Pierre Poilievre told the conservative party of canada at an Ottawa conference on Thursday that he will not change who he is or who he is fighting for after Mark Carney won a majority government. He used the annual Canada Strong and Free Network gathering to cast himself as the same leader despite the election loss, his seat loss and the departure of four MPs to the Liberals.
Ottawa Conference Speech
Poilievre told the audience he was not changing course. He said, "And some people have accused me of being a fighter, but that’s because some things are actually worth fighting for."
He also told the conference, "But that would mean leaving behind the record smashing 8.3 million Canadians who voted for us. They voted for us to fight for them." The number gives a clear measure of the support he is trying to hold together after the election.
Carney And The Liberal Shift
Poilievre also used the speech to attack Carney’s political approach. He said, "The illusion was that Mark Carney was not as woke as Justin Trudeau, and certainly, he is not quite as nauseating." He added, "The illusion was that he would be more moderate, maybe even a little bit conservative, but the reality is that he’s not changed the Trudeau agenda."
He accused what he called a club of Liberal elites in Ottawa of building a system that rewards their friends and businesses at the expense of everyday people. He told Conservatives not to join that club, accept the status quo or blend in.
Conservative Party Pressure
The speech came after Poilievre won a historic number of votes in the last election but lost to Carney’s Liberals and lost his own seat. He later ran in a by-election in an Alberta riding. The Conservatives are also far behind the governing Liberals in the polls.
Carney’s gains have already reshaped Poilievre’s party. Poilievre lost four MPs to the Liberals, and those defections helped Carney form a majority government. Some conservatives are privately worried that another split could be on the horizon as Carney continues to win voters and MPs away from Poilievre’s party.
The Canada Strong and Free Network was started in 2005 as a training ground for the next generation of conservative activists, after the federal conservative movement split into warring factions in the late 1980s and 1990s. The federal party was reinvented as the modern-day Conservative Party in 2003, and Poilievre’s speech landed in front of a group built to avoid that kind of rupture.
