Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, right, walks with MP Jamil Jivani in the House of Commons in April, 2024.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
When one of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative MPs, Jamil Jivani, travelled to Washington to meet with Trump administration officials, he chose to chastise Canadians for having an anti-American “hissy fit” in an interview with MAGA site Breitbart News.
It’s hard to imagine a more harmful piece of public relations for the Conservatives.
And it is a golden opportunity for Mr. Poilievre.
On Thursday, the Conservative Leader will deliver a speech on Canada-U.S. relations at the Economic Club of Canada, and he has an opening for a judo move: pushing away Mr. Jivani and cleaving close to Prime Minister Mark Carney.
If that sounds like something that doesn’t fit Mr. Poilievre’s political persona, that’s because it is.
But it would allow Mr. Poilievre to address his biggest political problems.
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The first of those problems is that he hasn’t managed to speak about U.S. President Donald Trump, his trade war, or his bullying in a way that fits the mood of most Canadians.
That lost him last year’s general election and it is one of the major reasons why Mr. Poilievre’s personal poll ratings are miles behind Mr. Carney’s.
The second and more immediate problem is that Mr. Carney’s edge might tempt him to trigger a general election this year – and Mr. Poilievre is desperate for more time.
Mr. Jivani has handed Mr. Poilievre a tool to deal with the first problem. He has already distanced himself by saying that Mr. Jivani does not speak for the party. Now, he can draw attention to that with a longer, flag-waving public lecture.
Whatever else Mr. Jivani did on his trip to Washington – where the MP said he had conversations both with Mr. Trump and his old friend and college roommate, Vice-President JD Vance – he certainly amplified the Conservatives’ biggest political weakness.
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Mr. Poilievre has sought to shake the perception of some that his party sympathizes with Mr. Trump. Mr. Jivani’s Breitbart interview made it sound like Conservatives think Canadian anger with Mr. Trump is Canadians’ fault.
It would be easy now for Mr. Poilievre to deliver a speech that takes Mr. Trump to task – by name – which would among other things prick up the ears of the 50-and-older voters that have left his party. It could garner a lot more attention by delivering it as a pointed contrast to Mr. Jivani.
That would also help Mr. Poilievre do what he needs to do to blunt the threat of an early election: declare himself to be on Team Canada for the coming review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.
The review is a big, nervous moment for Canada’s economy, and it will almost certainly come with a whole new series of jibes from Mr. Trump and threats to cancel the deal. That might become the pretext for Mr. Carney to seek a new mandate in an election.
Mr. Poilievre could make that harder by offering unity through the CUSMA negotiations, perhaps even suggesting both parties work quietly on a cross-party trade council. Mr. Poilievre has declared himself to be on Team Canada before, but now is his chance to make an impression.
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That kind of rhetoric would probably be more popular with the public at large – the hissy-fit crowd – than the Conservative base. Or Mr. Poilievre.
The past 16 months have shown that dealing with U.S. trade threats, or finding words to express nationalist anger, just aren’t in Mr. Poilievre’s comfort zone. He likes to talk about cutting taxes, small government, and Liberal mistakes.
But turning his speech on Canada-U.S. relations into a Team Canada moment wouldn’t require much actual change.
Mr. Poilievre has already adopted a lot of the same language as Mr. Carney about the chaos Mr. Trump has brought to trade and bilateral relations – that Canadians can’t control what happens in the U.S., so they have to focus on what they can control.
That leaves plenty of latitude for Mr. Poilievre’s Conservatives to criticize Mr. Carney’s government on domestic economic results, and on just about everything except the cut and thrust of trade talks.
Of course, Mr. Poilievre might not put any of that in his speech Thursday. He could focus instead on criticizing the Prime Minister’s handling of trade talks with the U.S. That hasn’t worked for him so far. Or he could stick with the same old speech.
But if he does those things, he’ll be passing up an opportunity.