04.29.2025 07:54 AM
My latest: Pierre, time to go
A few years ago, I wrote this:
“[Pierre Poilievre]is one of the Conservative Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Like the Biblical Horsemen, everything he says and does is bad. Everything that is good that he touches withers and dies…He is one of the most despicable, loathsome politicians to ever grace the national stage. He is a pestilence made flesh.
Pipsqueak Pierre Poilievre is a disgrace to Parliament. He is a joke.”
Tell us what you really think, Warren!
In the fullness of time, I revised my opinion. I thought the Conservative leader-to-be had matured, somewhat. He jettisoned the WEF conspiracy theories, the pro-convoy idiocy, the dalliances with the Covid kooks. He started to act like a leader should. He grew up.
But the good people of the Carleton riding obviously didn’t agree. They weren’t so willing to forgive and forget. Somewhere between Monday night and Tuesday morning, voters in that riding – the riding Poilievre had held for a generation, just about – sent the Tory leader packing. They chose his Liberal opponent, Bruce Fanjoy, who is probably just as surprised as the rest of us.
Fanjoy didn’t just defeat the Conservative leader – he clobbered him, by 4,000 votes. It was a humiliation. It was a pounding. But even then – tellingly – Poilievre didn’t get the massage.
“We know that change is needed but change is hard to come by,” he said to his stunned followers, early Tuesday morning.
“It takes time. It takes work and that’s why we have to learn the lessons of tonight so that we can have an even better result the next time.”
But is Pierre Poilievre the sort of guy who “learns lessons?” Is he the one who can achieve “an even better result the next time?”
The available evidence isn’t persuasive. Just a few weeks ago, Poilievre had a 30-point lead over the Liberals. He had a massive war chest. He had a party that was united behind him.
And, even after all that, he failed. His party lost. He lost. He blew it.
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I have to say I’m delighted that Poilievre lost his own seat, kudos to Fanjoy’s team. Also am absolutely LOVING that the Conservatives are now having a big fight among themselves, especially with Jivani taking on Ford in such a no holds barred way. Pass the popcorn.
Waiting in the wings: Caroline Mulroney and Jivani.
If Jivani’s French is half decent, then my money is on him.
Otherwise, the next Conservative leadership race is Mulroney’s to lose
I don’t think Mr Ford is too concerned. As long as he wants to, he can be the Premier in Ontario. The Liberals here are non-entities. Their leader couldn’t even win her own seat the first time she ran for the Legislature.
Non-taxpayers are indeed delighted at the result.
Lol I’m not a retired boomer– I’m smack in the middle of Gen X and very much a full time working taxpayer. Also– that attitude is why your party fucking lost– retirees HAVE ALREADY WORKED AND BEEN TAXED for 45 years. But by all means keep sneering at boomers that they’re entitled, it will continue to do electoral wonders for you.
I meant non *net* taxpayers, i.e. those who receive more than they contribute, and that’s a good half of the adult population.
Well said Derek
Not to mention a life long leftie it would appear. And there is nothing wrong with that. Embrace it! I actually have respect for true lefties(at least until this election when they fell for a non resident, billionaire backed, head of a company that has an inconvenient past on many issues and who will have hidden his holdings from the public until this little coronation was over) but we sure won’t be taking their advice any time soon as to who our leader should be. Oh, and just because someone has been taxed and worked their whole life, doesn’t mean they should now benefit disproportionately at expense of the young as a result of the inflationary policies of the last 10 years. Unless of course, you are conceded about where they are going to get the money to pay their landscapers.
Yes, Pierre should have kicked out some safe seat Tory and not run in his current hometown like Carney did. If Carney REALLY wants to unite the country like he claims, he should have run in Alberta where he is from and proved it was not just all talk.
Martin,
Carney would never have had the guts to do that.
Warren,
We lost because we didn’t turn out our vote. Sixty-eigh percent of Canadians voted. That failure falls right in Byrne’s lap.
