Big crowds turning out for Poilievre suggest a very different kind of Conservative leadership race
CBC
In the last two Conservative leadership races, the supposed front-runners stumbled before reaching the finish line. This time, however, the front-runner is only showing signs of gaining ground.
Swelling crowd counts and MP endorsements aren't ironclad guarantees of success, but they certainly don't hurt. And Pierre Poilievre — with his populist appeals to frustration with government "gatekeepers" and calls to make Canada "the freest country on earth" — is doing well on both those measures.
Poilievre has tweeted photos of rallies in British Columbia and Ontario attended by hundreds of people. His visits to Calgary on Tuesday and Edmonton on Thursday are expected to draw more big crowds.
"They're unprecedented in a leadership [race]," said Melanie Paradis, a veteran of the two previous Conservative leadership races who served as former leader Erin O'Toole's deputy campaign director.
"He has a compelling narrative. It's important to credit that."
The theme of Poilievre's campaign is freedom. His rallies target government policies that he argues restrict those freedoms — everything from vaccine mandates to carbon taxes to government policy on inflation. Poilievre promises that if he becomes prime minister, he'll put a stop to all of it.
His supporters praise Poilievre for being an unapologetic conservative. Many like his willingness to bluntly criticize and even mock the Liberals.
Detractors worry he'll deepen divisions within the party and the country. Some have gone as far as to warn of the "Trumpification" of the Conservative Party if Poilievre wins.
Recent Conservative leadership contests haven't been kind to perceived front-runners. Maxime Bernier was expected to win the leadership in 2017, only to be knocked down by Andrew Scheer.
In 2020, Peter MacKay was widely viewed as the front-runner because he'd held a series of high-profile cabinet posts and helped to found the modern Conservative Party. He lost to O'Toole on the third ballot.
Poilievre benefits from some key differences between this race and the last two, said Paradis.
In 2017, Paradis said, the party was out of practice when it came to running leadership races. It allowed the race to drag on for more than a year, she said, which robbed it of a sense of urgency. It also had a field of more than a dozen candidates, which divided the attention and resources of party activists.
In the last race, leadership contenders had to grapple with pandemic limits on the size of gatherings, which undermined outreach efforts. Now, Paradis said, many Canadians are excited to spend time with others.
Poilievre also has the advantage in caucus endorsements. More than 50 MPs are publicly backing him, compared to just 11 MP endorsements for candidate and former Quebec premier Jean Charest and six for MP Leslyn Lewis, who's running for the leadership for a second time.
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