Poilievre wins Conservative leadership

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This article was published 10/09/2022 (1261 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The votes are in: Pierre Poilievre is the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Poilievre won over four other candidates — Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, Roman Baber and Scott Aitchison — in the race to replace the ousted Erin O’Toole and interim party leader Candice Bergen.

The Ottawa-area MP, first elected to Parliament in 2004, won on the first ballot of ranked-choice voting, taking in 68 per cent of the vote. The second-ranked candidate, Charest, received just 16 per cent of the vote.

After he was introduced to party members as their new leader by wife Anaida Galindo, Poilievre started off by paying tribute to the legacy of Queen Elizabeth II, who died Thursday at the age of 96.

He then outlined to party members his blueprint for his leadership and the CPC.

“Tonight begins the journey to replace an old government that costs you more and delivers you less with a government that puts you first,” Poilievre said. “Your paycheque, your retirement, your home, your country — by tackling Liberal inflation, we will put you back in control of your life and your money.”

Inflation was the most common theme of his victory speech, talking about people who are buying less food due to rising prices, young people who can’t afford a house and homeowners struggling with soaring interest rates.

Reflective of his campaign stop in Brandon earlier this summer, Poilievre said he would sell unused federal building to turn into low-income housing, end the importation of oil from other countries, build more products in Canada and step up the extraction of natural resources.

His victory, Poilievre said, belongs to the members of the party and the volunteers who helped his campaign.

He thanked each fellow candidate for their efforts, specifically praising Roman Baber for his sacrifices. Baber was kicked out of the provincial Progressive Conservative caucus in Ontario for objecting to COVID-19 mandates and rules.

Poilievre later promised to axe the much-criticized ArriveCAN app and to end all remaining federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates. This earned chants of “freedom” from the audience.

Despite the acrimony between Poilievre and Charest, the new leader thanked Charest for his service to the country and for his efforts in leading the federalist side to victory in the last Quebec independence referendum.

One week after 12 people died, two of them suspects, and 18 more were injured in a string of stabbings in Saskatchewan, Poilievre said that Canadians are being harmed by criminals who are too easily released from prison.

The new leader has been a persistent adversary of the Trudeau government, taking aim at its fiscal policy as shadow minister of finance as well as jobs and industry.

He was also minister of state for democratic reform and minister of employment under the Harper government.

Both frontrunners, Charest and Poilievre, as well as Baber, visited Brandon during the seven-month campaign.

Dauphin–Swan River–Neepawa MP Dan Mazier had endorsed Poilievre, while his colleague Brandon–Souris MP Larry Maguire had endorsed Charest. Both men previously approved of O’Toole in the race to replace Andrew Scheer.

By phone from Ottawa, Maguire called it an “exciting” moment and praised his new leader for delivering an excellent victory speech.

“Pierre set the stage for the youth of the country to get back out of the malaise that we’re basically in from inflation and to be able to understand the common needs of individuals,” Maguire said.

“I think it was a very clear decision by our party at 68-plus per cent … the other candidates put up a good fight with good platforms, Mr. Charest particularly. I was glad to see he stayed in the race and finished with his head high.”

Maguire praised Bergen for her time as interim leader and said her remark about the party moving forward united but not uniform is good advice.

Mazier echoed some of those positive sentiments.

“[Poilievre] got in front of Canadians and he got that trust established based on what needs to be done,” Mazier said after the announcement. “That’s why he had such overwhelming support. His victory speech, he hit it bang-on talking about finances.”

Poilievre is giving Canadians someone to put their faith in, he said, and hopes Poilievre will ascend to becoming prime minister within a few years.

Like Maguire, Mazier said he believes the party will be united following the contest. His endorsed candidate’s large margin of victory, he said, will help.

According to Mazier, 72 per cent of votes cast from his own riding were for Poilievre.

Charest, a former federal Progressive Conservative leader and Liberal premier of Quebec, positioned himself as a more moderate candidate with a proven track record.

Poilievre attacked his main rival for not being a true conservative, and positioned himself as a populist who could deliver affordability to regular Canadians by bypassing what he framed as gatekeeping elites in the Liberal government.

“They don’t need a government who looks down on them and sneers on them and calls them names,” Poilievre said of the Liberals in his victory speech. “They don’t need a government to run their lives, they need a government to run a passport office.”

The evening’s events in Ottawa began with a moment of silence in honour of the Queen followed by an instrumental rendition of “God Save The King” in honour of Canada’s new monarch, King Charles III.

Leonard Odjick, a member of the Algonquin Nation, was invited to the stage for what he said was the first time the Conservative Party of Canada held an Indigenous prayer before one of its leadership events.

Afterward, Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq delivered an address in honour of the Queen partly in Inuktitut, which included a pledge for the party to remain loyal to the Crown.

After a campaign that saw plenty of shots exchanged between candidates, hosts Deborah Grey — a former Reform and Alliance MP — and leadership organizing committee member Valérie Assouline assured audience members that once the night was over, everyone would be on the same team.

“I said we have only one opponent and that’s the unholy alliance of Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh,” Grey said, which prompted a wave of boos to emerge from the crowd.

With the Tories having cycled through Scheer, Rona Ambrose, O’Toole and Bergen since Stephen Harper’s government was defeated in 2015, Grey also expressed hope that this would be the last leadership race for a long time.

Despite the acrimonious departure of former party leader O’Toole, ousted by his own caucus just months after last year’s federal election, a tribute was delivered for his efforts in the role by two MPs elected while he was in charge.

A subsequent video of O’Toole delivering a speech earned a standing ovation.

Manitoba Sen. Don Plett, the leader of the Opposition in the Senate, thanked Portage–Lisgar MP Bergen for her efforts as interim party leader in the months since O’Toole’s departure.

“Do not descend into the cauldron of division and identity politics within our own party,” Bergen told party members. “Do the opposite. Live, talk and walk unity, even when you disagree with each other — especially when you disagree with each other.”

After the results were announced, Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson congratulated Poilievre in a post on Twitter.

On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, MPs Dominic LeBlanc and Rachael Bendayan congratulated Poilievre in a written statement and expressed hope he would work with their party to improve the lives of Canadians.

“At the same time, we will stand up and speak out against the reckless policies that Mr. Poilievre has been pushing since the start of his leadership campaign, and during his nearly 20-years as a Conservative insider,” they wrote.

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