For the third time in just under a year, Pierre Poilievre's political fate will be in the hands of voters this Friday — though this time, it's a small group of partisan supporters who appear likely to give him another shot.
After Canadians handed the Conservatives a surprising loss in the April election — one that included a shocking upset in Carleton, where Poilievre lost the seat in Parliament he had held for 21 years — voters in rural Alberta gave the Tory leader a decisive win in a byelection that led to his return to the House of Commons last fall.
Now, Conservative party members will decide whether their leader should remain at the helm.
The last time a mandatory leadership review was held was in 2005, when Stephen Harper earned the support of 84 per cent of delegates despite being unable to topple the Liberals in the 2004 election. He went on to lead the country from 2006 to 2015.
There's little doubt that Poilievre will win the review. Only those delegates who attend the convention in person can vote, and Poilievre's team has been working to identify them and gauge their support for months.
Ontario MP Jamil Jivani said a lot of Conservatives are firmly behind Poilievre because he represents a more modern conservatism, one that includes younger voters who are more likely to be working-class or new Canadians.
"I think there's like an attachment to what he represents, and people want him to succeed so that vision of the party continues to grow. I also think that people regard him as a principled representative of the conservative movement," he said.
David Coletto, the founder and CEO of Abacus Data, has released a number of polls in recent weeks exploring who those Conservative voters are — and the gap between them and the rest of the country.
He said he set out to answer a fundamental question: How is it that Poilievre will easily win this leadership review "while at the same time, most people that you talk to don't understand how anyone could like him?"
Coletto's polling suggests many Conservative voters want the party to become even more conservative, while about a third of the group he defined as "accessible voters" — people who might vote Conservative in the future — would like it to moderate.
That presents a thorny challenge for the Tory leader.
"Is it possible to at once appeal to those that you need to outside the party, while at the same time keeping the party motivated?" Coletto said.
Laura Stephenson, a Western University political science professor and the co-director of the consortium on electoral democracy, said Poilievre's speech to delegates on Friday evening before the vote will set the tone.
"What can we take from that, in terms of his plans for how he expects to be as an Opposition leader and what he sees as the right way for the Conservative party to present a viable alternative to the governing Liberals," she said.
"I think it's also going to be really important to get an idea of who he thinks his most relevant constituencies are."
Ian Brodie, Harper's former chief of staff, said the coalition of voters that came out for Poilievre's Conservatives in April still seems to be largely intact.
"He really needs to only add another few points of support to switch places with Mr. Carney," said Brodie, who is also a political science professor at the University of Calgary.
Brodie said the weekend event offers the kind of national spotlight the Conservatives haven't seen in recent months.
After the election, Poilievre's team stopped holding the big, raucous political rallies that had been a feature of his leadership since he took over in 2022.
The focus over the summer was firmly on getting Poilievre back into Parliament. Since then, the Opposition Leader's Office has had an eye on the convention and winning the review.
The convention is also a chance for delegates and grassroots members to suggest policy changes. Dozens of proposals will be discussed behind closed doors in breakout sessions, and some of those will eventually make their way to the convention floor.
Brodie said the system is designed to ensure the public discussions are about policies that have broad support within the party.
Poilievre isn't bound by anything proposed at the convention. The leader largely sets the tone from the top.
Critics have said Poilievre failed to adjust his tone in the wake of the election loss, and failed to offer up a different style of opposition to Prime Minister Mark Carney's more centrist Liberal government.
"What you need is to be able to transition into that more tempered persona, and that I don't think Poilievre has done effectively," Stephenson said.
Former Conservative MP and cabinet minister Jason Kenney said adjusting is exactly what Harper did so well after the 2004 loss. Has Poilievre done the same?
"Time will tell," he said. "It's a much more complicated environment for him."
The Conservatives were able to define the key issues in federal politics in recent years — housing and affordability.
"But now that you've got Donald Trump, this sort of 800-pound gorilla throwing furniture around every day. I think it makes the job of an Opposition leader a lot harder," Kenney said.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
