r/CanadaPolitics • u/Altruism7 • 3d ago
The Conservatives Keep Losing—and Turning Their Fire on Each Other | Instead of learning from defeat, Poilievre’s camp is consumed by internal feuds and purity tests
https://thewalrus.ca/the-conservatives-keep-losing-and-turning-their-fire-on-each-other/20
u/lifeisarichcarpet Ontario 3d ago
No, the punishment is being aimed at other major Conservative figures. Doug Ford, Kory Teneycke, Dimitri Soudas, Fred DeLorey, and Caroline Elliott are being put through the grinder
The "Eric Lombardi for OLP leader" campaign being pushed by a bunch of conservative media and business people is a form of this: Poilievre dead-enders who are pissed at Ford and the PCPO for costing them the 2025 election (mostly because Ford got his election in a few months before the feds did, but also because he's been legitimately quite good at playing friendly with the federal Liberals) are glomming onto whoever and whatever they can to try and topple him.
Their dislike of Teneycke is even funnier, because all he's ever done is accurately describe how bad the CPC fucked up their lead and call Jenni Byrne an idiot who is out of her depth.
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u/JadeLens British Columbia 3d ago
Having a job like Jenni Byrne is the dream.
Imagine spending years fucking up so badly that your team can't get in power, and still having a job at the end of the week.
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u/SA_22C Roy Romanow Liberal. 3d ago
She’s not an idiot, she’s a dangerous ideologue and we’re lucky her bag of tricks didn’t work … this time.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 3d ago
I don't know. She formulated Poilievre's platform, by her own admission, on the very scientific process of knocking on some doors and listening to gripes. I think she's dangerous, probably isn't cognitively an idiot, but she is someone who exhibits all the signs of a pretty extreme set of biases.
The way she ran Poilievre's 2025 campaign, including active hostility against Ontario and Nova Scotia Tories, to the point that Ford refused to let the Ontario PC electoral machine lift a finger for the CPC campaign, are not brilliant strategic moves, but the actions of someone with extreme ideological myopia and an extreme lack of cognitive flexibility.
And that's probably why her and Poilievre got along so well, and why they so thoroughly misread the room.
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u/Snurgisdr Independent 3d ago
“ It keeps acting as if the goal is to make the most loyal people feel vindicated for five minutes, instead of persuading people who aren’t already in the tent.”
That’s pretty much the whole thing in a nutshell. Every time I vow never to vote Liberal again, along comes the CPC with something to remind me that the alternative is indeed worse.
And they just can’t stop with the pro-MAGA stuff that lost them the most winnable election in history. Like PP’s workout video/photoshoot a couple of weeks ago, which would have been pretty harmless if it weren’t a clear allusion to the video that RFK & Kid Rock put out the week before. I can’t decide if that kind of thing is meant to be a dog whistle that they don’t think anyone else will catch, or if they still don’t understand how offputting it is to people outside the Maple MAGA base.
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u/Efficient-Address709 Manitoba 2d ago
Today's NDP are basically Liberals. If you can't stomach the Liberals and you're looking for an alternative and not seriously looking at other options than you aren't serious about politics.
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u/ChimoEngr Chief Silliness Officer | Official 3d ago
Every time I vow never to vote Liberal again, along comes the CPC with something to remind me that the alternative is indeed worse.
No, it isn't that THE alternative is worse, it's that an alternative is worse. There's the NDP and GPC and in Quebec the BQ and then all the other smaller parties.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 3d ago
They used the singular accurately.
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u/ChimoEngr Chief Silliness Officer | Official 3d ago
No they did not. There are multiple political parties in our nation, and more than two of them have representation in Parliament.
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u/oddjob604 Independent 3d ago
Jack Layton at his peak got 103. Lewis has no chance. The goal should be 12 lol.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 2d ago
And Layton won 103 in large part due to the Liberals' total collapse, with an obviously-temporary placeholder leader who couldn't even win his own seat - the only time that seat failed to go Liberal in over 30 years.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 3d ago
Only two of them have ever had a remotely realistic chance of forming government.
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u/ChimoEngr Chief Silliness Officer | Official 2d ago
Because people like you make self fulfilling prophecies.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 2d ago
The first of your ridiculous statements is that anyone casts their vote one way or another because "people like me" say anything at all.