Not necessarily. I kind of dismissed the longest ballot issue in Carleton as irrelevant. But Carleton turnout went up to 82%. Pierre actually got 3000 more votes there than the last time.
Warren,
My life’s ambition going forward: block the traitors. Hopefully Stephen will help us if it comes to that.
Pierre should try to stick around and drag it out – let’s just hope for the best.
Lol. I live in a very Jewish area of Winnipeg and everyone I talked to voted Liberal. Makes you wonder how many more did.
Judging by how well Neal Oberman did in Mount Royal, Trump’s bff Jeremy Levi and the other pricks in Hampstead didn’t vote Liberal.
Throw Levi in a cold cell next to Jivani, O’Leary, Lich, King, and Gretzky and let them rot.
So brave.
Martin,
Aren’t we supposed to be the crazy party? Apparently not.
Danielle Smith says she wants meaningful change and I agree with her – time for Danielle smith to go she’s an idiot propped up by the radical group called “take back Alberta” –
One of the world’s thinnest books could be entitled: leaders of Canada’s federal Conservatives who have been charismatic, politically adroit and likeable.
Another one: leaders of Canada’s federal Conservatives with whom most normal people would enjoy having a beer.
Conservatives have been disastrously stupid at picking leaders. Mulroney stands out like a giant among the rest.
Mulroney was a Tory, these guys are reformers. Mulroney’s coalition would compete with the Liberals in every election, but it no loner exists, they were overtaken by the Western Populist Reformers. It’s no surprise that Tim Houston and Ford sat on the sidelines – The PC party and the conservative party are two entirely separate entities.
Fair enough but they also picked lots of lousy politically inadept leaders when they were still the PCs — eg Joe Clark, Bob Stanfield, Kim Campbell.
Please explain how the Windsor union types are reformers. I will wait.
Still waiting.
Continued silence.
Doc,
We prefer principles to power. It keeps us warm at night in our little beds.
Doc,
Mulroney will run one day. But she will have to address Meech Lake and Charlottetown 2025 versions. That should be fun for her.
Everyone says we need another Mulroney. One of our greatest Prime Ministers, no question. He managed to persuade both the Toronto types and the West to vote for him in a big way in 1984 and he he got a smidge more support than Pierre did in 1988. But guess what and, by the way, how did that coalition finally work out? Two seats and one majority government since. I don’t think that person exists anymore. I think we all might be surprised how quickly Rona would be called a fascist by all the usual suspects, some of whom post here. I think our host suggested Kenney at some point but many Tories in Alberta despise him. And the same usual suspects would somehow figure how to label him as a homophobe.
Observe the margins of victory for the Liberals in every riding in Ottawa and the neighbouring territories. They are enormous (20,000+ votes in most cases). These margins are incongruent with the results in Toronto where Liberal victors won by an average of 5000 votes. They also buck the blue trend that occurred in the rest of the province.
These Ottawa districts are greatly comprised of the federal bureaucracy who, in my view, correctly feel threatened by what likely would have been a contraction in the size of government over the coming years had the Conservatives won. Pierre’s Margin of loss was about 3800 votes – very small in comparison. If a no-name Conservative represented Carlton, he or she likely would have been defeated by a similar average margin as it’s Ottawa-adjacent neighbours. It was an uphill battle for Pierre on this basis alone.
It is not unreasonable to call out Pierre for his lack of decorum. I wished he rose above it and left the mud-slinging to his lieutenants. But pinning his defeat solely on his personality belies the Conservative successes not only in Ontario but elsewhere in Canada but for the perpetual have not provinces and the region of the federal bureaucracy – a significant portion of the Liberal constituency. I don’t believe this paradigm is a healthy outcome for Canada nor any nation.
It’s not rocket science. The Tories ran on a Canadian version of DOGE this year, and it’s not a hard sell except in that particular part of the 613/the Gatineau region across the water.
