Mark Carney needs something to show that Liberals don’t just care about mega-projects. No tax on food could be a good place to start.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 6, 2025.

OTTAWA—Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is good at retail politics. Other parties may decry his slogans and three-word mantras, but a note of caution needs to be sounded.

KISS is the basic mantra of any successful politician. It may sound a little condescending because in long form, it reads ‘keep it simple, stupid’. For marketing reasons, the last ‘s’ needs to be replaced because voters are definitely not stupid.

But a simple message is one that resonates. When Poilievre coined the phrase “Axe the Tax” in relation to carbon pricing, it mattered little that the fiscal instrument was supposed to be a price on pollution.

He marketed it as an unfair tax, and in the absence of any reply from the previous Liberal government, it was the first thing that Prime Minister Mark Carney did axe.

That move was politically necessary because in order for Carney’s “elbows up” message to be heard, he didn’t need an unpopular carbon pricing system to muddy the waters.

It went, and he won.

Poilievre was unable to pivot in the federal election, and with the help of United States President Donald Trump, Carney convinced Canadians that he was best positioned to offer a path forward by forging new international allegiances without the support of the U.S.

The prime minister is still reaching out internationally, with some success. In the meantime, the leader of the official opposition is sharpening his message on another matter: the cost of food.

Last week, Poilievre launched an attack on the government based on the increasing cost of groceries for Canadians.

A Conservative motion in the House of Commons tabled on Oct. 1 identified four factors involved in taxing food including deficits, the ban on single-use plastics, the carbon tax application to agriculture, and the federal clean-fuel standard.

It is fairly difficult to claim that dirtier fuel would reduce the price of food, and there were plenty of critics ready to attack the Conservative motion.

But the fact remains, any attack on the cost of groceries resonates with Canadians who are suffering the effects of increased prices for most food basics.

While some say the government has little influence on supply-chain issues or international instability affecting food prices, the bottom line is that Poilievre’s message resonates.

“Elbows up” has also resonated with Canadians, which is why the prime minister still has enough public support to withstand the Poilievre attacks at this point. But he shouldn’t assume it will always be this way.

When the November budget is tabled, the finance minister needs to include some deliverables for ordinary Canadians.

It is wonderful to work on interprovincial trade barriers and big projects. But at the end of the day, people vote based on their own personal interests. And if their pocketbooks are being strained by the cost of food, they will be asking whose elbows are up for them.

There is a solution for Carney to blunt this issue immediately.

While food purchased in grocery stores is not generally taxed, the reality is that the meals eaten by Canadians outside the home are all subject to tax.

Restaurants Canada CEO Kelly Higginson was in Ottawa last week lobbying finance officials to announce an end to the tax on all food in the Nov. 4 budget.

Their slogan is “Food is food. Stop taxing what we eat.” It is a simple message, and one that is very similar to that of the opposition leader.

Last year, the previous Liberal government offered a pre-Christmas tax holiday on a number of items, including restaurant eating.

Restaurants Canada is asking the government to make that exemption permanent. In a survey for the group, 84 per cent of Canadians said food should not be taxed, no matter where it is purchased.

A food tax exemption would also serve to buttress youth employment. The restaurant industry employs more than half a million young people, representing one in five jobs for that demographic. It is also the number one source of employment for young people.

The move to cut all food tax would be a big hit for the government. It currently collects $5.4-billion in taxes on non-grocery food. But Restaurants Canada says an end to the tax would result in the creation of 64,500 new service jobs, with 2,680 new restaurants opening and 15,686 spinoff jobs also being created.

Poilievre is getting traction with his focus on food prices. Carney needs something to show that Liberals don’t just care about mega-projects. No tax on food could be a good place to start.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Those of us who were ignorant of Charlie Kirk expected that his background would back up the posthumous honorifics. Instead, what we see is the story of a man who went out of his way to sow division based on race, gender, and religion.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 22, 2025.

OTTAWA—Until just recently, the only famous Kirk I knew was Captain Kirk from Star Trek, which first launched on the CTV network in Canada in 1966.

But on Sept. 10, the murder of American Charlie Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA, on the campus of Utah Valley University reverberated around the world.

The president of the United States ordered all government flags to be lowered in mourning, and announced the posthumous provision of the Presidential Medal of Freedom for the slain political activist.

Those of us who were ignorant of Kirk expected that his background would back up the honorifics.

Instead, what we see is the story of a man who went out of his way to sow division based on race, gender, and religion.

