A series of polls suggest the writing might be on the wall for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, with his party tanking as Carney’s right-wing policymaking swipes away support.
The latest poll from Nanos Research has the Conservatives 17 points behind the Liberals. A new Léger poll has them down by 12 points. Meanwhile, a poll from Research Co. has the Liberals 20 points ahead of the Conservatives.
In short, it’s not looking good — and this could mean Poilievre’s time in leadership, which has been speculated about since he blew it in the last federal election, might not have much life left in it.
Given this strange chapter might be coming to a close sooner rather than later, I figured we’d look back on Poilievre’s, um, eventful political career.
Without further ado, here are some of the most memorable moments from Poilievre’s time in office.
Poilievre was first elected in 2004 at the ripe young age of 25 — and like many young men, he didn’t always keep his temper entirely in check.
One such notable moment was when, during a parliamentary committee meeting, Poilievre grew frustrated with others at the table. That frustration was caught on a live microphone.
Oops!
Poilievre’s position on gay marriage has evolved over the years — though he still refused to march in Pride parades this year and continually attacks transgender people, which are the present-day preferred targets of anti-LGBTQ sentiment in Canada and around the world.
But in 2005, Poilievre’s decision to vote against legalizing gay marriage was notable not because it was an overly unique position at the time (in fact, more than thirty Liberals voted against gay marriage in the same moment). Rather, it was notable because Poilievre’s own adoptive father is gay.
Despite that reality, Poilievre not only voted against legalizing gay marriage in 2005, but once again voted to re-open that debate in 2006 after it was legalized.
(There was a myth that Poilievre’s dad was in the House during this vote, but there’s no evidence to support that claim).
A few years later, Poilievre stepped in it once again. He made comments about Indigenous people that even led then-prime minister Stephen Harper to condemn them.
In a 2008 interview with CFRA News Talk Radio, Poilievre questioned whether Canada was “getting value for all of this money” spent compensating residential school survivors.
“My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self-reliance. That's the solution in the long run — more money will not solve it,” he said.
The horrifying comments were made just hours before Harper delivered a formal apology to those impacted by residential schools. Harper called the comments “wrong” and Poilievre apologized for them.
We’re going to make a major time jump now — and to mark it, we’ll talk about Poilievre’s makeover.
This was another notable moment. Poilievre seemed to want to be perceived not as the angry nerd who spat out “fuck you guys” in a committee meeting, but rather as a kettle bell-wielding crossfitter who happens to sometimes do politics.
It wasn’t a straightforward path. Poilievre first flirted with becoming a bitcoin bro, a dalliance that gave us an amazing clip of the Conservative MP smoking a hookah and talking about cryptocurrency.
As he ramped up his campaign to run the country, though, Poilievre refined his look. The shirts got tighter. The hair got gelled. The makeup got heavier. The glasses? Gone.
The push to jazz up his look had some misses, though — most notably, the glamorous look he recently donned at the Calgary Stampede, and that time a brutal combination of makeup and bad lighting made him look orange.
Poilievre also winked at some manosphere-adjacent crap, like putting an incel tag in his YouTube videos and, more recently, sitting down with podcaster Joe Rogan.
When truckers and protesters blockaded Ottawa streets for weeks on end, terrorizing residents with incessant honking, diesel fumes and fireworks that pinged off of apartment buildings, Poilievre sprang into action.
He brought the truckers donuts — and posted about it.
Pierre Poilievre@PierrePoilievre
The truckers I’ve met today have been peaceful, kind and patriotic. I’ve not seen anyone dressed up in blackface or other racist costumes. #TruckersNotTrudeau
5:49 PM · Jan 29, 2022
1.88K Replies · 4.79K Reposts · 21K Likes
That might have been a factor in why he went on to lose his Ottawa-area seat in the 2025 election — an embarrassing rebuke for a party leader that, just months before, had been favoured to win the election.
This was just one of several times Poilievre would rub elbows with the more fringe elements of Canada’s right wing. He also visited a convoy-style encampment in 2024, shaking hands with protesters who were flying “Fuck Trudeau flags” and stepping into a trailer that had a cartoon flag representing the white nationalist group Diagolon on the side.
Like the time when he shook hands with Diagolon leader Jeremy Mackenzie, it’s entirely possible he wasn’t aware of who or what he was hanging around — but the fact that he kept putting himself in situations where he’d encounter these elements was an interesting choice.
One of Poilievre’s legacies will be his war with the media, which had a hand in eroding public trust in those meant to hold politicians to account.
I felt that sting first hand when I worked for Global News and Poilievre put out a statement calling me one of the outlet’s “so-called journalists” when I had asked for comment about his participation in a march against vaccine mandates.
His MPs no longer appeared on CBC News. He had journalists in a faraway area during an election campaign press conference, forcing them to yell to be heard. But most notably, he derisively chewed an apple while batting down questions from a journalist.
Classy!
The Trump-style attacks on media that Poilievre engaged in helped erode public trust in journalists in a lasting way. While Poilievre is far from alone in attacking journalists so he can avoid actually answering them, he arguably helped bring this kind of dynamic into Canada’s political mainstream.
While Conservative MPs have returned to CBC’s airwaves, I’m not sure the erosion in trust that Poilievre helped foster will dissipate anytime soon.
Lastly, we have to touch on Poilievre’s, um, unique political communication choices — ones that I’m grateful for because, in between his attacks on trans rights, the media, and weird manosphere stuff, we sometimes needed a good laugh.
Poilievre really delivered on that when he decided to film a video of himself lovingly caressing wood.
The only problem is I don’t think it was supposed to be funny. Neither, I’d imagine, was the video where Poilievre held up planks of wood from a camera angle that made him seem like an over-eager child.
Similarly, he likely thought he was being deadly serious when he spoke with great admiration about electricians. Poilievre repeatedly described them as quite literally capturing lightning and running it through a copper wire to light up homes.
There’s so much more I could say. Poilievre had some weird campaign signs that clearly weren’t well thought out, he’s been oddly obsessed with the genitalia of people playing sports, using change rooms and/or peeing, and he’s been posting some very over the top workout videos lately.
But much like Poilievre’s leadership, all cringe and unpleasant things must eventually come to an end.
To that I say: thank God.
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