Letter: Short-term loyalty to Poilievre will cost the Conservatives in the long run
By Letter to the Editor on January 6, 2026.
Dear editor, Re: Conservative Party of Canada leadership review later this month The Conservative Party trails the Liberals in the polls by just under four per cent. Pierre Poilievre trails Mark Carney in the national leadership polls by 21 per cent. Mr. Poilievre is, clearly, a liability – the party much less so. Mr. Poilievre lost badly in the April 2025 election in Ottawa-Carleton riding, and that loss tells much more about his and his party’s electability nationally than does his later by-election win in Battle River-Crowfoot, north of Medicine Hat. Conservative delegates later this month have two choices – one is, for them, unsettling, and the other is worse. The unsettling choice, which might turn out to be good for the party, is to remove Mr. Poilievre as leader, hold a convention and elect a new leader. This would minimize the likelihood of more defections to the Liberals. It would give the Conservative Party a potential chance to govern in the next election. Short term pain for long term gain? The worse choice is to affirm Mr. Poilievre as leader. The majority of Canadians view his approach to politics as acidic, aggressive and antagonistic – rubbing too many people the wrong way. They can not visualize him as a prime minister. There are Conservative MPs who hold the same view and they are waiting until after the leadership review. If Mr. Poilievre stays as leader, those Conservative MPs may defect to the Liberals, giving the governing party a majority, and their former party will be stuck with an unelectable leader for three years. Which will be the choice? Will it be longer-term potential opportunity, or, short-term loyalty to a regionally popular captain with whom they will go down with the ship? My money is on the latter. Yours truly, Gregory R. Côté Irvine 12-11
Great comments Gregory. The true conservatives in my world are still voicing their displeasure with the fools in rural Alberta who re-elected him and showed the conservatives in Ottawa no respect for kicking him out.
Seniors in Edmonton who have relatives in Ottawa talk about the nightmare their relatives were put through with no respect shown to them by Poilievre while our police officer friends praise Trudeau for how he handled it Poilievre bad mouthed Trudeau for not allowing it to continue that’s how stupid he is.
While Poilievre was singing the praises of these criminal convoy truckers and buying them coffee and donuts he didn’t care about their young children being terrified by the horns blowing all night long and parents being forced to go to work without any sleep. But what disturbed them the most was his lack of concern for $7 million debt they created for the people of Ottawa to deal with and the $6 billion economic disaster they created for Canadians. He proved that there was nothing Conservative about him and he deserved to be kicked out, didn’t he?
Mark Carney has proven to us Conservatives that he a lot like our conservative hero Peter Lougheed he cares about the wellbeing of all Canadians. While the one solution to any problem is
The only solution to any problem these Reformers face is blame it on someone else, like Poilievre did with Trudeau and now Smith is blaming the water main break on Nenshi that’s how stupid she is.