Media Matters for America, a not-for-profit that tracks conservative media statements, published the following direct quotes from Kirk’s appearances and podcasts.

He had this to say about Black people: “Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.”

On former First Lady Michelle Obama, he had this to say: “If we said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama … were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us. …You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.” Not sure how Obama stole a white person’s slot as her partner was elected by a majority vote, but it was this kind of racist vitriol that attracted attention to Kirk.

As for women, in a discussion of musician Taylor Swift’s engagement to footballer Travis Kelce, Kirk said: “reject feminism. Submit to your husband Taylor. You’re not in charge.”

Kirk also said that if he had a 10-year-old daughter who was raped, he would force her to carry the fetus to term: “Yes. The baby would be born.”

He also promoted access to guns, suggesting that “it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

On religion, Kirk said he believed “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.” He also did not support the separation of church and state, claiming the concept is “a fabrication, a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.”

As for his views on the LGBTQ+ communities, “We need to have a Nuremburg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.”

On immigration, he said he believed that “America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever.”

So why are so many people being excoriated—even fired—for criticizing Kirk after death? And why is Donald Trump trying to convince the country and the world that Kirk is a patriot, and that his assassin was a crazed liberal?

Why was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre upset that Prime Minister Mark Carney did not post a condolence message quickly enough after the murder?

All party leaders eventually posted messages, generally referencing Kirk’s family and the fact that differences in political perspective should not be met with violence.

Of course, that is self-evident, but in the case of Kirk, he deliberately provoked reactions by the nature of his absurd racist, homophobic, and misogynistic statements.

Kirk on the former president: “Joe Biden is a bumbling, dementia-filled, Alzheimer’s-corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America.”

There is never an excuse for politicians to solve problems with a weapon. That is one of the reasons why the majority of Americans want the government to promote gun control.

While innocent people—including children—are slaughtered almost every week in America by crazed individuals, Kirk spent his life lobbying against limiting that access.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Experienced MP and current Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia will have to use all his wiles to ensure the fall session does not descend into chaos.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 1, 2025.

The summer’s over, and the kids are going back to school.

The House of Commons will also soon return for the fall session.

The back-to-school period and the return to the House face some parallel challenges.

The first thing a teacher must do in the classroom is establish order and set themselves up for success by ensuring their students do not descend into chaos.

The Speaker of the House has the same challenge. Francis Scarpaleggia is a seasoned member of Parliament who has served his constituents in Lac–Saint–Louis, Que., for more than two decades. Prior to his first election in 2004, Scarpaleggia served for a decade as the assistant to Clifford Lincoln, the predecessor MP for the riding. Scarpaleggia also started volunteering for the federal Liberal Party more than 40 years ago. He knows his stuff.

But he is a newly-minted Speaker who needs to establish his authority in the chair very early.

The previous two House Speakers—both Liberals—were bounced for what could be considered rookie mistakes. Greg Fergus was censured when he appeared in his robes in a video that aired at the Ontario Liberal leadership convention in 2023, while Anthony Rota mistakenly invited a man who had fought alongside a Nazi unit to witness a speech to the House by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also in 2023.

Scarpaleggia’s experience will prevent him from making those types of mistakes, but he will face a larger challenge.

Normally, the House of Commons remains calm and cordial for the first couple of years of a new government.

Most members of Parliament are exhausted from campaigning and certainly don’t relish the thought of going to the polls again. Nor do the voters.

But in this instance, the return of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre means all bets are off.

There are also a couple of new developments, which will make the management of the House much more challenging.

Thoughts of the upcoming Quebec election will be in the air since it has to be held before Oct. 5, 2026. If the results of a recent byelection are any indication, there is a good chance the Parti Québécois might form government.

PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is promising to hold a referendum in his first term. Separatist icon Lucien Bouchard, also known for founding the Bloc Québécois, has publicly warned against that move.

In a Radio-Canada interview on Aug. 20, Bouchard said that if the referendum became a central element of the campaign, it would be a gift to the Quebec Liberals.

“From memory, there aren’t a lot of Quebec political formations from the Parti Québécois who have been re-elected with the promise of holding a referendum because it becomes an election issue. …The Liberals fuel themselves on that,” he said.

The separatist movement in Alberta will also cast a shadow on Parliament. Now that the opposition leader holds a seat in rural Alberta, he will have to carefully play this wedge issue to retain support from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and core members of their respective parties.

