Conservative delegates set to vote on Poilievre's leadership, as election fears linger

CALGARY — More than 2,500 delegates will answer the question today that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been waiting months to hear. 

Does he have the confidence of his own party to remain as its leader?

Friday’s leadership review will be the first vote of its kind that the Conservative party has held in more than 20 years, with the last and only one staged after former prime minister Stephen Harper lost the 2004 election. Delegates at the next convention gave Harper an 84 per cent mandate.

Such is the level of support Conservatives gathered in Calgary for the three-day convention are hoping Poilievre can achieve, following his loss in the 2025 election, which delivered the Liberals, under new leader Prime Minister Mark Carney, the party’s fourth straight victory.

While the mood among delegates was upbeat, with the convention’s opening ceremonies on Thursday night kicking off with a performance by country artist Brett Kissel, whose song “Our Home” was a staple at Poilievre’s rallies, memories of that election — and its repercussions for Poilievre — were not far behind.

“I want to see at least a 90 per cent for Pierre,” said delegate Charlie Martin from central Newfoundland.

“It’ll be to show the rest of the people that, you know, he’s still strong,” said Martin, who said he planned to support Poilievre in his leadership review, scheduled for Friday evening.

Heading into his review, Poilievre has been meeting with delegates to drum up support, with Hamish Marshall, who ran the party’s 2019 election campaign, involved in those efforts.

For months, Poilievre has been emphasizing the wins the party saw under the last election: capturing a historic 41.3 per cent of the vote, an all time best for the party, and picking up more than 20 new seats, including in must-win regions like the Greater Toronto Area and British Columbia. 

Party heavyweights like Rona Ambrose and Candice Bergen, who each served as interim leader of the party, released videos endorsing Poilievre, as did Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who is set to speak at the convention,

As delegates gathered on Thursday, the party sought to showcase those victories by welcoming a slate of MPs representing ridings it flipped from the Liberals and New Democrats to the stage.

Still, Conservatives gather as recent public opinion polls show Carney’s Liberals in the lead, with data suggesting Canadians are satisfied with the job the prime minister is doing, with negative impressions of Poilievre remaining a challenge for the party to overcome.

Another factor Poilievre is being forced to confront is concerns over U.S. President Donald Trump, whose tariffs and targeting of countries like Greenland has once again raised worries among Canadians about sovereignty.

When Poilievre takes the stage to deliver his keynote speech on Friday night, it is expected that he will weave together his messages around affordability, the theme Conservatives see as their path to success, while also speaking to the concerns of Canadians who are nervous about the current geopolitical moment.

Melissa Lantsman, one of the party’s two deputy leaders, called on delegates to vote “yes” to what she called an “affordable Canada,” and pushed back against commentary that suggests Conservatives may be divided.

“We are united. Our movement is united and our party is united,” Lantsman said.

Aaron Gunn, who picked up a seat for the Conservatives on Vancouver Island, also told delegates that it was the Conservatives who are the party of Canadian pride, chiding the Liberals for only emphasizing that message within the past 15 months, a reference to the “elbows up” campaign Carney embraced at the onset of the Canada-U.S. trade war.

Martin, like other delegates who spoke to National Post, named the Liberals’ decision to centre their last campaign on the Trump issue as the driving reason behind Poilievre’s loss.

Asked whether he believed Poilievre could win should those circumstances repeat themselves, Martin answered bluntly.

“He probably won’t, no, and that’s sad,” he said. “‘I’m frustrated, very frustrated.”

While Carney this week said he was not considering triggering an election — with his government calling for more cooperation in Parliament to get more of their legislative agenda passed and Poilievre extending a hand to do so — some of his MPs and delegates on the convention floor believe the possibility of one happening nevertheless remains real.

Another feature of the last campaign that remains a challenge for the Conservatives is reaching voters 55 and older, who overwhelmingly voted for Carney, some of whom had supported the party in the past.

Delegate Thomas Folinsbee, who was involved during the last campaign at a riding in Vancouver, suggests that will take time.

“I think we leave it to the other side to make some mistakes and not live up to the hoopla and the optimism that probably came from having a brand new leader,” he said.

Sherry Wilson, a delegate from New Brunswick who planned to support Poilievre, believes the party can learn from its past mistakes, including when it came to how it handled candidate nominations, with dozens of top-down appointments made, which was a widespread criticism from the party’s grassroots.

When it comes to reaching seniors, Wilson said she observes that a swing has happened that ought to be figured out.

“They need to look at what brought that about, and really think on ways they might be able to change the direction for that demographic,” she said.

April Hammond, a delegate from Vancouver Island, expressed confidence Poilievre could win the next vote based on the fact that the “traditional liberals” who opted for Carney last time around may see now “that he’s not delivering.”

Varinder Sidhu says he knows he is among the small minority who believes it time for the Conservatives to pick a new leader. 

“I think Pierre Poilievre Is the Robert Stanfield of today,” he said. “Very hyped up, very popular within the party … but never got to become prime minister.”

National Post

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