Pierre Poilievre is the leader of Canada's Conservative Party, having won its leadership in 2022. He is a career politician. His party's support is distributed inefficiently across constituencies, with Alberta serving as a stronghold in the way that California does for American Democrats.
Mr Poilievre has had unprecedented success in wooing disaffected young and working-class Canadians. Elon Musk has showered him with praise and compared him to Donald Trump. In the April 2025 election the Conservatives slightly narrowed their deficit in Parliament, but Mr Poilievre fell short of forming a government. He lost the Ottawa riding he had held for two decades to a Liberal. The party's share of the vote, at 41%, was its highest in nearly four decades, but it lost the popular vote by two percentage points, after winning it by one in 2021. The Conservatives made striking gains among immigrant and working-class voters, mirroring demographic trends that returned Mr Trump to the White House.
Fending off Mr Trump's threats was one of voters' top priorities, and they preferred Mark Carney to handle the American president by a wide margin. Mr Poilievre's predilection for withering attacks on the media and his association with MAGA conservatism hurt him. One Conservative strategist called his failure to repudiate Mr Trump more forcefully "campaign malpractice".
Without a seat, Mr Poilievre could not continue as Canada's formal opposition leader. He won a by-election in Battle River-Crowfoot, Canada's second-safest Conservative riding in rural Alberta, after a pliant fellow Conservative stood down. He faces a party leadership review in January 2026.
By early 2026 Mr Poilievre had lost three MPs to the Liberals. His populist slogans, aviator sunglasses and form-fitting T-shirts were gone, replaced by sober suits and sombre promises to work with the Liberals. His favourability ratings trailed Mr Carney's by 30 points.
Mr Poilievre has championed growth-orientated policies aimed at stimulating investment in energy and housing, some of which were adopted by the Liberals under Mr Carney. His personal brand, however, has been tilted towards fighting culture wars; the Conservatives have used the slogan "Make Canada great again".
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.