And see my post about the long ballot.
Warren,
Well, at least Smith hasn’t had a stroke.
If she had had a stroke it would explain the idiotic things she says.
First Pierre is a dipshit.
Second those that know him the best have rejected him.
Third the Conservatives are circling the wagons so that they can eat their young.
Fourth Jivani has fired the first in the civil war. And like a typical right wing Conservative dumbass he did it badly and on national TV.
Obviously, Pierre is done. Stick a fork in him. And Pierre don’t let the door hit your sorry ass as you leave.
If he sticks around, you should be delighted! Oh and the results in Carleton are WAY more complicated than that but go ahead and take that lesson from it. Again, how do you think Carney would have done if he had the actual balls to run in his home province and PROVE he was a unifier. I’ll wait.
I am overjoyed he is sticking around. He is extremely weak and I suspect that if he has a serious challenger he will be gone.
Carney ran in his home Province. As did Pierre. Had Carney run in Alberta in an urban riding he would have almost assuredly won.
Why? Because he is a serious man and not a dipshit.
If he considers Ontario his home province, then why did he announce his leadership campaign in Alberta that he flosses about all the time? He was obviously not as confident about a win there as his groupies or he would have actually ran there.
I agree with Mr Kinsella that it is time for a change. However, that will be up to the CPC, and they may not want to make a change just yet. After all, Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty didn’t win during their first elections as leaders. As well, the current political situation makes it a challenge. The Liberals could call a snap election and catch the CPC in the middle of a divisive leadership contest. I think he’ll get one more shot, whether he deserves it or not.
Like that second shot they gave O’Toole?
Mr O’Toole probably should have been given a second chance, but he alienated too many people in his own party apparently. I’m not saying Mr Poilievre deserves a second chance, I’m just saying I don’t think it is a given he’ll be asked to step down. And I don’t see any obvious successor in the wings. If Mr Carney does a decent job, he’ll win a majority next time out IMHO.
There is also the Chinese Communist machinations and interference. Not inconsequential then, or now.
Doc,
O’Toole deserved no second shot: two-faced to the extreme. A progresive Tory in ordinary life and a TrueBlue Conservative in a leadership race. Without that shift, he would have not won the leadership. So the question became after we lost, which O’Toole would continue to lead us going forward? In short, he was as phoney as a three dollar bill so he had to go and he did. Thankfully.
Pierre isn’t leaving. Doug Ford will never be the leadrr.
Yes, Doug Ford is too politically skilled and adroit to appeal to the CPC base. They like leaders who turn off and alienate everyone except themselves.
Exactly!!
Doc,
Pierre is going to stay. The next election will determine his political fate.
And a little birdie told me who is going to give up his seat!
Martin,
Battle River-Crowfoot. I guess we won’t see any campaigning in rural AB.
Not exactly a JFK Profile in Courage.
Martin,
Yeah, you really have to work HARD to get 82%, or so I’ve been told.
Let me know if you want one of the Titanic’s deck chairs. I have them all in my basement…
Maybe but I wouldn’t bet the farm on that. On the other hand I guess Doug Ford can simply wait for PP to lose again.
He wants to stay – oh god I hope he leaves, I’m so fed up with hearing Poilievre speak at his stupid rallies with his moronic slogans.
Like Canada Strong?
And Elbows Up?
Or Elbows Up?
Curious,
When exactly is Carney planning on revealing his exact net worth now that he’s an MP? Maybe after the next Ice Age?
I am sure they will ask him about that at the presser this morning.
The left called O’Toole another Hitler.
The Conservatives could select the meekest most ‘centrist’ candidate and the vampiric gerontocracy regime that runs the country would find a way to destroy him or her.
Pedant,
By two measures, Pierre has improved our lot. He should stay on if he is psychologically disposed to do so. He learned a lot of hard lessons in this campaign about what wins elections and what doesn’t. I’m not asking him to become a Red Tory but surely he realizes by now that to win next time he must be moderate and relatively mainstream to big tent our support even further.
