Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says he lost his riding of Carleton in the federal election due to an “aggressive” campaign by public sector unions after he was honest about wanting to cut federal worker jobs.
Poilievre had held the Ottawa riding of Carleton for two decades until the April 28 election, when he was defeated by Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy by 4,500 votes.
The loss was a major setback for the leader, who before the new year had been favoured to become prime minister.
Poilievre no longer has a seat in the House of Commons, but he’s hoping to regain one in the rural Alberta riding of Battle River–Crowfoot on Aug. 18 — after former Conservative MP Damien Kurek offered up his spot in what is one of the safest Conservative seats in the country.
In an interview with CBC’s The House that airs on Saturday, Poilievre said his campaign was transparent about his intention to cut public service jobs if his party won the election.
“And it’s an Ottawa riding with a lot of federal public servants who disagreed with that approach,” Poilievre said. “They ran a very aggressive campaign, particularly the public sector unions did, to defeat me on that basis.”
The leader said his voice as a representative for Canadians across the country took precedence over pleasing the 124,000 or so people in the riding — which happens to border Prime Minister Mark Carney’s riding of Nepean.
But Poilievre continues to want to highlight his party’s successes in the election under his leadership, including the two and a half million more votes it garnered than in the 2021 federal election, as well as adding 25 seats in Parliament.
He will be undergoing a mandatory leadership review in January, which the Conservative Party’s constitution calls for if a leader does not resign following an election loss.
“Some people might say, ‘Well, it wasn’t the best idea to run on a smaller federal public service when you’re an Ottawa MP,’ but I had an entire country to represent,” Poilievre said. “I had to be honest with people.”
He said the Liberals didn’t do the same.
“I guess I could’ve done what the Liberals did, which is hide their plans,” Poilievre said.
Poilievre says committing to cut federal public service cost him his Ottawa seat
Last week, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne asked fellow cabinet ministers to come up with “ambitious savings proposals” to get a handle on public sector spending.
During the election campaign, Carney did share his intention to rein in federal operational spending, saying he would “spend less, so Canada can invest more.”
At the time, he said he would cap the size of the public service and try to make government operations more efficient by “leveraging AI and machine learning.”
“The voice that I bring represents those eight million-plus people who believed in my message of fighting inflation, of getting affordable homes built, of locking up criminals, defeating drugs, unleashing our resources,” Poilievre told Catherine Cullen, host of The House.
When it comes to cutting the federal public service, he said, “that’s the only way you bring down taxes and deficits, and I was honest about that, and the people in that particular constituency voted accordingly.”
FULL INTERVIEW | Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks with CBC Radio’s The House
Poilievre is running against Liberal candidate Darcy Spady in Battle River–Crowfoot. Kurek first won the riding’s seat in 2019 and was re-elected in April with almost 82 per cent of the vote. The young Conservative has said he plans to run in the riding again in the next federal election.
The Conservative leader said he wants to continue challenging the government in the House of Commons, as he’s well known for doing during question period.
“If you look at how the debate has changed in Canada as a result of the arguments and the causes that I’ve taken on, that voice has been very important to countless people, and it’s a voice I want to amplify,” he said.