Poilievre has just come off his own personal re-election campaign and appears happy to continue the themes of his last unsuccessful election campaign.

According to Poilievre, Prime Minister Mark Carney is already worse than former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

The Conservative leader tends to keep his fangs sharpened in and out of the House, and his party will follow him in that regard. This makes Scarpaleggia’s job more difficult than it would normally be at the beginning of a new Parliament.

The House is also dealing with a prime minister who is relatively new to the rules of parliamentary process. Carney is obviously a quick learner, but sometimes in the heat of the moment, the notion of calm leadership goes out the window.

Carney has definitely developed a thick skin in serving as governor of the central banks of both Canada and the United Kingdom. In those roles, he was on the receiving end of many political barbs when MPs were unhappy with interest rates or monetary policy.

But in the House of Commons, one has little time to react to an insulting question.The instinct to attack in return has to be tempered by the public expectation that a prime minister should be calm and measured.

The same holds true for the Speaker. Scarpaleggia has a calm demeanor, but a raucous House will also demand a strong voice in the chair.

The Speaker will have to use all his wiles to ensure the fall session of the House does not descend into chaos.

Like the teacher managing a new classroom, the Speaker needs to have a good first week.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The Conservative leader is having trouble getting support, especially from women, partly because he is seen to be too much of an attack dog. If he is going to be successful, that approach must soften. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 21, 2025.

OTTAWA—Pierre Poilievre is riding the wrong horse.

The Conservative leader’s press conference last week attacking the prime minister for putting his holdings into a blind trust continued to personalize Poilievre’s political agenda.

He is now recommending that anyone who is elected to public office in Canada must sell off their holdings or they should not be allowed to remain in office.

Poilievre himself defended the notion of a blind trust when then-prime minister Stephen Harper hired Nigel Wright as his chief of staff.

Like Prime Minister Mark Carney, Wright had deep roots in the private sector. Other political notables like former prime minister Paul Martin faced a similar challenge while in office. Martin owned a major Canadian steamship company and, like Wright and Carney, placed his assets in a blind trust upon entering cabinet.

Poilievre knows full well that if divestiture were the only option for political office holders, many current and former politicians would never have sought the job.

He also knows that the screens being established for Carney’s trust, including oversight by the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, and screening by the clerk of the privy council and his own chief of staff, make it impossible for the prime minister to influence decisions that would personally benefit him. The fact that Carney’s holdings are in a blind trust also means that the trustee could divest all his holdings without Carney’s consultation or approval. Given the nature of these assets that likely is not going to happen, but the notion that one should sell off everything they own to get into politics is unsustainable, and Poilievre knows it.

What is even more strange about the attacks is how personal they appear to be. There is no love lost between the two men but, if only for public consumption, Poilievre needs to appear more friendly.

The Conservative leader is having trouble getting support, especially from women, partly because he is seen to be too much of an attack dog. If he is going to be successful then that approach must soften.

There is only one way to do that. Poilievre should go hard on issues, but he must be softer on people. The personal nature of his animus doesn’t sit very well with the general public.

Most Canadians don’t know—or care—that much about the rules governing ministerial and prime ministerial financial holdings. They do know about the price of eggs, housing, and the cost of the American tariff war.

Those are the issues that Poilievre should be focusing on if he intends to become a reasoned and reasonable alternative to the current prime minister.

With the Liberals in a minority situation, it is quite possible that another election could be called within the next two years. In that time frame, Carney must prove that his leadership capacity extends beyond the private sector.

A key element in that proof is how Canada emerges from the tariff war imposed by American President Donald Trump.

Carney ran an aggressive election campaign, promising “elbows up” in any fight with the Americans.

Canadians are doing their part in this fight. Land crossings to the United States are down by almost a third, and American tourism destinations are pulling out all the stops in an attempt to lure them back. Yankee produce is rotting on store shelves in this country

Some U.S. destinations are aggressively wooing Canucks with advertising, while others have even renamed streets in honour of Canada. Governors have gone on Canadian airwaves to apologize for the president, and to ask for absolution and tourism.

But Trump continues to publicly threaten our nation at every step of the negotiation.

Carney will have to be very careful not to drop his elbows. He cannot afford to look as though he is playing second fiddle in these talks.

Carney has to come up with a win. Chances are any agreement will be tempered by some sacrifices that could be problematic.

That is where Poilievre should be focussing his attention.

If Carney is going to have to water down Canadian supply management, there will be a huge political opening for the Conservative leader in Quebec. A cogent, sustained support for dairy farmers would be a good place to start.

