Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been on the phone with caucus members and party supporters in the hours since the election, trying to shore up his position after he delivered uneven results, Conservative sources told CBC News.
Poilievre, who has made it clear he intends to stay on as leader, is trying to chart a path forward now that he finds himself outside the House of Commons for the first time in more than 20 years after losing his own Ottawa-area seat, according to sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about internal party discussions.
MPs could try to oust Poilievre, like they did with his predecessor, Erin O’Toole, through provisions of the Reform Act that empower parliamentarians to hold a leadership review. The party’s caucus would have to first vote to adopt the act’s leadership review powers and then collect enough signatures to prompt that process.
But at this early juncture, there is not a strong desire to replace Poilievre, caucus sources said.
One caucus source, who worked closely with Poilievre in the last Parliament, told CBC News the leader isn’t facing any sort of well-organized internal opposition — at least not yet.
Another caucus source said there is some grumbling and disappointment that Poilievre blew what looked like a huge lead earlier this year — and then let 12 Conservative incumbents lose re-election in Monday’s vote — but conceded there’s no serious movement afoot to get rid of him.
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A different caucus source said Poilievre is on “very solid ground” after making what this person called “major gains in both seat count and vote share” with important additions in the Greater Toronto Area in particular.
But there are some tensions in the Canadian Conservative family.
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, a Progressive Conservative, said Wednesday he doesn’t have any sort of relationship with Poilievre and acknowledged there was a dispute between the two leaders’ camps during the last provincial election.
Houston said the federal Conservatives will need to do some “soul-searching” after the party came up short yet again against the Liberals. The party lost two MPs in the province.
Progressive Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford has also had a fractious relationship with his federal counterpart. Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, who tore into Ford in a CBC News interview on election night, posted an anti-Ford meme on social media Wednesday suggesting the premier is a Liberal.
Speaking to reporters, Ford said Poilievre and his team never supported the Ontario PCs in the recent provincial election. Ford’s party won a massive majority government while voters went in a different direction federally, the premier said.
“The people spoke, and they spoke loud and clear on the provincial election and loud and clear on the federal election. That’s democracy. That’s who they want,” Ford said.
But, for the federal Conservatives, there is considerable “leadership fatigue” among some members given there have already been four leaders in the last 10 years. A race to replace Poilievre would consume valuable time and resources.
Plus, Poilievre has a lot of support among the party’s base, as evidenced by the strong turnout at election rallies even in the closing days of the campaign when polls suggested the Conservatives were going to lose again.
There were also brisk merchandise sales of Poilievre-branded gear at those events, a sign the leader enjoys affection among the most loyal.
Without a seat, Poilievre’s post-election future is unclear
And while some previously held seats slipped away to the Liberals, the party’s results were quite strong in some areas.
The Toronto-area breakthrough, especially among South Asian and Chinese Canadian voters in some key ridings, was crucial to holding the Liberals to a minority, party sources said.
They attribute that to suburban frustrations about crime, in particular, but also cost-of-living issues like housing affordability — two issues Poilievre put front and centre in his campaign messaging.
Conservatives making inroads among working-class voters is also a development to celebrate, sources said.
Like Ford, Poilievre courted private-sector union endorsements and dropped past Conservative support for laws widely seen as anti-labour, giving him a boost in areas like Hamilton and Windsor, Ont.
There have been early conversations about who could serve as the party’s interim leader of the Official Opposition, a position that, under law, must be held by a sitting MP.
Some names that have been floated by Conservative sources are deputy leader Melissa Lantsman, House leader Andrew Scheer and the party’s ethics critic, Michael Barrett.
Those three have been trusted Poilievre lieutenants throughout his tenure. They have been given leeway to speak for the party publicly, including during the election — a work assignment given to few other MPs or candidates.
Lantsman, Scheer and Barrett all endorsed Poilievre’s continued leadership in social media posts in the hours after the election loss.
Poilievre will likely ask one of his re-elected MPs to step aside so he can run in a byelection to get back into Parliament — but that could still be months away.
At least one re-elected Conservative MP, Chris D’Entremont, said Tuesday that Poilievre’s seat loss is a problem.
“Quite honestly it’s going to be difficult to question or hold the government to account,” he said in an interview with CBC Radio’s As It Happens.
But he questioned whether turfing a Tory MP to help get Poilievre back to the House is the right way to go.
“I don’t think that’s fair for the person who just ran for a year trying to get elected in their area, but that’s a discussion we need to have as a caucus,” he said.
Poilievre and his allies’ talk about coming back to finish the fight against the Liberals soon is overly optimistic, said one Poilievre staffer.
The Liberals have one of the strongest minority governments in Canadian history — Mark Carney’s team is three seats short of a majority — and the NDP is in a very weakened state with few resources, no leader and a miniscule caucus of seven after an electoral drubbing.
The NDP will take time to pick a new leader and it’s unlikely that Jagmeet Singh’s successor will want to go to an election right away, which means another vote is likely 18 months to two years away, at a minimum, said a Conservative staffer who is looking at the long game.
While Poilievre has been speaking to party bigwigs, some of the staffers who helped deliver Monday’s results haven’t heard much of anything about what the future holds for them.