The other reason to stay is to demonstrate that this party will never allow a traitor to become our next leader. I would rather be in the opposition for twenty years than to have a traitor leading us. And fortunately, most Conservatives likely agree with me. All I ask is that we byelection Pierre as quickly as possible. He has my unqualified support.
Your assertion is technically impossible to prove or disprove, as it’s what historians call a counterfactual. But in terms of facts, the record shows that Tories only win power when a certain critical mass of Red Tories and Blue Liberals vote conservative. When they vote Liberal the Liberals win. Given the demographics of this country, pure red meat base mobilization by the Tories just doesn’t cut it.
It’s just me and this is my admitted counterfactual, but I think Rona Ambrose could have been an electorally successful CPC leader. I was choked that she never ran.
Probably right about Rona, she was a lot more likeable than Pierre Poison. I liked Jean Charest – he’d have made a good PM, but the base, like you point out, has really bad taste and I would suggest they’ve been radicalized.
Mr Charest was a lobbyist for Huawei.
And one of Poilievre’s top strategists is Alykhan Velshi. Where does he work?
Rona should have broken her promise not to run for leader. You would likely know better than me if she would have paid a political price for that.
Mark Carney proved that you don’t need good French to win in Quebec.
It was an utterly unnecessary and stupid as fuck promise to make and I remember doing a face palm when she made it.
Remember when the left called Romney a fascist. That was so cute. He won Massachusetts for crying out loud. Then he became their fav0urite Republican. If he runs again in 2028, it will be back to regular programming.
You think they should force out a guy who won 42% of the vote including 44% in Ontario, surely won the youth vote, huge gains among South Asian, Chinese, and Jewish communities? And he accomplished this absent Trudeau and with provincial Conservatives in Ontario sabotaging him. Even with a pulverized NDP the Liberals still couldn’t achieve a majority.
Has anyone commenting on Poilievre’s allegedly “likability” problem considered that their own personal views of the guy may not be shared by everyone?
I just noticed this morning(been working day and night on taxes and leveraging my holdings for the upcoming wealth shift-did I miss anything?) that Windsor went blue. Windsor(and Brantford) are two of the biggest centers that will be impacted by the tariffs. They literally have money on the line and did not vote for Carney.
Pedant,
Caucus is behind the leader. Pierre can sleep soundly.
Chris d’Entremont and Jivani both defended him on, wait for it, the CBC! And no matter what you think about their views on Pierre, I thought they did a great job. Cochrane practically looked giddy that he finally got a Tory MP on his show. I don’t know how anyone can dislike d’Entremont and when Jivani was asked about Vance, he said Carney was the PM and he hopes he will do a great job protesting our interests but if they want his help, they know where to find him.
I almost voted liberal but decided to vote conservative–I think that the liberals had a horrible 10 years of governance that couldn’t go unpunished and I wanted to add my vote to the numbers that opposed them.
If the Liberals still continue to do business as usual they will be rightfully punished in the next election.
As far as conservative performance goes, the CPC did quite well percentage vote-wise. They actually won seats in parts of Canada that they had never won before.
But the big elephant in the room was Trump and his deliberate sabotage of the CPC. There’s an interview on Mediate where he gleefully brags about destroying the conservatives in Canada. For all intents and purposes, he is a liberal plant.
But still, Poilievre could have done a lot more to distance himself and criticize Trump. Doug Ford was able to deftly distance himself from his past pro-Trump statements buy wearing CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE merchandise. Whether it was sincere or not, he at least has good political instincts to drop the MAGA stuff like a flaming hot turd.
The CPC should have expressed as much displeasure as possible with Trump during the campaign and sue him for election interference–which is what he did. Trump has turned into a toxic brand for conservatives worldwide. We might see the backlash occur in upcoming elections in Australia and Europe. Will Trump and his MAGApedes fiddle while their international conservative brethren burn down?
