Article content

In the 2025 general election, the Conservatives won 41.31 per cent of the vote. In the seven byelections since then, the party has averaged just 24.6 per cent support — and that includes leader Pierre Poilievre’s whopping 80.86 per cent win in Battle River—Crowfoot.

Article content

Politicians can dismiss polls as being a snapshot in time. The Conservative leader may be able to scoff at polls like Research Co.’s preferred prime minister survey, which suggested that even if Poilievre’s popularity doubled, it would still trail Carney’s.

Article content

Article content

Article content

But byelections are real people putting their “x” on real ballot papers — and they are increasingly disinclined to do so in Poilievre’s favour.

Article content

Article content

Prime Minister Mark Carney noted that the Liberals won more than 50 per cent of the vote in each of the three byelections held on Monday: in the safe Liberal seat of Beaches—East York, in North Vancouver—Capilano (held by the Conservatives as recently as 2011), and in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, which was won by Conservative Richard Martel in 2018 and held in three subsequent elections.

Article content

In Chicoutimi, the Conservative candidate came in third place with just 12.5 per cent support, garnering barely one-quarter of the votes picked up by Liberal Daniel Gobeil.

Article content

The prime minister attributed his party’s success to Canadians being “united and ready” in support of the government’s plan during a time of crisis.

Article content

It is hard to argue with his premise that the country is rallying behind what people see as a national unity government, at a time when voters are preoccupied with the trade war with the Trump administration.

Article content

By contrast, Poilievre has little to say on the matter.

Article content

Article content

In March, he went to New York and made a speech that sounded much more accommodating towards America than Carney’s “elbows up” rhetoric and claim that there has been a permanent rupture in relations. Conservatives argued at the time their leader was just being more realistic in recognizing Canada’s geography and limited leverage.

Article content

Article content

But it was not a winning argument, and he has since made it clear that if voters don’t like his principles, he has others.

Article content

After Trump announced his plans to impose additional tariffs on Canada in July, Poilievre wrote an open letter to Carney demanding “no more caving.” He said the government had already made too many concessions to the Americans over the Gordie Howe bridge, the cancellation of the digital services tax, and by overriding the CRTC’s demand that streaming giants like Netflix should pay more of their Canadian revenues to fund homegrown content (a move Poilievre had called for publicly).

Article content

The brazen nature of Trump’s strategy in breaching the terms of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement by imposing tariffs on autos has forced Poilievre to call such measures “unjustified.”