Poilievre’s Pivot Is Looking Like a Pratfall

Ten days into Canada’s federal election, the fast-sinking Pierre Poilievre is learning the wisdom of an old saying. Be careful what you wish for.

For the better part of two years, the Conservative leader hectored former prime minister Justin Trudeau to resign or call a federal election on his unpopular carbon tax.

Why wouldn’t he? Poilievre’s Conservatives held a massive lead in the polls. Trudeau was not just out of favour with the public; even his own caucus wanted him to resign.

But when Poilievre got what he wanted — the end of Trudeau and a federal election — the tables turned. Instead of cruising to a majority government, the Conservative leader looks like he is headed back to the Opposition benches.

It isn’t just that his double-digit lead over the Liberals has evaporated. According to multiple polls included in CBC News’ Poll Tracker, the Conservatives now trail the Liberals nationally. And at 41.2 per cent support, Mark Carney and the Liberals are moving deeper into majority government territory.

Here’s how Éric Grenier of The Writ put it: “The Conservatives held a significant lead in the polls from the summer of 2023 to the beginning of 2025, but Liberal support has skyrocketed since the resignation of Justin Trudeau and his replacement by Mark Carney. Liberal momentum has continued into the first week of the campaign.”

How did this remarkable political resurrection take place? Seven factors have played roles.

Factor 1: No, Carney’s not Trudeau

At one level, the answer is simple. The Liberals got a new leader with a world-class reputation in finance. That stood in stark contrast to lifelong politician Poilievre, who had no private sector experience, international connections or professional expertise.

Then the Grits jettisoned their widely disliked consumer tax on carbon. Despite the obvious need for a pivot in focus for the Conservative campaign, Poilievre continued to beat a dead horse. He kept referring to the new Liberal leader as “Carbon Tax Carney.” He also tried to make the case, unsuccessfully it seems, that Carney was just another Trudeau.

Poilievre and his campaign suddenly looked out of touch. They didn’t seem to realize that the attack plan they had prepared for Election 2025 — the so-called “lost decade” under the Trudeau Liberals — had been supplanted by a totally different ballot issue: Donald Trump’s economic declaration of war on Canada with a suite of illegal and unjustified tariffs, and his open threat to our very sovereignty.

With Trump’s unprovoked and punitive attack on Canada, Mark Carney had precisely the qualifications for dealing with this enormous economic crisis. If mishandled, it could, after all, cost the country its auto industry, and hundreds of thousands of jobs in other sectors. The times call for a sophisticated negotiator with a background in finance, not a political attack dog specializing in bumper-sticker put-downs.

The electorate appears to get that. In the latest Nanos poll, Carney is the preferred choice for prime minister by 47.4 per cent of respondents compared with 32.7 per cent for Poilievre.

Carney has opened up an eight-point lead over the Conservatives.

Carney has already had some success in dealing with the mercurial Donald Trump. During their recent telephone conversation, Trump didn’t call the prime minister “Governor Carney.”

And he didn’t advise the PM that the solution to the trade war was for Canada to become the 51st state — a prospect that is an abomination to the great majority of citizens of this country.

Carney also showed strength. He served notice that if Trump proceeds with new tariffs, including a 25 per cent levy on automobiles made in this country, Canada will respond with retaliatory measures.

Factor 2: The orange pachyderm

With the Liberals resurgent under their new leader, can the Conservatives make a comeback of their own after a dismal start to the election campaign? Anything is possible, but it is highly doubtful for a variety of reasons.

For one thing, Poilievre can’t bounce back without finally making a fundamental pivot from his current game plan. He must move away from mere domestic politics towards the elephant in the room — the bullying bloviator to the south. But attacking Trump is not a simple act, since a poll during the U.S. election showed Poilievre’s party members supported Trump over Kamala Harris by a sizable margin.

Perhaps frozen by this paradox, Poilievre has already wasted one week of a short election period flogging an old battle plan. It has not gone unnoticed by people on his own campaign.

According to published reports in the Globe and Mail, a bevy of anonymous Conservatives working for Poilievre think the leader has been far too slow in making that necessary pivot to put fighting Trump front and centre.

They blame Poilievre’s campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, for sticking with carbon pricing and consumer issues, instead of the existential threat represented by a rogue U.S. president with designs on other people’s territory.

