Pierre Poilievre Exits Stage Right

The stunning collapse of the Conservative Party’s lead in the polls has led to this: The Liberals, having replaced Justin Trudeau with Mark Carney as their leader, are on the cusp of attaining an outright majority in the Canadian Parliament. 

That sucks. 

Before Trudeau bowed out of leadership and his role as Prime Minister, the Conservative Party looked set to cruise to victory. Canada was well and truly tired of the effete Trudeau, who, whether he truly is the son of Fidel Castro or not, certainly exhibited authoritarian tendencies. His antics no longer entertained, so he was rushed out the door. 

His replacement, who led the Liberals to victory, is the ultimate technocratic globalist. He holds Irish, British, and Canadian passports and spent time running the English Central Bank after doing the same in Canada. You can’t get much more transnationalist than that. 

Until Trudeau bowed out, the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, was 25 points up in the polls. The election looked in the bag, both to me and to most political observers. While it is tempting to say that the Conservatives’ popularity collapsed, that is not quite a true as it appears from the collapse in electoral support. The conservatives actually increased their vote share since the last election, but the Liberals did as well–both at the expense of the Liberal Democratic Party, which is neither fish nor foul. 

Still, you can’t sugarcoat the loss, most particularly since Poilievre lost his own seat in Parliament unless something dramatic happens in the next few hours, which is not at all likely. 

What a rout, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre didn’t just fumble a huge national lead, he might also lose his own seat. pic.twitter.com/xwROKHs9aS

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) April 29, 2025

Yikes!

There was one overriding issue in the election, and it wasn’t the economy: it was Donald Trump and his seemingly quixotic desire to make Canada the 51st state. I didn’t understand Trump’s desire when he first voiced it, and I don’t understand it today. 

Pierre Poilievre really showed Trump… not only he didn’t win but he also lost his seat. pic.twitter.com/0Y5tHRoobP

— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) April 29, 2025

There is a nasty debate right here in the United States about whether Trump cost Poilievre the election, with Trump loyalists insisting that Pierre blew it by separating himself from Trump, while other Republicans are angry that Trump’s musings about Canada’s status as an independent country cost the Conservatives the election. 

Trump’s most loyal followers on X seem to be almost celebrating Poilievre’s loss as proof that separating oneself from Trump is a political loser, even in other countries. While their political analysis may or may not be correct–I think it isn’t–the celebration of the loss and the insistence on calling Poilievre a “loser” gets under my skin. Loyalty to Trump shouldn’t be the sole test of one’s usefulness to the conservative cause in the world or here at home. 

Pierre Poilievre’s total focus on Trump alienated Canadian Conservatives, and now he’s out of politics forever.

What a loser! pic.twitter.com/KXzh4JY8HP

— George (@BehizyTweets) April 29, 2025

This reminds me of the vicious attacks on Ron DeSantis during the primary season, where Trump loyalists did their best to destroy DeSantis and even drive him out of politics. Some accused his wife of faking her cancer; others suggested that DeSantis was a cross-dresser, and the relentless focus on his boots and how he once ate pudding was all childish. 

I do happen to think that Trump cost Poilievre the election, and Donald Trump seems to agree with that assessment and seems happy enough with the result. 

Not even Trump agrees with your “Trump wasn’t the issue with Canada’s election” takes.

Blame Canadians for being idiots. They voted for this. But it’s also okay to admit that Pierre Poilievre was put in an impossible position. pic.twitter.com/5xCwH9unrY

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 29, 2025

“You know, before I came along, the Conservative was leading by 25 points.” That is nothing to be proud of. Both Canada and the US would be better off if the Conservatives had won.”

Would the election results have been different if Poilievre hadn’t rushed to separate himself from Donald Trump? It’s hard to say, although it is notable that Poilievre’s running away from Trump didn’t happen in a vacuum–the Liberals clearly had polling showing that attaching Poilievre to Trump was an electoral winner, and likely the same was true in polls the Conservatives did. 

Moreover, it is bizarre to expect that any candidate for national office would embrace a foreign leader who keeps saying he wants to eliminate that country’s sovereignty. If the Conservatives embraced Trump, it would be the opposite of a Canadian version of Trumpism–Instead of “Make Canada Great Again,” the slogan would have to be something like “Make Canada Disappear.” 

Half of all voters over 60 in Canada wanted a Prime Minister who could fight Donald Trump. 

Canadian Boomers top election issue was “Donald Trump” and their bottom issue was “Making Canada a better place to live”…

Can’t make it up. https://t.co/qUPFJh8uwt

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) April 29, 2025

It would be pretty stupid to see this and claim that Trump’s musings about Canada had no impact on the race. If you want to argue that none of this would matter if Canada just agreed to join the US, but that argument is circular–they won’t–so it mattered very much. If you think the United States would be better off with a Conservative PM over the next 5 years–the point when the next election must happen–then it would have been better for us if Trump had been less aggressive on this distracting issue. 

Canadians didn’t want to be a subsidiary of the British Empire, and it would be odd if they decided to become a modest part of the American Empire, with a population the size of California. 

Western Canadians, who are generally conservative, would lose their electoral power and become like Californians east of the coast–politically impotent in such an arrangement. Poilievre’s constituents have the most to lose if Canada becomes a single state in the US. 

It’s not disloyal to Trump to point out that not everything he does is perfect, and in this case, I think he blew it. Canada will not become another state in our union, and musing about it didn’t make the world a better place.