One moment captured Poilievre’s fatal weakness
By Lethbridge Herald on May 1, 2025.
Dan O’Donnell
For the Herald
So the election is over and the Liberals have won. Behind by more than 25 points at the end of 2024, they overtook the Conservatives over the course of this past spring, and, as of today, are beginning their fourth mandate as government. While the Conservatives did better than they have in many years, it wasn’t enough to prevent the Liberals from increasing both their seat count and share of the popular vote.
So what went wrong? How did the election turn from a likely Conservative romp to another Liberal government? And a near majority, to boot. To one of the largest and fastest swings in voting preference seen in Canadian history?
A lot of it has to do with Trump, of course. And the collapse of smaller parties such as the NDP, Bloc Quebecois, Greens, and Peoples Party. And perhaps some of it has to do with Liberal Leader Mark Carney himself, who, despite being a novice on the campaign trail, nevertheless managed to avoid any major gaffes.
But as much as we may not like to hear it out here in Conservative Alberta, the Liberal victory was also, very much, a Conservative loss — one predicated on the party’s inability to expand outside its base. Despite their early and large lead, the Conservatives under leader Pierre Poilievre simply were not able to maintain their advantage once the polarizing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepped down.
Like all good stories of loss, the Conservative defeat begins with an apple. Not the apple the devil gave to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Nor the one Paris gave to Aphrodite, setting off the Trojan War. Nor the one the evil queen gave to Snow White in the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale.
The apple in this story was one Pierre Poilievre found himself, in an Okanagan orchard, a little over eighteen months ago, when he was running for the party’s leadership. But like the famous apples of myth and fairytale, it too led to what looks like is about to become the most famous loss in the history of Canadian politics.
You may remember the scene. Poilievre was on holiday in Kelowna when he was approached by Don Urquhart, editor of the Times Chronicle, a small weekly newspaper out of Osoyoos. “How do you respond to criticisms that you’re controlling your message too much and not engaging openly with the media?” Urquhart asked, reflecting a common view at the time, as Poilievre’s campaign had been avoiding unscripted interviews with major news organizations.
Poilievre, crunching an apple, went on the attack. “Who’s saying that?” he asked. “Give me the names of the reporters who say that. What media organizations?” After a few more bites: “You’re just making a statement, not asking a question.”
When the clip was packaged and shared by Poilievre’s campaign, his supporters went wild. It was everything they wanted: a politician unafraid to “own” the media elites (never mind that Urquhart edited a small-town paper, not the CBC or Globe and Mail). Willing to go on the attack. To smirk. And to eat an apple while doing so.
Indeed, that apple probably helped Poilievre win the Conservative leadership. The video drew millions of views, and his polling went up. Its success led his team to adopt an even more combative approach, which they later turned against Prime Minister Trudeau and his increasingly unpopular government.
But I think it also cost him the election.
To “own” somebody, as Poilievre did with Urquhart, is gamer slang for taking a combative, mocking approach — treating someone’s objections with contempt rather than engagement. Putting them down. Humiliating them.
And we have older words for that too. Rude. Condescending. Ungracious. Childish.
In picking on a local reporter, Poilievre showed a side of his character that appeals to the fiercest partisans but repels everybody else. Nobody likes a bully. And nobody likes to see a powerful figure punch downward against someone who is clearly not a professional partisan.
Worse, after winning the leadership, Poilievre’s team began treating everyone this way. Trudeau and the Liberals, of course. But also provincial conservatives. Doug Ford in Ontario. Tim Houston in Nova Scotia. Even populists like Danielle Smith in Alberta and Scott Moe in Saskatchewan. When your brand is built on taking no prisoners, it can be easy to forget you might still need allies. But Poilievre drove them away.
And we all know what happened after that. The leaderless Liberals surged twenty points in three weeks. By the time Mark Carney took over, they had erased a double-digit deficit and were pulling into the lead, where they stayed throughout the entire campaign. The wind Poilievre thought was at his back turned out to be simply the last gasp of the Trudeau regime. With the Prime Minister out of the way, Poilievre saw his sails go slack.
This is the lesson of that apple — and Poilivre’s interview while eating it. Given the choice, it seems most Canadians would rather vote for a party without a leader than one led by somebody who has nothing good to say about anyone or anything.
Especially if they can’t stop chewing while saying it.
