Every Wednesday, our parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa Marie Vastel analyzes a federal political issue to help you better understand it.
Pierre Poilievre has abandoned his habits as a combative and scathing opposition MP to make his official entry into the Commons as Leader of the Opposition, now calm and composed. But this duality that inhabits the new Conservative leader worries many.
Influential former members of the party and presidents of riding associations in Quebec fear that the Conservative leader is his own worst enemy and is letting his pit bull nature return at a gallop. The chief’s first week will not have allayed their concerns.
That is. In his first question period on Tuesday, Chief Poilievre’s favorite topic was the same as his leadership campaign. But the attitude was not. Inflation, the rising cost of living and the Liberal government’s response, deemed inadequate, were denounced 24 times. Pierre Poilievre, however, did not indulge in the verbal swelling that we know him. The tone remained sober. The leader listened to the Liberal responses in silence and without heckling his opponents. Even when the Liberals and New Democrats alternately mocked him for promoting cryptocurrency — the value of which has since crashed — as a cure for inflation.
The Conservative leader, however, has blown hot and cold since his victory at the head of the party. He reached out to supporters of his rivals and went at the first opportunity to meet the Quebec caucus, the majority of which did not support him. But he also greeted the departure of his deputy Alain Rayes with contempt, invited his constituents by text message to summon him not to complete his mandate as an independent, and took advantage of a spat with a journalist during his first and only press briefing to solicit donations.
This revanchist attitude went rather badly.
First gestures criticized
With the exception of MP Rayes and a riding association president from the Montreal area (where the Conservative Party never has high electoral hopes), all of the Conservatives polled in the past week support Leader Poilievre or accept to subscribe to the decision of the membership.
No one else would have left the ship. And no one is threatening to do so publicly. Including the president of the Richmond-Arthabaska association, at Mr. Rayes.
Except that a good number of Quebec Conservatives deplore, on the other hand, the relentlessness that the party has shown towards the MP. A “ridiculous” gesture, in the opinion of a former elected official who nevertheless supports the new leader. A “childishness” that “does not honor the party”, according to an influential former member of the caucus.
“You can have guts, but you don’t have to crush,” comments this conservative, who asked to remain anonymous because of his new role outside of politics. Leader Poilievre “is going to have to temper” this instinct if he wants to be able to hope to swell the electoral base of the party, he warns. Otherwise, “he will have no chance of success”.
“We know his abrasive style, which is his trademark. He must be vigilant, not show excessive partisanship like those we have seen and which can have a counter-productive effect, “said a third former elected official, who was also a high-ranking party.
Even if almost all the ridings in Quebec saw their members vote by majority for Pierre Poilievre, the presidents of the ridings of elected or former elected Conservatives share these feelings.
Serge Henry, in Portneuf–Jacques-Cartier, believes that the fate reserved for Mr. Rayes “has no place in a democracy”. The president of a former Conservative constituency who also supported the new leader, but who did not want to be identified, is of the opinion that “we should not intentionally put oil on the fire”. A third believes that Mr. Poilievre “perhaps lacks a bit of tact”.
None hold it against the new leader. All want to give the runner a chance. But Daniel Gagnon, who chairs the association of the member for Montmagny–L’Islet–Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup, hopes that Mr. Poilievre and his team will avoid the “roller coaster” of the first week. Because the chef is not yet well known in Quebec and must avoid making a bad impression.
An Abacus poll revealed Monday that it is in Quebec that voters have the most negative opinion of Pierre Poilievre – 47%, against 21% who have a good opinion. In Canada, 34% of respondents have a negative impression of the new leader and 29% a positive impression.
Expected blunders
Pierre Poilievre must resist the temptation to succumb to his instincts as a feisty politician, to “the bitterness and the mistakes of an amateur”, adds Richard Hofer, in the former conservative riding of Pontiac. Especially since the Liberals will try to trap the new leader or bring out his positions of the last 18 years as an MP. On Tuesday, in the Commons, this work had already begun.
The New Democratic Party, for its part, went with an advertisement on the Web arguing that Pierre Poilievre “is not there” for the citizens.
The Tory leader’s rivals are also betting that there’s likely to be at least two years to go until the next federal election, leaving plenty of time for Mr. Poilievre to get his feet wet with statements or takedowns. positions that would go wrong, they hope.
He will have to avoid giving them even more ammo. And to redouble the pre-election anxieties of the Quebec Conservatives.
The first confrontation between Pierre Poilievre and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, expected in the House on Thursday, will confirm – or invalidate – his metamorphosis.