HALIFAX—If any political party in the country needs to do some serious soul-searching, it is the Conservative Party of Canada.

For starters, the party managed to lose an election it was widely expected to win, and win in a rout of the hapless Trudeau Liberals.

For more than a year before the vote, the CPC was besting the Liberals in poll after poll. And it wasn’t just by a little. It was a pitiless drubbing. Yet the party managed to squander its incredible 25-point advantage in just a few short months.

Rather than vote for the Conservatives—who seemed destined for a big majority government—Canadians chose to elect a rookie leader with zero political experience. For the fourth consecutive time, the CPC found itself on the short end of the political stick.

What the party needs to figure out—and fast—is why? That question leads by a direct route to the issue of leadership. Does Pierre Poilievre have the royal jelly to ever be prime minister? Is he the right person to lead the Conservatives out of the wilderness they’ve inhabited since former prime minister Stephen Harper’s defeat in 2015?

Measured by what I call “the John Crosbie Rule,” the answer is no. The late former Mulroney-era federal Conservative cabinet minister once told me that the most important thing in politics is winning. “Unless you win, you can’t do anything with your policies. You have to win.”

As leader, Poilievre failed to do that, just as Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole did before him. Neither of those latter leaders got a second kick at the can. Nor did they face a leadership review. Scheer resigned, and O’Toole was forced out by his own MPs during the so-called Freedom Convoy fiasco in early 2022. In politics, as in sports, losers rarely prosper. 

When sports teams lose, they usually fire the coach, as the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs and the NBA’s New York Knicks have just done. They do it to take their teams to the “next level”: winning.

But the Conservatives appear to be willing to stand pat with a losing hand, the old Harper/Poilievre grip on the party. Changing a few comms people in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition is mere cosmetic surgery when a major operation looks to be more in order.  

Jenni Byrne is still around, and Poilievre has shown little interest in dumping his reputedly headstrong—and often controversial—adviser. Many Conservatives blame Byrne for imposing hand-picked candidates in their ridings over local choices.

And the CPC has to consider another fact. Poilievre didn’t just lose the election, he lost his own seat in Carleton, Ont., to another political rookie, Bruce Fanjoy. After 20 years as the riding’s MP, one would think the voters of Carleton would know Poilievre better than anyone in the country.  

So why did they reject him? Was it his constant negativity? His relentless promotion of the politics of anger? Was it his stand with the truckers’ Freedom Convoy against law and order?   

And after losing, why did the leader choose to run in arguably the safest Conservative seat in Alberta? Was that the only place he was sure he could win?

The Conservatives also have to come to grips with another issue. Natural leaders don’t need a $3-million makeover. A far more modest makeover didn’t work for Preston Manning back in the Reform Party days, and the odds are it didn’t work with Poilievre. Ditching the glasses, sporting flashier suits, tight-fitting T-shirts, and pasted on smiles won’t do the trick.  

What Canadians want to see in their politicians is the real person, not some fake version engineered to get snare votes.

Voters reward authenticity and sincerity, not self-serving artifice.  

All that said, the April 28 election results were not all on Poilievre. External factors beyond the party’s control also played a significant role in the Conservative loss.  

United States President Donald Trump’s ruinous tariffs and annexationist ravings changed the game at the 11th hour.  

Canadians united in a surge of true-patriot love. For many, the ballot question came down to this: who was the best candidate to deal with the predatory American president? In the end, voters chose the proven central banker and financial operator over the lifelong politician.

The second external factor that changed the political landscape is something the Conservatives could learn from: knowing when to change. 

Faced with certain defeat and internal party strife, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau resigned and the Liberals held a leadership race. When Mark Carney won that race, Liberal fortunes dramatically rebounded.  

With a new leader who had no baggage from 10 years of Trudeau, the Liberals catapulted from hopeless also-rans to top dogs. And they not only changed leaders. They also walked away from their deeply unpopular carbon tax, removing another arrow from the Conservatives’ quiver.  

Poilievre has publicly stated that he is not afraid of a challenge to his leadership. Sidestepping the elephant in the room—the party’s loss in the recent federal election—Poilievre likes to talk about the positive side of defeat.  

The Conservatives did indeed make a breakthrough of sorts in Ontario, and—to Poilievre’s credit—the party also recorded the largest vote share since the 1988 federal election. 

But that shouldn’t stop the party from reviewing Poilievre’s leadership in a public and forthright way. Harper went through such a review after his loss in the 2004 federal election. It is now in the hands of the party’s national council to set a date for leadership review. There have been reports that such a review could come next March, which is far too late.

What Conservatives have to ask themselves is this: Will Canadians approve if the Conservative Party under Poilievre decides to set its sights on forcing an election as soon as possible, at precisely the same time that the country’s economy and sovereignty are under grave threat from the U.S.? And if Carney should govern for the next four years, will Poilievre be any better positioned to win power? How many makeovers might that take?  

As one reader wrote in a letter to the editor in The Globe and Mail, “I would be shocked if the Conservatives really believe Pierre Poilievre is the best candidate they can offer. … I beg the party to alter its thinking.”

Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist.

The Hill Times

 

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