Factor 3: Dissension in the trenches

Insiders also say that Byrne has given top jobs on the campaign to people working for her consulting company. Worse, she has “discounted” advice from party stalwarts. That group reportedly included ex-cabinet ministers, premiers and top advisers to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

The Globe’s anonymous sources say they told the leader and Byrne that the campaign “has to be more than slogans and large rallies of party faithful,” in order to address what is preoccupying Canadians — the Trump threat.

One Conservative who has gone on the record to criticize both Poilievre and Byrne is Kory Teneycke. Teneycke was Doug Ford’s campaign manager for the Ontario premier’s back-to-back majority victories.

After he slammed how the Poilievre campaign was being handled, predicting they would lose if they didn’t change course, Teneycke quickly found out he had hit a nerve.

“I got tons of messages from people who, in many cases, were very senior and close to these guys, who agreed 100 per cent with what I said.... Unless something changes fast, I suspect she [Byrne] will be dumped.”

For his part, Poilievre says he has full confidence in his campaign manager.

Factor 4: Danielle Smith said the quiet part out loud

Besides rancour within his own campaign, there is another reason to doubt Poilievre can rebound in this short race. At a time when Canadians are expressing their disgust with Donald Trump, Poilievre is looking more and more Trumpian. Even his “Canada First” slogan is an echo of Trump’s “America First” motto.

As is his Trump-like claim that everything is broken in this country.

Like Trump, Poilievre has an adversarial approach to the press. He regularly scolds journalists who ask questions he doesn’t like and seems to think that most news media professionals are out to get him. Perhaps that’s why he made the nonsensical decision to bar the press from travelling on his plane during the election.

Nor is the Conservative leader getting much help from his friends when it comes to putting distance between himself and the deeply despised Trump.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told Breitbart News she had reached out to Trump officials to ask that the president put his tariffs on hold until after the Canadian election.

Her reasoning? The tariffs were giving a political advantage to the Liberals. Smith also told those same officials that Poilievre’s perspective was “very much in sync” with the Trump administration. If true, that is a political death warrant in this country.

Factor 5: Allegations of secret help from India

Nor did Canada’s civilian spy agency help Poilievre’s cause when it was reported the Canadian Security Intelligence Service learned that agents of India and their proxies had meddled in the Conservative leadership race. Poilievre won that contest on the first ballot by a huge margin.

According to an unnamed source who spoke to the Globe and Mail, the outside help for Poilievre came in the form of fundraising and organizing in the South Asian community.

The source, reported to have seen top secret documents, said that CSIS didn’t tell Poilievre about the Indian interference in the leadership race on his behalf because he didn’t have a security clearance. He still doesn’t.

And that bothers Canadians who wonder why a person who wants to be prime minister wouldn’t do what all the other party leaders have done — get the security clearance. Is there something that he doesn’t want to know? Or something he doesn’t want his security clearance vetting to make known?

Factor 6: A terrible tally of traits

With his polling numbers going south, dissension on his campaign and the allegation that a foreign country worked to help him win his party’s leadership, the last thing Poilievre needed was a biography characterizing him as “the nastiest leader of a major political party in this country’s history.”

The new book Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre was written by bestselling author and journalist Mark Bourrie. He paints the picture of a man whose preferred form of discourse has always been invective. “He represents the dark side of our nature.... He’s an angry teenager in the body of a grown man,” Bourrie writes.

Although the author tips his hat to Poilievre’s work ethic, intelligence and superior campaigning abilities, Bourrie concludes that the Conservative leader is Canada’s Nigel Farage. Farage was the Brexit leader who “thrilled the extreme right with slogans, insults and vicious personal attacks.”

Factor 7: Receding support for the NDP

There is one more thing working against Poilievre’s chances of becoming prime minister. For Conservatives to win, they need a strong NDP to split the progressive vote with the Liberals. This time around, the exact opposite is happening.

Jagmeet Singh’s vote has collapsed, and pollsters like Nik Nanos believe that is why the Liberals are surging. People are voting strategically to prevent a Conservative victory.

Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair told CTV News that party members were telling him they not only planned to vote Liberal, but intended to work and organize for Mark Carney.

Every day, so far, of the official election campaign, Pierre Poilievre seems to move farther from crossing the threshold of 24 Sussex Drive — after once believing he already had the key in the palm of his hand.