Conservative leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre takes part in the Conservative Party of Canada’s French-language leadership debate in Laval, Que., on May 25.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
Pierre Poilievre’s decision to boycott Wednesday night’s leadership debate confirms the schism between his faction of the Conservative Party and the more moderate faction led by former Quebec premier Jean Charest.
This could be seen as bad news for the party. Traditionally, the Conservative coalition has been strongest when the Blue Conservatives and the Red Conservatives work together.
But the years of Conservative rift and reunion, of Reformers and Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance and the reunited Conservative Party are ancient history. Nothing matters anymore. The Conservative Party is about to become Pierre Poilievre’s personal property.
Mr. Charest did everything he could, Wednesday night, to make us believe that is not the case. With only fringe contenders Scott Aitchison and Roman Baber sharing the stage, he owned the night.
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He spoke passionately about the need for party unity, about Indigenous and transport and resource and environmental issues, about the perfidy of the Liberals. He emphasized that only he had the qualifications and experience to lead the country.
“You’ve had enough of losing,” he told his fellow Tories. “I can win a majority government.”
And at the end of the debate he made a clear effort to Mr. poilievre “Leadership is about fighting and showing up,” he said. “It’s not about running away.”
Everything Mr. Charest said may well be true. But all the available evidence suggests that the only question that remains is whether Mr. Poilievre will take the lead on the first ballot.
The fundraising numbers suggest it will, and a lot of it. Poilievre’s campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, said Wednesday that the campaign had raised more than $5.3 million from more than 44,500 contributors.
Add those numbers to the nearly 312,000 party members generated by the campaign. No candidate of any political party in any leadership campaign in memory has generated so much support.
“Team Poilievre knew they were going to win, and the whole campaign has been about money and data sucking, a simple and solid strategy,” tweeted Gerald Butts, former principal secretary to Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Now they have a pool of resources to introduce it to the 83% of Canadians who aren’t on Twitter.”
Support for Mr. Poilievre is growing outside the conservative base. A recent Abacus poll has the Conservatives at 35% support, well ahead of the Liberals and Abacus’ highest level since the 2015 election.
(Online survey, 2,400 adults, conducted July 22-27, with a margin of error of 2%, 19 times out of 20).
Support for the Conservatives is largely the result of voter fatigue with the Liberal Party, David Coletto, CEO of Abacus, told me.
But he added that Mr Poilievre “has focused on inflation, he has talked about housing affordability and, in my view, much more effectively than any Conservative leader recently, and perhaps better than any leader of the federal party right now.”
To his credit, Mr. Poilievre appears to be on the verge of winning the leadership without the support of the social conservatives. MP Leslyn Lewis, the leading social conservative in both this contest and the last, also boycotted Wednesday night’s debate. But his campaign has generated little enthusiasm this time around.
Poilievre has promised that his government would never legislate limits on abortion. His stance on LGBTQ issues is generally favorable. It supports high levels of immigration. Only the paranoid believe it poses a threat to the rights of women and minorities.
To this writer, his opposition to vaccine mandates is deeply troubling. Other things he has talked about, like singing the praises of cryptocurrencies, are strange. But leading party figures including Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry MP Eric Duncan and Thornhill MP Melissa Lantsman have joined his campaign. Both, for what it’s worth, are gay.
Common sense suggests that the Conservative Party would be stronger if Mr. Charest and Mr. Poilievre campaign side by side in the next election. But that won’t happen. And the winning chances of Mr. Charest are very rare.
It will be Pierre Poilievre’s party. What he does with it is entirely up to him.
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