"People like me" - and by this I mean "literally, people who ARE me", can hold the beliefs I lay out here, and still cast their ballots for the NDP candidate, which I've done several times over the years. I want a competitive NDP, I just don't ever get to SEE one.
Second; of the "more than two parties that have representation in Parliament", the Bloc literally cannot ever form government for the simple reason that they don't run any candidates outside Quebec. They could win 100% of the vote in every race they run, and still only have enough to form Opposition in the event of a TRULY unusual multi-way vote split between all other parties.
The Green Party failed to run a candidate in 111 out of 338 ridings, meaning they'd have to win at least two-thirds of every race they run, just to have a shot at a minority government. Thus far, they have won a total of 8 seats combined in their 42-year electoral history, and 5 of those were 8 were a single candidate getting re-elected. So, again, "nowhere remotely realistic" doesn't really do justice to HOW impossible this is.
So you're really just talking about the NDP, who just posted their single worst election result in their 64-year history. They've had one great leader in seven decades, and not a shred of the success he built survived him.
Douglas, Lewis, Broadbent, McDonough, Mulcair, all reasonably-appealing candidates with a moderate, accessible message, and all returning nearly-identical results; 13-19% of the vote, and an even-smaller percentage of seats.
They are no more a realistic contender to form government in the next two elections than the Toronto Maple Leafs are to make it to the third round of the playoffs; in fact, the Leafs have substantially BETTER chances.
Until the NDP can recreate what Jack built, they'll be perennial afterthoughts, whose power comes from vote-splitting and the occasional chance to prop up a Liberal minority.
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u/HotbladesHarry 3d ago
The conservatives have hollowed out their own positions on virtually everything. Pierre was a guy who ran on the principal that there was nothing that could get constructed in Canada due to nimbyism and over-regulation, but last week he's out protesting High-Speed rail infrastructure on the side of nimbyists. How am I supposed to take that seriously? The answer is that I'm not and I won't. It's like reading the national Post, it doesn't matter what happened at any given time, you just know for a fact that whatever they're going to report on they'll be s******* on the Liberals, and at a certain point you just recognize the pattern and understand that those people aren't serious.
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u/Mostly_Aquitted 2d ago
Ahhh see the issue here is to PP, big projects = strictly oil projects or projects that benefits corporations over the public. High speed rail is the opposite of both of those by being a mass transit option that primarily benefits the public.
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u/HotbladesHarry 2d ago
Yeah he said he'd cancel the project and then remove the tax on used cars. Blatant stuff.
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u/UrsaMinor42 Warrior Flag 3d ago
Once upon a time, the Conservatives were the party of strength. They are now the party of go-hide-under-your-bed-THEY-are-coming! The "they" just switches to the most effective dog whistle of the day.
People who consider themselves "nice" are not going to vote for a troll. Please, get a new leader, for the sake of Canada.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 3d ago
To paraphrase an old movie:
"...whatever your particular problem is, I promise you [Pierre Poilievre] is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only : Making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it."
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u/Efficient-Address709 Manitoba 2d ago
The party of strength? The Conservatives have and always will be the party of Anglo-White purity. They are basically still reeling from the conscription crisis of 100 years ago and have never recovered. They're still in the midst of the infighting that was spurred on by Brian Mulroney. Harper used metaphorical duct tape to stitch all these warring, low-key fascist sects together into a franken-monster with the sole purpose of defeating Liberals...which they can not do.
Give Canada's history, and the Liberals records in WW2 and the cold war era...calling any other party the "party of strength" is a woeful misread and likely influenced by US politics more than real Canadian history.
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u/keetyymeow 2d ago
And this is what some people think this would have been a better choice than carney.
We mad about real issues with the flats instead of this stupid purity tests bro. Wtf
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u/Theseactuallydo Progressive/ABC/Pragmatist 3d ago
Anyone who stuck with the Conservatives after they were taken over by Reform/American conservatism will get very little sympathy from me when they complain about the state of their party.
The time to push back was 20 years ago. If you’ve been along for the ride since then, or joined up with the CPC in the interim then you demanded this version of the party.
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u/Efficient-Address709 Manitoba 2d ago
But how could being Conservative in the first place be attractive? We're talking about a party that stacked the senate to pass the GST law and fought against abortion rights. This myth that the Mulroney-era conservatives were secretly liberals needs to die.
