All indications are that Pierre Poilievre has the contest in the bag. The lawmaker born in Calgary, Alberta has drawn standing-room-only crowds — largely unusual for leadership campaigns here — airing political grievances, pledging to fire the central bank governor, protesting public health mandates and vowing to make Canada the “freest country in the world.” “Our institutions are destroying an entire generation of working-class youth,” he said in June. “But the elite gatekeepers think the biggest problem is that I shout it. They only want to protect themselves.” His campaign says he has signed up more members than the entire Conservative Party in the previous two leadership races. In the second quarter of this year, he raised more money from donors than his leadership rivals combined. He won the endorsement of Stephen Harper, Canada’s last Conservative prime minister. Poilievre’s main rival is former Quebec premier Jean Charest, 64, a former leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party. A veteran politician, he has cast himself as more moderate than Poilievre, capable of expanding the party’s big blue tent while keeping its various factions united. Patrick Brown, the mayor of the Toronto, Ontario suburb of Brampton, was disqualified in July amid allegations that he violated federal election law by selling party memberships, among other allegations. (Brown denied wrongdoing; he accused the party, without evidence, of working to secure Poilievre’s election.) “This time, it’s not going to be close … unless something weird or miraculous happens,” said Richard Johnston, professor emeritus of political science at the University of British Columbia. “It’s going to be a blast.” Canada’s one-time “Green Jesus” okays big oil project Voting, which uses a ranked ballot, is restricted to dues-paying members of the Conservative Party. A record 678,000 were eligible to vote in this year’s contest and nearly 418,000 ballots were accepted — the most for a federal party leader election in Canadian history. The party said Friday it will revise its leadership conference schedule to reflect the death this week of Queen Elizabeth II, who was Canada’s queen and head of state. A record number of members also signed up during the last Conservative Party leadership contest in 2020. They chose Erin O’Toole, a lawyer and army veteran, to lead the party. But enthusiasm for the leadership race has not translated into success against Trudeau and his Liberal Party. As he campaigned to become party leader, O’Toole presented himself as a “true blue” Conservative who was not “a product of the Ottawa bubble”. He pledged to “take back Canada” and defend Canada’s history from “cancelling culture and the radical left.” He disparaged his main opponent as “Liberal lite”. But during last year’s federal election, O’Toole ditched the “take back Canada” talk and moved into the center. Critics charged that he was a shape-shifter who would say anything to get elected. Many Conservatives resented O’Toole’s moderate platform and reversals on key policy positions. He won the popular vote, but not many seats in Parliament. The caucus ousted him as leader in February. Erin O’Toole, once called a “slut” by fellow Conservatives, enters tight race with Canada’s Trudeau The race to replace him has been marked by personal attacks between the candidates. “The tone was definitely discouraging,” said Jonathan Malloy, a political scientist at Carleton University in Ottawa. “All matches will be broken, but especially at the beginning of the match, the attacks were so negative. … The personal attacks were basically about whether someone is legitimately part of the party” and a reflection of the divisions among its factions. Charest has attacked Poilievre for embracing the self-proclaimed “Freedom Convoy” that blockaded Ottawa and blocked border crossings this year to protest public health measures, flirting with conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum and proposing cryptocurrencies as a way to “save” inflation . “Will the Conservative Party of Canada really go the way the American parties did?” Charest asked in a French-language interview in May. “A divisive approach based on slogans… or will we make politics in Canada for Canadians? This is the option I offer you. I’m not a pseudo-American here.” Right-wing populism is not new to Canada. has a long history in the grasslands. But it was a “tougher sell” at the federal level, said Daniel Béland, director of the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University in Montreal, where voters have typically elected more moderate governments. Self-proclaimed ‘Freedom Convoy’ rumbled at an inopportune time for US-Canada trade For all Poilievre’s protest against the political establishment, politics was essentially his only career. As a university student, he was a finalist in an “As Prime Minister, I would…” essay contest, espousing among other things promises of a two-term limit for federal lawmakers. He is now serving his seventh term after first winning election in 2004 to represent a constituency in the suburbs of Ottawa. Over the years, Poilievre earned a reputation as a fierce partisan with the ability to get under the skin of his opponents. Some criticized what they saw as a clever, no-holds-barred, online trolling approach. The Canadian press described Poilievre in 2013 as something like Pete Campbell from the TV drama “Mad Men”: “The character everyone loves to hate: young, conservative, ambitious and incredibly vicious.” The The style has landed him in hot water at times. He once apologized for an unparliamentary gesture in Parliament. This came shortly after he was caught on microphone using anti-parliamentary language. In 2008, on the day Harper, as prime minister, apologized for the government’s role in the residential school system that separated Indigenous children from their families, he questioned whether there was “value for all that money” being paid by Ottawa to the survivors. . He later apologized. He became the federal minister of democratic reform in 2013. In that role, he oversaw changes to Canada’s election laws that critics said would disenfranchise voters and limit the independence of the chief electoral officer. Trudeau has since rolled back many of the changes. The next Conservative leader will take office amid high inflation, rising interest rates and concerns about housing and grocery affordability. By the time of the next federal election, which is not expected until 2025, Trudeau’s Liberals will have been in power for a decade and voters may be tired and open to a change. Analysts say the leader should focus on expanding the party’s appeal beyond its traditional base in rural Canada and the strongholds of Alberta and Saskatchewan to draw support from young voters and suburbs outside Toronto and Vancouver which are battlegrounds for the federal election. Béland said Poilievre’s “rhetoric is really strong and it’s something that could scare some moderate voters” but that it “shouldn’t be underestimated.” He said His latest focus on bread-and-butter issues — in a campaign video, he sits at a dinner party and recites to an unseen Trudeau how much the prices of bacon, coffee and, yes, bread and butter have gone up — you could be a winner . The new leader should also look after the unity of the party. “There may be some autonomy on the other side of the party [if] Poilievre wins,” Johnston said. “We will see how he will deal with his parliamentary group. He doesn’t seem disposed to politeness. Looks like he’s a serious winner.”