By continuing personal attacks, Poilievre appears unchastened by his party’s electoral loss and his riding defeat.

In an interview last week, Poilievre blamed his loss in Carleton, Ont., on his decision to publicly promise a public service cut.

In the circumstances, a little humility would serve him better than personal attacks.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

It is one thing for the Liberals to have won the election. It is another thing to confront the onslaught of misinformation that is being fed to Albertans regularly by their own government.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 14, 2025.

The French have it right: Les absents ont toujours tort. The absent are always wrong.

If Prime Minister Mark Carney needs proof, just review the recent messaging coming out of the Calgary Stampede.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was given a hero’s welcome, with massive coverage of his pro-Alberta Stampede event speech.

In contrast, the prime minister was filmed flubbing a pancake flip. And that flub circulated through social media in case anyone missed the missed pancake toss. Apparently being able to flip a flapjack is a sine qua non for being an Alberta member of Parliament.

Carney can expect more of that one-sided coverage whenever he visits Alberta.

So, if his government intends to legitimately tackle Alberta’s alienation, it needs to be present and active in the province on a daily basis.

That means a resourced federal cabinet communications committee focused on telling the Canadian story to Alberta.

After Canada almost lost the last Quebec referendum in 1995, much was invested in figuring out what went wrong.

Surveys showed that almost 70 per cent of francophone Quebecers who knew an anglophone voted to stay in Canada. The conclusion is that the most alienated are often also the most isolated.

In Alberta, support for separation is higher in rural than in urban areas. Obviously, many farmers and ranchers have little idea of the benefits of belonging to Canada.

Again, that disillusionment is definitely present in other rural areas across the country. But the national government, secure in its power structure and identity, has never spent political or financial capital in selling the benefits of Canada to anyone with the exception of doing so after the near-death Quebec experience.

That job is left to the politicians. They fly in, host a press conference, drop a cheque, and then move on. That strategy does not work when you have a whole provincial government devoted to proving the federation is broken.

The Alberta government’s public relations department, with 288 employees, was moved into the premier’s office earlier this year.

In an April 29 order-in-council, the responsibility for communications and public engagement (CPE) was moved from the treasury board and finance departments into the premier’s office.

With an annual budget of $38-million, the CPE is supposed to promote “non-partisan” government advertising. Some recent examples include a campaign to “Tell the Feds,” and another to promote an Alberta pension fund to replace the Canada Pension Plan.

Not political? Hardly.

The province is spending millions of dollars, and the feds expect ministers alone to manage the onslaught of negativity coming daily from Alberta.

It is not enough for the prime minister to fly in and flip a pancake. The federal government needs a massive communications and strategic presence in Alberta to treat the separation question as the existential threat that it is.

Forty years ago, the federal budget to fight disinformation by the Quebec separatists was $25-million annually.

With the modern fragmentation of media, that number should be quadrupled. It should also fight the general malaise in other rural and remote parts of Canada.

To be fair, the vast majority of Albertans are Conservative, so it is not surprising that the Tory leader gets the most applause at any public event.

But it is one thing to win an election. It is another thing to confront the onslaught of misinformation that is being fed to Albertans regularly by their own government.

If the Canadian government does not fight back, it will see further fragmentation of the country caused by disinformation and misinformation.

While Carney’s Alberta provenance—the prime minister grew up in Edmonton—certainly helped him in the election, he could soon be faced with an Alberta-based Opposition leader in Poilievre.

Poilievre is expected to be buoyed by a significant win in the most Conservative riding in the country.

Meanwhile, the country will be dealing with a wave of Alberta separatism fanned by the premier, whose own political future depends on her support from separatists.

Canada has experienced decades of complaints about Western alienation. In reality, it is not Western alienation: it is Alberta alienation with a dose of Saskatchewan disillusionment.

Two other Western provinces—Manitoba and British Columbia—have a completely different perspective.

But Canadian politicians have never pushed back against the notion of western alienation and, as a result, the country is now facing the possibility of Alberta playing the separatist card.

It is about time the national government got into the game.

Otherwise, Alberta’s one-sided vision of Canada will continue.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Trump will definitely be pushing hard for dairy concessions but Carney cannot afford to cave on supply management.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 7, 2025.

To cave or not to cave, that is the question.

According to Karoline Leavitt, the White House’s press secretary, Canada caved.

According to Prime Minister Mark Carney, his administration cancelled a tax initiative of the previous government in order to get trade negotiations back on track.