20-19
One word captured Canada’s feeble mindedness. Trump, and the Canadian media pounded this nonsense 24/7 as they cheered on Mr net zero, emphasis on zero, as the champion prize fighter to take on Trump. Also 90 people on on a ballot in Carleton added to the confusion, but no mention of that effect. Imagine if the next time Miyashiro ran there were 75 people on the ballot. The media would be apoplectic. Not a bad idea.
the ballot? it was decent protest, but, tell us, how is it the many found their way to the liberal winner? might it be the the typical con voter is less adept at lining up their illiterate x than the liberal voter?
In addition to the Trump factor and Poilievre’s personal combative style, a style that many applaud but others find objectionable, two other explanations for his loss are gathering steam, namely voter confusion, referenced here, and vote splitting.
Both are linked to the large number of candidates on the ballot – 91 in total – but neither hold water. Both are deflective and both conjure up images of an ostrich with its head in the sand.
As regards voter confusion, Poilievre has represented the riding of over twenty years, and is his party’s leader with a national profile. Both as the incumbent and party leader, he had name recognition that Fanjoy could not match.
Turning to vote splitting, Poilievre, Fanjoy and the other four party-affiliated candidates received 85,499 of the 86,371 votes cast. The independents, placed on the ballot to fuel a conversation about electoral reform, received 922 votes. Even if none of those independents were on the ballot and all of the votes they received went to Poilievre, who lost to Fanjoy by 4,315 votes, he still would have come in second.
Wholeheartedly agree! Poilievre’s embarrassing loss in his own riding may be the deafening silence, elephant-in-the-room highlight of the election. And this:
“Canada’s Conservative Leader Is Tossed From His Own Seat. Pierre Poilievre lost the vote for a constituency he has held for 21 years to a Liberal political neophyte. His populist approach may have been to blame.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/world/canada/canada-poilievre-election-conservatives.html
Quote from this article re: his riding: “Poilievre seemed to be well liked — until he wasn’t.” Something like Trudeau eh?
the trump attacks on canadian sovereignty undermined the ndp party the most, and even the bloc to a considerable degree. this did help the liberals in terms of not losing as much of the support as they typically lose to their left of center split with the ndp. however, curiously, the cons gained considerably in ontario from the trump scare…via their gain of ndp supporters that jumped ship to the cons, of all things. that seems a massive jump in values. it certainly seems to underscore just how disgusted were many voters with trudeau and the far too many utterly corrupt, wasteful, and stupid actions that plagued the liberals at seemingly every turn. indeed, in ontario the cons caught steam over the last handful of days and came out well ahead of what the polling had indicated.
part of that final push in ontario may also have been the result of the pierre tough on crime rhetoric – like trump – whereby pierre would make the likes of homelessness and mental health, generally speaking, a crime. bad enough to do that; ever the worse to do that by invoking the notwithstanding clause so as to over step our supreme court.
acting as a fascist dictator does might well have spoken to the fools that only understand things as black and white, but it will also have turned off many sitting on the fence until the bitter end, those of whom that understand the textures and complexities of life and its problems reside in the myriad of colour that is between the simple black and white. those are the best canadians, those of the glowing hearts.
I hadn’t made the biblical apple connection. Thanks for that. It made me smile.
But, you’re right about it damaging Poilievre. When I saw it, I was astounded by his rudeness. What if he behaved that way on an international mission for Canada? How can we have a leader that doesn’t have basic manners?
Then as time progressed and he was so consistently negative about everything, I just got tired of hearing his voice spouting on and on about how horrible it is to live in Canada and be Canadian. Again, how do you elect a leader that believes Canada sucks?
The idea that one man, elected to our highest office can fix it all in one term is ludicrous. So, if Canada is truly broken, we need all hands on deck working in genuine cooperation.
I for one hope he goes quiet for a bit.
During Obama’s presidency there was talk that if the Republicans didn’t shift back from the fringes of fascism to a more central position that they would be unelectable once the Boomers fade away.
Instead, two of the last three terms (and, arguably, Obama’s final two years) have been controlled by Republicans who shifted entirely into the far right.
This article also seems to ignore the growing resentment of neoliberalism and growing economic disparity (and opportunity). The past three Conservative leaders might have been doofs, but the party remains radical right, with growing support.
You don’t have to imagine a government controlled by a group of buckwheats. We already have one in Alberta.
Liberal complacency will be our ruin. We’ll see if Carney will offer better.