Analysis-Canadian Conservative leader faces party unrest as Trump divides party

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By Maria Cheng

OTTAWA (Reuters) -A lifelong politician who just last year was projected to become prime minister of Canada, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is now struggling to define his party’s future and offer Canadians a viable alternative to Prime Minister Mark Carney. 

In recent weeks, Poilievre, a populist Conservative who has doubled down on adopting U.S. President Donald Trump’s combative style on some issues, has triggered discontent within his own party.

Last week, one legislator defected to Carney’s Liberal Party and signalled other party members may yet join him. Two days later, another Conservative politician quit the party, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.  

The troubles facing Poilievre, who lost an election in April to Carney, highlight the challenges the American president is creating for many traditional conservative parties abroad. 

While adopting Trump’s hostile rhetoric on issues like immigration has played well with some Canadian conservatives, it has also prompted the departure of other conservatives who back progressive social policies and hardened the resolve of political opponents.  

All this is a sharp turnaround of fortunes for Poilievre, whose party in January held a more than 20-point lead over the Liberals before Trump’s repeated threats to annex Canada united most of the country behind Carney, the new Liberal leader. Poilievre even lost his own seat in April, returning to Parliament only after a by-election in the conservative bastion of Alberta.  

Carney, who leads a minority government, now stands closer to a majority that would hand him real power to remake Canada’s economy after a trade rupture with the United States.

POILIEVRE COMMENTS ECHO TRUMP’S RHETORIC 

Hours after  Carney’s first budget — an economic blueprint for how he will govern in coming years — was released on November 4, Chris d’Entremont, a Conservative member of parliament from Nova Scotia, announced he was switching to the Liberals.

“There is a better path forward for our country,” d’Entremont said. “Prime Minister Mark Carney is offering that path with a new budget that hits the priorities I have heard most in my riding.”

Even before the defection, Poilievre was dealing with the fallout from suggesting last month that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should have been jailed after an ethics commissioner found he broke conflict-of-interest rules by accepting gifts from the Aga Khan in 2016 and that his administration improperly helped a construction company. Trudeau acknowledged making mistakes at the time.

During a podcast interview, Poilievre called the leadership of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police “despicable” and said police were covering up for Trudeau, who should have been “criminally charged” – allegations dismissed by the RCMP.  

“Poilievre’s comments are straight out of the ‘lock up Hillary’ rhetoric of Donald Trump,” said Christopher Cochrane, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, referring to Trump’s comments on the 2016 campaign trail against rival Hillary Clinton. “That kind of American conservatism and Republicanism hasn’t traditionally played well in Canada.” 

A Conservative Party spokesperson said Poilievre’s comments were primarily directed at a former RCMP Commissioner with a “lengthy track record of publicly documented scandals.” The spokesperson declined to answer questions about Poilievre’s leadership.

D’Entremont said his move to the Liberals was motivated in part by his unease with Poilievre’s leadership.

“I didn’t find I was represented” in Poilievre’s party, d’Entremont told reporters on Wednesday. He said there were others in the party with similar views and that he would leave it to them to “tell their own stories if the time comes.”

The Conservative Party said d’Entremont “must explain to his constituents why he broke his promises to them.”

POILIEVRE FACES PARTY LOYALTY TEST

Poilievre, who faces a party leadership review in January, had been hoping to rally his base to oppose Carney’s budget. Instead he has been fielding questions about party defections.

Despite a blow to the economy from Trump’s tariffs, some better-than-expected economic data has also weakened Poilievre’s appeal and helped Carney’s approval rating stay above 50% in several polls. 

“It’s not an ideal time for Mr. Poilievre,” said Ashton Arsenault, a former ministerial staffer under ex-Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Still, Poilievre continues to enjoy the support of the grassroots Conservative base, with no other realistic rivals to assume leadership, Arsenault said.

He expects Poilievre to survive the leadership review and discontent within the party to be addressed by then. 

Poilievre’s attempt to galvanize support is also complicated by the fact that the best-known Canadian conservative, at least in the United States, is Doug Ford, an avowed Carney ally and premier of Canada’s most populous province who sometimes echoes Trump’s combative style.

“Ford is also a populist politician who likes simple solutions to complex problems,” said Cochrane of the University of Toronto. “But he is not a disruptive politician like Poilievre or Trump, who are focused on dismantling elite structures.”  

CONSERVATIVE BASE DIVIDED OVER TRUMP

Frank Graves, a pollster and founder of Ekos Research, said that while data shows many conservatives with progressive views on social issues like health care and unemployment insurance are frustrated with Poilievre’s leadership, the “key engine” of the party now more closely resembles the Republican base in the U.S.

Like Trump, Poilievre has railed against diversity and inclusion policies, called for the public broadcaster to be defunded and pushed for environmental regulations to be rolled back. Conservatives looking for another option, Graves said, would now likely migrate to the Liberals under Carney.

Among conservatives in Canada, Graves found in a recent poll that half approved of Trump’s administration. 

Greg MacEachern, a former senior Liberal ministerial adviser, noted that it would only take two more Conservative politicians to defect to hand Carney’s government a majority. 

“It’s unlikely that Chris (d’Entremont) is the only member of the Conservative Party who is unhappy with the direction the party has taken under Poilievre,” MacEachern said. “Their negativity has already cost them the election and now it’s up to the leader and his advisers if they want to change.”

(Reporting by Maria Cheng; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Deepa Babington)