Carney knew there would not be too much push back in Canada since the tax was opposed by Conservatives and poorly understood by Canadians.

The trade-off of continuing negotiations in lieu of taxing American high-tech companies in the short term seems like a fairly easy call.

Many workers in the steel, aluminum, and auto industries are already seeing their jobs affected by American tariffs, so the sooner an agreement can be reached between Canada and the United States, the better.

But Leavitt’s crowing from the podium did allow Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre to claim that the government has its elbows down in the fight for Canadian jobs.

To be fair, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s announcement of the cancellation of the Digital Services Tax was met with a major yawn by the public.

But those in the know understand that the tax mimicked a similar levy already imposed by the European Union, with countries like France and Spain already imposing a three-per-cent tax on companies providing certain digital services. In France, the tax is levied on firms with global revenues in excess of 750-million euros and in excess of revenues of 25-million in France.

Turkey has a DST more than double that of EU countries, with the levy weighing in at 7.5 per cent.

Canada has been a leader in finding ways to fund local content via the tax system, and it was fully expected in the streaming world that the digital tax passed last year was untouchable. It was not widely debated and as late as last week, Champagne confirmed the tax would be going ahead.

That was then and this is now. Carney obviously took a look at the big picture and decided he could afford to cancel the tax with little political punishment.

But there are other elements facing much more opposition if Carney plans to meet the deadline of July 21 for a trade agreement with the U.S. That was the timeline tentatively established by the American president and the Canadian prime minister at their G7 meeting in Kananaskis, Alta.

Trump keeps reinforcing his government’s opposition to Canada’s supply management system in our dairy industry.

That is one issue that is widely understood and broadly supported by all political parties.

It has even been subject to the provision that no government could eliminate supply management without a parliamentary vote.

The government and all opposition parties support the Canadian supply management system that limits imports of dairy products including milk and cheese, and adds heavy tariffs to some dairy items.

In reality, the heavy fees that Trump keeps referring to have never actually been applied because no American companies have imported enough dairy products into Canada to trigger the fee.

But on every occasion, Trump keeps referring to how “nasty” Canadian negotiators are, and how he would like to see the dairy system released from any agreement on supply management.

This is one hurdle that Carney will not be able to bypass as easily as he did with the DST.

The Bloc Québécois and the Tories have already indicated their support for retaining supply management. The only party that opposes it is the People’s Party, led by Maxime Bernier, which has no seats in Parliament. In fact, it was Bernier’s opposition to supply management that cost him the Conservative Party leadership in 2017. He was leading in 12 rounds of voting against Andrew Scheer and eventually lost the Tory leadership because of the support Scheer received from dairy farmers in Quebec.

Carney is committed to the July deadline for a trade agreement, but the pursuit of a deal will definitely put supply management on the line.

And this is one area where “elbows up” is required on the Canadian side. Carney cannot afford to cave on supply management ,and Trump will definitely be pushing hard for dairy concessions.

The political damage Carney would suffer from giving up on supply management is equally as important as the fight for steel, autos, and aluminum.

If Leavitt was crowing about Canada caving on the digital tax, she would be absolutely ecstatic if supply management were sacrificed to the larger trade agenda.

Carney’s elbows up strategy has worked so far. But the stakes are getting higher.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

As well as preparing for his own future in an Alberta byelection, Pierre Poilievre will be using the season to reinforce his level of support among the rank and file in preparation for a review vote at the party’s national convention next January in Calgary. It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 23, 2025.

OTTAWA—The summer barbecue circuit will take on new meaning for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this year.

As well as preparing for his own future in an Alberta byelection, Poilievre will be using the season to reinforce his level of support among the rank and file in preparation for a review vote at the party’s national convention next January in Calgary.

On the surface, it appears as though Poilievre’s survival should be a no-brainer. In the last election, his party increased popular support and elected more members, which is usually the measure of any leader’s success.

But in this instance, the lead held by the Conservatives had been so large for so long that most party members were expecting to be celebrating their return to government.

The dramatic drop in support during the campaign, in addition to the leader’s loss of the riding he had held for two decades, put Poilievre in double jeopardy.

Battle River-Crowfoot MP Damien Kurek resigned last week to pave the way for the re-entry of Poilievre into Parliament. The MP had to be installed for a minimum of 30 days before he could resign.

After a member’s resignation, the Speaker must inform the country’s chief electoral officer about the vacancy. Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to move quickly to call a byelection. But the chief electoral officer must wait 11 days before any move can be made.

