The dust has begun to settle after the Conservatives lost a fourth consecutive election and there’s been no notable effort to stir things up again, with no widespread or open criticism of leader Pierre Poilievre emerging so far.
This has not been a typical scenario for the Conservative Party in recent years, with previous leaders being ousted by a vote or intense campaign of criticism following an election loss.
This is despite the party having seen its lead in voters’ intentions polling completely evaporate in a matter of weeks, to the point where the question had become whether the Liberals would win a minority or majority government.
While Poilievre has not faced open criticism, his path to remain as leader in the medium term is not entirely without obstacles. The Conservative caucus met this week and voted to adopt the Reform Act, which will allow for a vote to be held on Poilievre’s leadership. This would normally take place at the party’s next convention, for which there is no set date.
As a sign that Poilievre has the support of most of caucus, it selected Andrew Scheer to serve as interim Opposition Leader in the House of Commons while Poilievre seeks to regain a seat in Parliament. Scheer is a former party leader and a prominent voice in the caucus, and had publicly backed Poilievre following the election loss.
“I’m confident that our leader, Pierre Poilievre, will be able to make some adjustments to finish the job next time,” Scheer told reporters in Ottawa before the caucus meeting on May 6.
Other Tory MPs who spoke to reporters the same day expressed support for Poilievre, such as Quebec MPs Richard Martel, Dominique Vien, and Bernard Généreux.
“It’s obvious that we need to change some things,” Luc Berthold, another MP from Quebec, said about the campaign, while adding the party had “excellent results.” Conservatives won 41.3 percent of the national vote compared to 43.7 percent for the Liberals, a gap of nearly 500,000 votes. Tories also picked up 25 seats compared to their 2021 results.
Nova Scotia MP Chris D'Entremont was less enthusiastic, and pointed to specific problems he saw with the campaign. He said holding big rallies is not enough on its own and that Poilievre should have spent time meeting with smaller communities.
“Rallies are too big sometimes and we can’t get to know the real person,” he said in French. “In Atlantic, we want to know who are our politicians, what they do, and what they think.”
Concerns raised were more focused on how the campaign was run rather than who the leader is. During the campaign there was criticism from provincial Progressive Conservatives that Poilievre was not putting enough emphasis on countering U.S. President Donald Trump.
Poilievre did talk about Trump but said he would remain focused on the issues of affordability and public safety, issues he’s been talking about for years now, related to the need for a change in government.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled the rug from under Poilievre’s feet by setting the consumer carbon tax rate to zero, the Tory leader doubled-down by saying he would remove carbon pricing on industry as well. Poilievre had been calling for the holding of a “carbon tax election” for months.
While not making a lot of noise about those issues on the campaign trail, Poilievre maintained his pledge to defund the CBC and terminate the Liberals’ gun buyback program, social issues that resonate with the Conservative base.
Former Tory Erin O'Toole had faced public criticism after his election loss in 2021 for making changes to the party platform. He said during the election he would maintain the Liberal ban on newly designated prohibited firearms and he proposed his own version of the carbon tax.
The petition added that O'Toole had won the party leadership by “claiming to be a ‘true blue’ Conservative,” but he ran a campaign “nearly indistinguishable from Trudeau’s Liberals.”
Tories had won the popular vote with 33.7 percent in the election but lost on the seat count to the Liberals, 160 to 119.
Other members of the Tory caucus expressed similar views and O'Toole was eventually ousted by MPs in a vote in February 2022.
MP Leslyn Lewis, who had finished third in the leadership race won re-election on April 28. She re-posted on May 5 Poilievre’s video on social media in which he says his mission is to expand the Tory team and get back to the House as soon as possible.
MP Damien Kurek said he would step down and let Poilievre run in his Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot.
Poilievre became party leader in 2022 with 68 percent of the votes. He was able to unite the fractious conservative vote, bring in young Canadians looking for change, attract People’s Party of Canada supporters, and even bring in many blue collar votes previously going to NDP.
But although 41.3 percent may be the highest portion of the popular vote for the Tories since 1988, it reversed their previous lead over the Liberals on the popular vote in the 2021 election and ultimately lost the election, leaving Tories to reflect on how they can reverse their fortunes next time around.