Poilievre and his handlers’ response to Trump has been weak. Yet they still managed to get 40% of the vote in spite of him. I think that with Poilievre losing his seat should be taken as a sign that he can exit the political scene gracefully. Should he do that, he can at least take heart that he increased the party under his tenure. But he still took defeat from the jaws of victory. There needs to be an honest post-mortem.
It is unfair to compare PP to DJT in so many substantive ways, but in words, slogans and style he’s definitely too “Trumpy” for many. Even slightly “Trumpy” was too much for 58% of Canadians. It may not be fair but it’s how his detractors feel. This is a major problem that CPC members will need to confront sooner than later. The real DJT is going to be in office for another 3 years and 9 months meaning he will still be President during our next election as our minority Parliament is unlikely to last that long. I don’t think Canadians will warm up to him anytime soon and I think being “Trumpy” will remain a liability for PP as long as the real DJT sits in the oval. After all, DJT is the gift that keeps on giving to Liberals.
It’s funny, all my conservative friends tell me they think the government should be run like a business. All I can say to that is if the leader of a business had a 20 point lead for two years and twice the financial war chest of their competitors the shareholders would fire them before they got a do-over if they lost the race. But maybe that’s just the businesses I’ve worked for.
Cheers,
Chris
Without weighing in on whether Pierre should stay or go, your business analogy falls flat. Let me help. First you basically call T a force majeure and then you try to argue the chief executive should have done something to deal with it. Try to fire a guy like that and you would get your ass sued to kingdom come. Thank you for attending my TED post.
Oh and 57% of Candians did not like Mulroney in 1988. Chretien never got below 58.7%. Harper’s best was 60.4%. Justin’s best was 60.5%. Go ahead and criticize him for other reasons if you like but using that 58% metric is silly.
PP failed in two critical aspects of leadership:
First, he failed to be able to pivot given the change in circumstances in the election narrative. Handling unforeseen crisis is a key responsibility of leaders (911, 08 financial crisis, 2020 pandemic) were sudden changes requiring major pivots. In this case, saying “knock it off president Trump”, in response to tariffs sounded like Beaver Cleaver asking Eddy Haskell to stop throwing pencils at him. Childish.
Second, while he gave a gracious concession speech he didn’t accept responsibility for the loss. Another failure of leadership. Instead, he unleashed a war between provincial conservatives and federal ones to focus blame elsewhere.
On last thing, I take my leadership examples from winners, not losers. But that’s just me.
That’s my Ted Talk on leadership, for you, for free. You’re welcome!
But your metric is in direct contradiction as to how he did compared to other leaders. I do concede that Pierre needed to come up with a better two word slogan than Elbows Up that a lot of folks fell for and looked like cult members while voting for it:
https://x.com/chrisdacey/status/1913726190671511605
I wonder how Poilievre would have faired had they not redistricted Carlton in 2023 to include Kanata Carlton – a riding that’s gone decisively Liberal in the three previous federal elections.
Ummmm…no shit. That was all handled by “independent electoral boundaries commissions”(hilarious). Here is who makes that up:
“Each independent electoral boundaries commission in Canada is comprised of three members: a judge appointed by the Chief Justice of the province, and two members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The judge acts as the chair. These commissions are responsible for reviewing and redrawing electoral district boundaries after each census.”
The Republicans that are accused of gerrymandering could learn a thing or two from our process.
I recommend many on here watch the 1979 leaders debate on YouTube. (aside: who knew David Johnson was around that long?!)
Joe Clark, of “I’ll always be a PROGRESSIVE Conservative” fame, was painted as radical and dangerous. There will never be a Tory leader sufficiently safe for the Liberals and NDP, and it works in reverse; such is the nature of politics and it’s stupid to try to measure other parties’ members by the standard of one’s own group.