If the prime minister moves quickly, Poilievre could be facing an August byelection.

Meanwhile, Poilievre remains in the Stornoway digs that were offered up by Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer.

Some senior Conservatives privately questioned why the leader didn’t simply move out for a few months to avoid the controversy of remaining in Stornoway without status as official opposition leader.

Instead Poilievre was offered the house after he appointed Scheer to take over as official opposition leader. There appears to be no prohibition in Scheer’s decision to offer the official opposition residence to Poilievre and his family. If the offer were made in return for Scheer’s nomination as the interim official opposition leader, that could definitely be a problem.

Neither the outgoing Alberta MP Kurek nor Scheer can be offered anything from Poilievre in return for their sacrifices.

Likewise, Poilievre has been facing more negative polling numbers in the weeks following the election.

That is to be expected as the Carney government has been enjoying the usual honeymoon period.

But the sharp 10-point drop in numbers has left some Tories speechless.

In a scrum following a Tory caucus meeting, Scheer ran away from a CTV News reporter, claiming an urgent phone call.

As for phones, Poilievre has been working them himself to shore up support, particularly reaching out to social media influencers who were actively promoting the Conservatives during the election.

Members of Parliament have rallied around Poilievre, but they have not had much time to process the negative post-election numbers facing the party leader.

Back home to their ridings this week, they will be getting lots of feedback from constituents about the party’s future.

Hardcore Conservatives are still staunchly behind Poilievre, but those who are more progressive will be telling the party to move toward the centre if they have any hope of defeating the Liberals in an election that could potentially happen within the next two years.

A deeper dive into those numbers will also remind people that Poilievre himself is less popular than his party, which could create further pressure on his survival.

When the party votes on the leader next January, people will be looking at the margin of victory.

In past reviews by the Progressive Conservatives, the leader was expected to get more than two-thirds of the vote or resign. In 1983, former prime minister Joe Clark got two-thirds of party support at a second leadership review. The number was virtually identical to a previous vote two years earlier, but Clark felt the mandate was not strong enough and he launched a leadership race.

The race he provoked, ended up costing his job, with Brian Mulroney defeating him at a party convention Clark called later that year.

Poilievre won’t be making that mistake. But there will definitely be some backroom players making the case for change.

The party’s poor showing in Atlantic Canada and Quebec haunts Poilievre. Quebecers hate to lose, so expect local organizers to drum up anti-Poilievre sentiment.

It will be a long, hot summer for the Conservative leader, campaigning across the country for his survival.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Pierre Poilievre’s decision to select Andrew Scheer as the interim opposition leader shows that he does not want any competition in the temporary job that he would like to fill permanently following an Alberta byelection.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 2, 2025.

OTTAWA—Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman did not look very happy when she rose to applaud her new opposition leader Andrew Scheer last week.

Who can blame her? She has done a lot of the heavy lifting as Pierre Poilievre’s deputy leader. Instead of rewarding her with the opposition leader appointment, he chose a failed former leader.

The decision certainly reinforced the image of the Conservative party as an old boys’ club. The choice is in keeping with the party’s demographic in the House of Commons.

The Tories didn’t even reach 20 per cent mark when it came to the success of women in the election. The 26 women in the caucus represent less than 19 per cent of the total team.

The choice of Lantsman would have sent a message that women play an important role in the party.

Instead, the selection of Scheer shows that Poilievre does not want any competition in the temporary job that he would like to fill permanently following an Alberta byelection.

Scheer has already been replaced as leader in a previous time, so is not likely to present any danger to the status of Poilievre as head honcho.

That status is not so solid as some would have us believe. The Conservative caucus is the only group to vote in favour of a proposed system proposed by MP Michael Chong where a majority of members can kick a leader out without the bother of having to go to a party convention.

In an effort to shore up support, Poilievre named a shadow cabinet that was three times larger than the government cabinet.

In that instance, he also ignored the principle of gender parity that was embraced by Prime Minister Mark Carney in the formation of his new cabinet.

Poilievre’s shadow cabinet includes 21 per cent women in a 74-person roster of official party critics.

A notable star that was not included in the group was Jamil Jivani. Jivani was billed as one of Poilievre’s personal choices when Jivani ran to replace Erin O’Toole in a byelection.

Jivani has previously advised Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and is well-connected to the United States administration via his former university friend, American Vice-President JD Vance.

