As the 2025 federal election campaign begins its second week, U.S. President Donald Trump and another round of tariffs expected on April 2 could again sidetrack most of Canada’s political discourse.
But making almost as much noise thus far have been the growing grumbles out of Conservative circles about Leader Pierre Poilievre’s messaging and polls that now have him trailing the Liberals and Leader Mark Carney.
Even as Poilievre is attracting crowds of several thousand to rallies in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and Manitoba, the wide lead the Conservatives enjoyed over the Liberals has entirely evaporated and the knives have already been sharpening at what some Conservatives say is a refusal by Poilievre and his campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, to refocus their campaign on battling Trump’s tariffs.
Kory Teneycke, a former federal communications director for the party who more recently helped with Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s re-election, told an Empire Club of Canada event on March 26 that the alarm bells should be going off inside Conservative headquarters, and an immediate pivot to focus the campaign on battling Trump’s tariffs is critically needed.
Internal Ontario Tory polling, which is typically not released but which Teneycke gave to the Toronto Star, showed the Conservatives 15 points behind the Liberals in Ontario, where more than one-third of the seats in the House of Commons are being contested.
Amanda Galbraith, a Conservative strategist, said the repeated leaks and anonymous insiders complaining are “unhelpful, irritating, and unnecessary,” she said.
“We should trust in the campaign team to adjust as they see fit,” she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Galbraith, co-founder of the Oyster Group and a former campaign staffer, said the Conservatives have a tendency to turn on leaders at the first sight of trouble in the polls, in part because of “complexities” in a party that includes various factions, such as urban business types and rural, social conservatives.
She also said the Conservatives probably didn’t expect Trump to take up so much airtime during the campaign.
Multiple polls show Trump’s threats of tariffs and annexation have overtaken affordability as the top issue for Canadians, and more than one poll has put Carney at a significant advantage among voters when it comes to handling Trump.
Carney’s campaign has been heavily focused on responding to the U.S. tariffs and building Canada up to survive and thrive despite Trump’s threats. Hours before Trump unexpectedly signed an executive order to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all auto imports, Carney was in Windsor, Ont., to announce a $2 billion fund to help the Canadian auto sector, and on Friday he promised a $5 billion national infrastructure fund to build things to help Canada diversify its trading partners and move energy and other products across and out Canada faster.
Following his first-ever phone call with Carney on Friday, Trump appeared to soften his tone toward Canada, and had agreed that the two countries would begin negotiating a new economic and security plan after the election.
Poilievre’s campaign has stayed the course of its original plan on tax cuts and credits, and crime, without anything big yet specifically to respond to Trump, which was among the things that drew Teneycke’s ire.
Galbraith said Poilievre’s crowd sizes are notable, though they don’t always correlate with results. She said Poilievre’s “massive” crowds are far bigger than those Stephen Harper’s Conservatives attracted in his successful campaigns in 2006, 2008 and 2011.
She also noted that even though the Conservatives are trailing the Liberals, their overall poll numbers are still higher than they’ve been before.
“In 2006, if we were polling at 38, we would have done a happy dance,” she said.
The Conservatives won a minority government in 2006 with 36 per cent support nationally, and a majority in 2011 with just under 40 per cent.
A Leger poll for The Canadian Press published March 24 had the Liberals at 44 and the Conservatives at 38 per cent. Two months earlier Leger had the Conservatives at 43 per cent and the Liberals at 25 per cent.
She said the turnout Poilievre is seeing demonstrates that his party has the momentum to get voters out to the polls, particularly blue-collar workers the Tories have fought hard to win from the NDP.
On Saturday, Poilievre supporters in Winnipeg lined up down the block an hour before his news conference got underway. One local supporter, who would only give his name as Patrick, said he doesn’t believe the polls given the crowds Poilievre is drawing.
The 46-year-old man held a Manitoba flag, and said Poilievre’s message on cutting regulations is resonating with him, as is cutting down on repeat offenders.
Joseph Fourre, whose son died of a fentanyl overdose, attended the rally undecided on his vote but said he liked what he heard from Poilievre about fentanyl.
Poilievre has promised to mandate life sentences for people found guilty of trafficking large amounts of fentanyl.
“I’ve lived my life and grew up NDP and I swang Liberal, and I think you know after coming here today, you know, my vote is going closer to Pierre, just for what he wants to do in regards to the crime and to the fentanyl,” said Fourre.
Galbraith said the New Democrats’ slump in the polls could however see the Liberals win ridings that would normally see the centre-left vote split between those two parties, and the Conservatives winning.
The NDP has seen its support crater, with just six per cent in the recent Leger poll, compared to almost 18 per cent in the 2021 federal election.
Poilievre, who coughed multiple times in his speech on Saturday and was battling a hoarse voice, will be back in Toronto Sunday, before heading to Atlantic Canada for the first time in this election.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is headed to the Vancouver area. Carney has no known public events planned.
All parties are watching for Wednesday, when Trump has suggested a series of large tariffs would be applied to various sectors on imports from numerous countries, though he at one point has suggested Canada might not be looked upon as harshly as others.
— With files from Steve Lambert in Winnipeg.
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