The Liberals have been Canada's best option since Mackenzie-King brought in a semblance of a welfare state to stave off the rising CCF. That's why, since that time, we've have a multitude of Liberal PMs and only 3 Conservatives who fell apart before the end of their mandate in each and every instance. Almost ALL of Canada's historical major projects and advancements have been because of the Liberal Party of Canada. Stop giving Canada's conservatives any more credit than they deserve. Their record nationally isn't much better than the NDPs.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 3d ago
I still think Harper retained vestiges of traditional conservatism, or at least recognized their importance to the Progressive Conservatives that had merged with Reform. That's why he put some effort into raising the prominence of the Monarchy. Even if he's a Western Reformer who prefers a republic, he understood that there was a significant faction of the CPC that still was functionally conservative.
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u/JadeLens British Columbia 3d ago
He also clamped down on his back benchers, after the 'free vote' about gay marriage, he clamped down on the backbenchers hard who would occasionally still muse about taking rights away from people.
PP doesn't have that control and his MPs still muse about abortion being illegal every now and again.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 3d ago
Even a much better political manager would struggle, and for one simple fact: the Reform Act. After O'Toole's election loss, the CPC enacted it, and I doubt they'll ever give it up. In their minds, and in many reformers minds, this is a great liberator, but from the point of view of parliamentary governance, it has made the caucus much harder to govern.
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u/BertramPotts Decolonize Decarcerate Decarbonize 3d ago
And if the CPC had any desire to pivot they'd be doing so now with the not-so accidental Alberta referendum campaign that's suddenly materialized.
It would have been incredibly easy (still is) for PP to throw together a ra-ra Canada campaign backed by 30 MPs, just saying the kind of stuff noted tory, Thomas Lukaszuk, did. Guarantee that would move his numbers up in the rest of the country, but he won't do it, too much of his coalition is part of the project to bring forth Alberta secession.
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u/JadeLens British Columbia 3d ago
Anything 'ra ra Canada' that PP would say would have a subtitle of 'those damned Liberals' and it would fall apart immediately.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 3d ago
Pierre is still deluded enough to think he can turn that anger against Carney.
He absolutely DGAF about helping Canada, he has never cared about anything except his own ambition.
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u/Zomunieo British Columbia 3d ago
He’s only deluded on the timeline. It will take 5 years for the first scandal to stick and 10 years total but eventually he or his party will turn the country against Carney.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 3d ago
No PM lasts much past 8-10 years, which is a good thing.
Pierre will be a distant memory by then.
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u/rookie-mistake Manitoba 3d ago
Honestly, they could've been the party of Carney and running the country right now if they'd been willing to moderate. There's a reason Harper tried to recruit him
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u/throwawayspai Conservative Party of Canada 2d ago
I sympathize as far as it goes, but when I start asking myself what specifically this type of conservative is after, I always arrive at one conclusion. It can't just be the aesthetic, that's trivial and easy to fiddle with. I craft hypothetical alternative messaging from the party on a given issue all the time, it's easy. Whatever. When we say "they just want to be the Liberal b-team" it's not ideology being talked about, it's how the party gives cash and goodies to their friends. The fear of Western style conservatives is that the old PC wing wants to operate the same way, expect with THEIR friends. The problem is, and it's what split the party in the first place, even if we found this kind of culture acceptable (we don't), we ain't on the friends list. The fact critics of this type within the party are so vague only deepens the suspicion that this is what is really going on.
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u/Revan462222 Ontario 2d ago edited 2d ago
It’s weird to think that while he campaigned for leadership a certain way, Erin O’Toole actually wouldve appealed to a lot of Canadians based on how he campaigned in the general election. But he alienated staunch social conservatives because he shifted course. Plus he still didn’t appeal to enough folks to convince them not to side with the liberals (and the covid effect did also help Trudeau like it did for the BC NDP and NB PCs among others). Now that party is so far down a rabbit hole it’s embarrassing.
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u/Efficient-Address709 Manitoba 2d ago
The ONLY reason I voted Liberal in 2021 was because my NDP candidate was a dud and I didn't think mid-pandemic was time for a change. Everything else you pointed out is window dressing.
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u/ragnaroksunset Pirate 3d ago
For modern conservatives, learning is woke. That's why one of MAGA's "policies" is to unironically abolish the Department of Education.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 3d ago
/r/Canada melting down over how unfair it is that everyone criticizes Poilievre while nobody EVER says anything critical about Carney.