On the night of the election, Jivani emerged from defeat to attack Ford and blame the Ontario Conservatives for the federal loss.

That didn’t sit well with colleagues who felt that the knives should not be pointed inward.

Jivani’s absence from the 74-person shadow cabinet raised some eyebrows, as did his decision to table a private member’s bill banning all temporary foreign workers from entering Canada.

Jivani has also launched a petition, which could be a tool to identify future leadership supporters.

Chances are that we will be seeing Jivani’s name on a future Conservative leadership ballot.

When Poilievre opted for Scheer instead of Lantsman as Opposition leader in the House, he opened the door to her defection, as well. His caucus now holds his future in their hands.

The process to replace a leader is entitled the Reform Act, and empowers the majority of caucus to remove a leader by a secret-ballot vote.

Each party must vote on whether to employ the act at the beginning of every new Parliament.

The Liberals declined to adopt the process at their caucus meeting last week, preferring to solve challenges in private through internal discussion.

A caucus vote would likely have seen then-prime minister Justin Trudeau leave much sooner than he did, but it also means that the party membership has no say in what happens.

In Britain, the system has led to a leadership revolving door for successive governments.

Poilievre will now be subject to constant internal caucus review. The leader’s survival until the next federal election is not guaranteed.

Meanwhile, Jivani is working hard to build his own political identity.

Lantsman may not follow in Jivani’s footsteps, but she could view Scheer’s appointment as enough of a snub to nurture her own future leadership ambitions.

She has proven her capacity both in the House of Commons, and on the campaign trail.

Poilievre is definitely riding a Conservative popularity wave today, but six months is a lifetime in politics.

Poilievre may not be leading the Conservatives into the next election.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 19, 2025.

OTTAWA—Pierre Poilievre’s people say they want him to soften his edges.

It doesn’t seem like he is listening.

In his press conference following the appointment of the new cabinet last week, Poilievre said a few nice words in the beginning, but then he could not refrain from individually attacking almost everything about the new Liberal cabinet.

His attacks were all very personal. He went so far as to accuse new Justice Minister Sean Fraser of being responsible for the housing crisis.

Poilievre despises Chrystia Freeland, and was positively vitriolic when referencing her contributions to the previous government.

Poilievre still hasn’t figured out that the best way to succeed in politics is to be hard on issues and soft on people.

He needs to understand why women, in particular, do not support him.

His style of politics—using nasty, personal vitriol mixed in with simple sloganeering—does not sit well with women.

Some men like the vitriol. They are up for a good fight. Poilievre got a roar from the crowd when his presence was announced at the Montreal Ultimate Fighting Championship last week.

But the crowd was mostly the same group who are already part of his core voting supporters. If he wants to grow, he has to reach out beyond them and try for the softer side.

The audience at the Bell Centre was mostly young men, and even though there was a women’s bout, not many were visible in the audience.

Why? Because most women don’t like fighting. And the nasty personal nature of the Poilievre attacks during the election did not win him many female supporters.

Some might argue I am being too harsh. When former prime minister Justin Trudeau participated in a boxing match, his victory was hailed as a political stroke of genius. But Trudeau was trying to reverse his image as a softy drama teacher. When he did manage to beat down Senator Patrick Brazeau, everyone was shocked at how easily it happened.

Then he moved on.

In Poilievre’s case, he seems stuck in fighting mode, even when the times dictate a change in tone.

Canadians awarded a near-majority mandate to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s team, and, like it or not, Poilievre is going to have to at least pretend that he wants to work with the government.

Instead, conspiracy theories about how he lost his seat are being used as fundraising tools for his party.

Contrary to the rumour mill, the redistribution that happens every decade is carried out by the non-partisan Federal Election Boundaries Commission. The chair of the commission in each province is named by the chief justice of each province, and other members are named by the Speaker of the House of Commons, who is also chosen by an all-party vote.

Poilievre actually gained more Conservatives in his new riding after redistribution.

But he lost by more than 4,000 votes because people were upset about how he backed the anti-vaxxer occupiers who took over the streets of Ottawa for almost a month in 2022.

Poilievre picked his side, bringing donuts and coffee to people who blasted truck horns 24 hours a day in residential communities. As for his constituents, they were on the other side.

And his Liberal opponent Bruce Fanjoy spent two years knocking on every door in the riding.

Now Poilievre is being shuffled off to Alberta to run in what is arguably one of the safest Conservative seats in the country.

