Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre delivered mixed results in Monday’s election — boosting his party’s vote share to a generational high with breakthroughs among new voting blocs, while at the same time failing to unseat Mark Carney and the Liberals from government and losing his own seat.
Only months ago, Poilievre was poised to lead the Conservatives to a historic majority government, with polls projecting one of the most lopsided seat counts in 30 years.
In the end, former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation and U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war scrambled the electoral equation and Poilievre couldn’t deliver on his promise of change.
Carney emerges from this election with one of the strongest minority governments in the country’s history — just three seats shy of a majority.
Poilievre vowed to stay on as party leader despite the disappointing final result, telling his supporters in Ottawa early Tuesday that he needs more time to drive a stake through the Liberals once and for all.
“We didn’t quite get over the finish line — yet. We know that change is needed, but change is hard to come by. It takes time. It takes work,” Poilievre said.
“We have to learn the lessons of tonight so that we can have an even better result the next time Canadians decide the future for the country,” he said.
Jamie Ellerton, a Conservative strategist who worked on past leader Andrew Scheer’s 2019 election campaign, said Poilievre is likely to hang on to the leadership at this point.
“I think he has rock-solid support among the party membership,” Ellerton said in an interview.
Indeed, even as polls suggested the Liberals were poised to pull off a major about-face and win again, Poilievre drew large, adoring crowds of supporters at rallies across the country throughout the campaign.
FULL SPEECH | Poilievre says he intends to stay on as Conservative leader
Other Conservatives say Poilievre’s future is to be determined, given the Liberals will live to see another day and victory slipped through his hands.
“This is a big loss to a tired government that’s been in power for 10 years,” one senior Conservative source who worked for Poilievre in the past told CBC News.
“The guy couldn’t do what needed to be done. He utterly refused to acknowledge that the ballot box question had changed to the bitter end,” the source said, referring to the U.S. trade war.
Still, Poilievre led the party to gains in areas where the party has struggled in recent federal elections.
Notably, the Liberals have pulled in roughly 49 per cent of the vote counted so far in Ontario, compared to about 45 per cent for the Conservatives — big improvements for both parties after the NDP vote collapsed. That result translated into a 12-seat gain for the Tories in the country’s most populous province.
The Conservatives picked up seats in Toronto’s suburban 905 region, some with unexpectedly large margins like in Vaughan-Woodbridge.
Party sources say Poilievre’s tough-on-crime message had a particular appeal in areas where violent and property crime has been a major concern after a post-COVID spike.
Poilievre’s effort to court blue-collar workers, particularly those in private-sector unions, also paid off with a strong Conservative showing in industrial areas like Ontario’s Niagara region, and southwestern Ontario locales like London and Windsor.
The party outperformed in some areas of Atlantic Canada, picking up a seat in Newfoundland and Labrador, and benefited from progressive vote splits in B.C.
Poilievre also held off a meaningful Liberal breakthrough in urban Alberta and Saskatchewan, although Carney, the party’s first Western leader in a generation, delivered relatively respectable results in the region — particularly in B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
Scheer, a close Poilievre confidant, said in a social media post the party ran “an incredible campaign” and posted “the highest vote percentage in modern Conservative history” and therefore the “inspirational” Poilievre should be given a chance to continue leading the party to “finish the job next time.”
But Poilievre lost his own Ottawa-area seat of Carleton — a shocking result given he’s held that riding for more than 20 years through successive political waves.
In the end, the result wasn’t even particularly close with Poilievre losing by some five percentage points to Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy.
Voters in the area told CBC News that Poilievre’s past support for the anti-vaccine mandate convoy that overtook Ottawa’s downtown during the pandemic and his promise to cut the public service hurt his chances in the riding.
It will be difficult for Poilievre to prosecute the Liberals from outside the House of Commons.
If he does stay on as planned, one of the Conservative MPs elected in Monday’s vote will likely resign their seat to give him a chance to run in a byelection and get back into Parliament.
Poilievre’s continued use of Stornoway is also in doubt.
By law, that state-owned residence is reserved for the leader of the Official Opposition, a position that can only be held by a sitting MP. But whoever is picked by caucus as the party’s interim parliamentary leader may defer to Poilievre and allow him and his young family to stay in the home.