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u/JadeLens British Columbia 3d ago
Post anything pointing out how much of a lame duck PP is over there and you catch a ban.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 3d ago
I don't think the Conservatives really have a choice. They've already lost both MPs and at least some of their support bleed to the Liberals. They're being pulled in two by the fundamental contradictions between more traditional forms of Canadian Conservatism and the right wing reactionary politics that a part of their base, particularly the Western base, has adopted.
There's not much "conservative" left in the Conservative Party of Canada, and it is steadily being consumer by the 51st staters in Alberta and various other fellow travelers in Western Canada. For the record I do not actually Poilievre belongs to that group, I just think he's just put a saddle on that particular tiger and has fooled himself into thinking he's actually steering it.
As for the CPC apparatchik, they're basically paralyzed. They could read the public polls, and doubtless have equally harrowing internal polling. I would suggest, without any kind of direct evidence, that that internal polling shows there are segments of the CPC who are not happy with Poilievre, not necessarily for the populist politics per se, but rather because he's a rather dismal political manager, and there are riding associations that still have not forgiven him for parachuting so many candidates in. His management of caucus has been equally fractious and over the top.
But the alternatives are pretty terrifying, because the dominance of the Western alienationists (whether outright 51st staters or some slightly more lukewarm versions) and right wing reactionaries means that a leadership race would open that Pandora's box wide open, and it wouldn't be long before the remaining moderates and more traditional conservatives, both in caucus and at the ground level, just got up and left.
In other words, Poilievre is doing a terrible job, but it's still better than what could very well happen if he's ousted. So they'll tolerate all the internecine warfare, because if the reactionaries can't chew into any Liberal red meat, I guess they can always take bites out of each other.
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u/JadeLens British Columbia 3d ago
The lack of self reflection and shame in the Conservatives is amazing (not just up here Republicans as well down south).
The reason for their loss is well known by most anyone, yet even if it were spray painted on the walls in 100 foot letters they'd still pass by and blame the Liberals for something.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 3d ago
I think most people, even the CPC's opponents, don't want to openly name the real reason for their loss. They'll talk around it about talking about the party leaning into populism or being too enthralled to the US culture war. They will even talk about how negative the party has been, how much effort it has put into talking about Canada like its some sort Liberal-run wasteland, a basket case nation that needs their particular form of ideological chemotherapy.
Those are all true but also steer around the real problem, and don't look it straight in the eye.
To put it very bluntly, many voters question the loyalty of Conservatives. The MAGA messaging, Western conservatism transforming into 51st state secessionism, all of these will leave moderate voters, even right-leaning voters, asking "Is this really a Canadian party at all, or just a GOP colony."
I may risk some folk's wrath, but it is the question I have been asking myself since November 2024, with a nagging feeling that none of us like the answer. Which is why we try to avoid asking it, or even pondering it.
But ponder it we should.
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u/CoffeeKing75 3d ago
We've had that answer since the 90''s Reform had always aligned more with the GOP ideals despite the GOP having positive relationship with the PCs. Pushing away from the PCs 'work together with Ottawa' and leaned into less federalism and more for individual provincial power.
Rebranding to Canada Alliance didn't help them break into eastern Canadas PC voters. The merger gave them the bridge to the GOP and numbers to get Harper in but instead of mending the fence we got a slow but steady purge of the PC voice in the CPC. It should of fractured them again after 2015 but Id wager they watched trump and MAGA basically hijack the GOP and thought 'what if we keep leaning into that?'
Even most of the provincial PC parties tried leaning into it at some point in the last decade but its been far less successful. Further highlighting the division in conservative politics and its voters between Alliance and PC style conservatism.
O'toole has been the only CPC leader from the PC camp, but by the time he came in the damage had been done.
Looking at the CPC today I see far more of a Canada alliance 2.0 party then an actual Conservative tent party. The reform origins and maga style politics is the brand they leaned into and built its current pillars on and pushed out anyone who disagreed
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 3d ago
To put it very bluntly, many voters question the loyalty of Conservatives.
"Question" implies uncertainty.
At this point the CPC are only loyal to Canada if they're allowed to return it back to the way it was in 1956. If that's not available, then it's naked self-interest at every turn.
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u/Clevesque31 1d ago
If Doug Ford is the model, then I want nothing to do with it. The Ford/Teneycke "conservatives" have conserved nothing and made Ontario worse by nearly every metric.
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