Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took his message of change Friday to Calgary, where his supporters will hope there’s minimal change as Liberals push for multiple victories in the predominantly Conservative city.
Speaking to what organizers said was more than 3,000 people, he stressed the importance of ensuring all their friends and relatives vote in Monday’s election.
“Are you going to reach out to all the people who may have given up on life and tell them that there’s hope if they vote for a change?” Poilievre said.
“We need the biggest voter turnout in Canadian history to deliver the change that Canadians need.”
It was a return for Polievre to a political stronghold — where nine of 10 seats went Conservative in 2021 — but also his personal homecoming.
Poilievre was born and went to high school and university in Calgary before launching his political career more than two decades ago in the Ottawa area.
Playing to his side’s longstanding sense the governing Liberals didn’t support the province and its oil-and-gas economy, he pledged Conservatives would “stand up” for the West. “Albertans, people of the prairies and all across the West deserve to be a fair and full part of our country, for a change,” he said.
Those last three words repeatedly punctuated Poilievre’s sentences, as he bids to end 10 years of federal Liberal rule and overcome what polls have shown as a narrow yet persistent lead for Mark Carney’s party.
He used his rally venue, a private jet hangar near Calgary International Airport, to stage a dramatic entrance. The waiting crowd whooped with excitement as the hangar’s giant doors opened and Poilievre’s jet rolled slowly into view, bearing the leader’s name in massive blue letters.
The plan made for a strikingly different backdrop than the large Canadian flag in front of which Poilievre has typically performed his stump speech.
The Conservatives billed Friday’s afternoon event as a “whistle stop” or “mini-rally,” with a slightly shorter speech than the nightly rallies he’s held in large industrial warehouses or union halls around the country. But the Conservatives still pulled in a crowd that dwarfed the one that Carney attracted three weeks earlier.
Liberals have hopes to gain seats in Calgary, building on the one city MP they currently have. Polling aggregator 338 Canada suggests that four ridings here are either toss-ups or likely to go Liberal.
But the Conservatives have stressed a policy platform they believe will stoke billions of dollars of development in Alberta’s oil and gas sector, by slashing various Liberal climate and energy regulations governing electric vehicles, energy project approvals and more.
“We know that energy is necessary — energy wealth, energy abundance,” Poilievre said. “And that is why Conservatives will axe the entire carbon tax for everyone, for real, for a change.”
At a rally in Saskatoon the previous evening, Poilievre noted the fact that Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe had endorsed him, but the federal leader made no mention in Calgary of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s endorsement — nor did he at an Edmonton rally earlier this month. Smith’s remarks last month to an American podcast that Poilievre is “in sync” with U.S. President Donald Trump on many issues drew controversy in the Canadian campaign’s early days.
Aside from appearances at pancake breakfasts and fundraisers during Calgary Stampede, Poilievre has seldom visited Calgary since becoming Opposition leader three years ago.
“I understand why he doesn’t, because there’s a lot of very critical areas in the country that he has to pay very close attention to,” said retired Air Force pilot Keith Hunt. “But the fact he is making a stop here is very meaningful to me.”
The Calgarian said he’s found Poilievre’s messages hopeful, but Hunt says he has lost sleep over the polls showing a majority government is likely for the Liberals and their leader, a former Bank of Canada governor.
“If I was looking for somebody to handle my investment portfolio, he’d probably be the guy I chose,” Hunt said of Carney. “But there’s more than just finance to what’s going on in our country.”
Okotoks resident Moira Schrader said she’s liked Poilievre’s emphasis on affordability.
“I want my kids to be able to afford housing, and they can’t right now,” she said, explaining that her two daughters rent homes near the Edmonton area but would rather buy property.
As she waited in a snaking lineup, a couple of hours before the rally began, she brandished a Poilievre 2025 flag, with the Trump-inspired slogan “Make Canada Strong Again.”
Another rally-goer sported a shirt with more a progressive U.S. inspiration: Barack Obama’s “Hope” poster. Kelly Main bought her T-shirt off Etsy, a two-tone Poilievre image with “FREEDOM” beneath it.
She was excited Poilievre was getting support from a large hometown crowd.
“My gut feels like Pierre is going to win, but it scares me a little bit because I know a lot of people are voting because of the tariff thing for the Liberals,” Main said.