He will be confronted with separatists who have already begun their campaign to take Alberta out of the country. Premier Danielle Smith has loosened the rules to get a referendum on the ballot by lowering the threshold and allowing businesses to fund referenda efforts.

Not sure why a business should have a say in a vote on the future of the country, but Smith has admitted publicly the changes were allowed in an effort to keep her United Conservative Party from splitting into two factions, and opening the door to the election of Alberta New Democratic Party Leader Naheed Nenshi.

Poilievre will not be able to avoid that fight, and the whole country will be watching him.

If he does plan to win the next election, Poilievre needs to focus on the real fight ahead.

The country is in a tariff war with United States President Donald Trump, and we need all hands deck to save Canadian jobs and industries. If he insists on continuing the election fight against the Liberals, Poilievre is never going to increase his base or get women back.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signalled early that she would be following the Quebec separatist path of obfuscating the facts and promising what she cannot deliver. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 12, 2025.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wants a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.

Sound confusing? It is.

But confusion is the only way separatists can make their case to leave Canada. The last time the country faced a referendum was when the Parti Québécois asked Quebecers to endorse the negotiation of a better deal with Canada, and if that failed, to separate. They told Quebecers that under separation they would still be able to negotiate the use of Canadian money, border access, and military support, all of which were patently false.

Truth doesn’t matter when you are trying to break up a country.

Smith signalled early that she would be following the Quebec separatist path of obfuscating the facts and promising what she cannot deliver.

The premier said it was a sheer coincidence that she launched her new referendum rules the day after Canadians decide to elect a Liberal government under the leadership of Albertan Mark Carney.

Opponents bristled when Carney self-identified as an Albertan, even though the vast majority of his youth was spent in Edmonton.

His background is similar to that of Pierre Poilievre, who also spent his youth in Alberta and only moved to Ottawa to work in politics.

Now that Poilievre has been defeated in his own riding, he is being welcomed back to Alberta as a native son. Somehow the same open arms don’t apply to Carney.

Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning set the stage for the Smith referendum launch when he threatened during the election that a vote for the Liberals would prompt a separatist movement in the West.

Alberta separatists keep referring to the West, but they are hard-pressed to defend that case as Liberals managed to garner the largest popular vote in British Columbia.

The West, like the rest of the country, is not a homogeneous mass. Alberta is not a homogeneous mass. Depending on which pollster runs the survey, between 70 and 80 per cent of Albertans do not want to leave Canada.

But the 20 to 30 per cent who do are largely followers of the party that Smith is leading. And while her government is mired in an RCMP investigation into the awarding of health contracts, a referendum debate takes attention away from internal governance problems.

Smith has already lost one cabinet minister to the health-care contracts scandal. Peter Guthrie resigned from cabinet after claims that a member of the premier’s staff interfered in the awarding of health privatization contracts.

Since his resignation, Guthrie has been turfed from the United Conservative Party of Alberta. Alberta’s current justice minister has also been linked to the scandal as news reports revealed last week that Minister Mickey Amery is related to the health investor under investigation.

Amery is also the deputy House leader, and told The Globe and Mail that he was related by marriage to investor Sam Mraiche, who is being sued and is the subject of multiple investigations, including by the provincial auditor general.

Guthrie released an open letter last month, accusing the premier of both ruining electoral chances for federal Conservatives, and fudging her position on separation.

Smith reverted back to the trope that she believes in a sovereign Alberta in a united Canada.

Now that Poilievre will soon be running for a seat in Alberta, it will be interesting to see how he navigates the separation question.

The FU crowd following him from rally to rally are likely the major supporters of a move to leave Canada and join the United States.

By expressing his strong support for Canada, Poilievre risks losing their support. The anti-vaxxers are already unhappy because they feel that Poilievre did not attack the courts for hearing the cases against occupation organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber.

During the federal election campaign, Lich was critical of Poilievre, claiming he withdrew his support. However, Poilievre’s disastrous 4,000 vote loss in his long-held riding of Carleton, Ont., was largely prompted by his earlier decision to promote occupiers at the expense of his own constituents. That choice, and the indefatigable work of Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy over the past two years, led to the shocking loss of a seat that Poilievre had held for two decades.

In the upcoming Alberta byelection, Poilievre will have to navigate the separation roadmap laid out by Smith.

The premier continually claims to believe in Canada, but she moved recently to lower the bar for referendums, and permit referendum funding by unions and corporations.

Poilievre will have to be clear in his support for Canada.

No sovereignty-association allowed.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.