With that said, I’m not a Pierre Poilievre sycophant to the point of having never voted for him. He is beloved by the Conservative base though, and was big-tent enough to speak to the concerns of the populations in “far right” enclaves like east Hamilton, Windsor, London — Fanshaw and Brampton. Yes, he lost his Ottawa area seat but what is the #1 employer over there again?
While the Tories tend to lose the pivot elections which makes the difference between them and the Liberals having the NGP status (see also: BC 2024, Ontario 2014, Canada 2004, Canada 1980, …), this moment reminds me of Stephen Harper’s ascension to the PMO two decades ago.
Putting ideology aside, I hope it is clear to folks now that Mark Carney wasn’t elected for his charm and soaring rhetoric; he was elected because, like Paul Martin two decades ago, he was perceived as the safer choice.
If Donald Trump isn’t poking the beaver constantly and the economic opportunities of the under-50 crowd don’t substantially improve by the time the NDP select their next leader (who can only be better than Singh), PP has a good shot at being a known quantity and, therefore, Canada’s 25th Prime Minister after all.
He was elected as the best option to deal with Trump, but also for his resume and charm. People like him, he seems like a nice neighbor. He doesn’t have the carny barker persona like Pierre, I get it – but you can keep that charisma for the next fool in line, because sober thinking Canadians chose otherwise, and for good reason.
St-Hubert,
We’ll see if Pierre runs in Quebec. We should find out shortly. It goes without saying that he must win the byelection to credibly remain as leader.
Warren,
Is it true what Ford said about word going out from CPC HQ for Conservatives not to help the PCs in their election? That better not be accurate.
In other news, I see the riding where the guy that inspired this account was from was won by Andrew Lawton.
https://x.com/BrantfordBoomer
Warren,
I just love TeamIntegrityTM! It takes a special talent in gaslighting to solumnly proclaim no pact with the NDP – or any other party while working actively in hopes of -poaching three NDP MPs. Just one more example of what it means to be a CarneyLiberalTM…
Warren,
Four more years of waiting.
I doubt Jenni Byrne will run the next campaign.
Warren,
From: Global News.
“Conservatives need ‘fine tuning,’ not overhaul after election loss: MacKay”
“Asked if he thinks Conservative campaign manager Jenni Byrne should be one of the people who moves on, MacKay responded: “Yes I do.”
The problem with this party is that no one has the guts to tell the leader to his face DURING or preferably before the campaign that it was practically impossible to win with Byrne’s shall we call it “style” of politics. Byrne didn’t veto those horrible red ads with face distortions used against Carney at the start of the campaign nor the subsequent red ads. Those ads finished off whatever chance we had of winning a minority. People looked at those ads and said: what a bunch of dickheads…Byrne and company couldn’t even get the golfing commercial right: those idiots let the actors use the word clowns which immediately negated the possible positive effects of that ad. They were supposed to use a word like incompetents if they wanted to get real traction with that ad. But once again, they somehow managed to screw that up as well. In my book, Byrne should never, ever, run another CPC campaign. Period.
Warren,
I will be very blunt in my message for Pierre: once you get back in the House, you’d better listen to all the Conservatives on this website, or you can forget about winning the next election. If you stick with your own preconceived biases and ideas that clearly aren’t sufficient to broaden the tent enough to win, then down the CPC will go again in the next election. And next time, thanks to the leader possibly acting foolishly, Carney will get his majority. Know-it-all leaders rarely know it all. So choose now, Pierre and choose wisely. Otherwise, you’re going to be political history soon enough. That’s cold, calm reality talking.
Won’t happen Ronald. He’s tied to that base – the fringe conservative Alberta Separatist base. He’s peaked – he won’t grow it anymore, and from this point forward his popularity will dwindle.
You got that right
Curious,
Maybe. Pierre’s political fate rests entirely in his own hands. If he blows it again, he’s gone in a New York minute.