Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, alongside his wife Anaida and children, Cruz and Valentina, waves to the crowd following the keynote address at the national Conservative Party convention on Friday in Calgary.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
The phrase that was repeated like a mantra on the opening night of the Conservative convention was that Pierre Poilievre carried a “message of hope.” MPs and party officials who spoke Thursday night used the word “hope” 16 times in an hour.
So Pierre Poilievre 2.0 is to be about hope. The Conservative Leader spoke with a smile through most of his 45 minutes at the podium Friday night. He spoke not just about the problem Canadians have making ends meet but about bringing them hope. He sought to inspire with the story of a recovered addict and spoke emotionally of the moment when he first heard his autistic daughter speak.
This was to be a new side to Mr. Poilievre. There were signs that said “Choose Hope.” He walked out to the strains of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. But it was a new thing grafted on to the original host. Much of the content of his speech rested on the greatest hits from his 2025 campaign speeches.
Poilievre wins 87.4% in leadership vote, cements hold over Conservative Party
It was perhaps a choice not to mess with too much. He spoke to Conservative delegates about to vote on his leadership, so maybe it was best to give them a taste of the greatest hits. Winning them was job one.
In the end, it was a job accomplished: Mr. Poilievre won his leadership review with a resounding 87.4 per cent of the vote.
Poilievre delivers the keynote address at the convention on Friday.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
That beat the 84 per cent that Stephen Harper won after he lost the 2004 election, and he went on to be prime minister for nearly a decade. That’s a solid win in this forum. There was no doubt.
So the Conservative Party have a reconfirmed leader in Mr. Poilievre – now with more hope.
He’s not home free. There are still rumours that more MPs could cross the floor to the Liberals. After losing an election, an opposition leader is rarely invulnerable. At this convention delegates were neither dejected nor full of confidence. But several noted the mood is miles away from the exuberant 2023 convention in Quebec City when Conservatives were sure they were headed for victory, and power.
Yet Mr. Poilievre had to get through this vote. And he did. Now he can move on. The project is apparently building a more hopeful Pierre. But this convention wasn’t a full reboot.
The leader’s speech outlined familiar policies in familiar ways, with familiar criticisms of the Liberals for taxing too much, obstructing development and overregulating everything but crime.
His fresher lines accused Prime Minister Mark Carney of promising to change things, to approve projects and build homes at crisis speeds, but failing to follow through or make the lives of ordinary folks better.
“Have things really changed in your life? Does it cost less?” Mr. Poilievre asked.
There was a section on ensuring the country doesn’t need to depend on others, in building the military, notably in the Arctic, on buying military equipment including “an arsenal of drones.” He talked about fighting unfair U.S. tariffs.
But he didn’t take on U.S. President Donald Trump by name. There was no sweeping big-picture diagnosis for Canada in a changing world.
There was also no acknowledgment of past mistakes – which one might expect after an election loss. Instead there was an effort to talk about hope and optimism for the future.
Mr. Poilievre has often been seen as an angry partisan leader and there was a studied effort to adjust away from the Canada-is-broken rhetoric, or add a note to it.
In his speech, when he blamed the Liberal government for a surge in separatism in Alberta and Quebec – saying it is because Ottawa has for 10 years told young people that the country has no core identity and they can never own homes – he adds a promise that Conservatives will build “a country that will afford you the hopeful future that you have earned.”
Poilievre won his leadership review with 87.4 per cent of the vote.Larry MacDougal/The Canadian Press
It is worth noting that for one part of the electorate, Mr. Poilievre has been a leader who promised hope. His polarizing persona has been different things to different people. His rally speeches and YouTube videos that promised to unseat the Liberals and make life affordable for ordinary people helped build a new voting base with young and thirty-something Canadians.
But Mr. Poilievre obviously also turned off people who saw him as disruptive rather than reassuring. Carney beat him in last year’s election. And Mr. Poilievre’s personal approval ratings have fallen since.
Conservative insiders insist the current image-change effort will be a tweak, not a personality transplant. But there’s still a question of whether he can change the perception.
Mr. Poilievre is undoubtedly a politician with personal discipline, one who worked hard over years to hone his political skills. But even among some of the delegates at the convention there are doubts that Mr. Poilievre can change. Or change minds.