Poilievre is backed into a Trump-shaped corner

This time it was 12,000. That’s how many people (give or take) showed up to see Pierre Poilevre in a cavernous warehouse on the outskirts of Edmonton Monday night —  by far, the biggest rally of the campaign. All those vehicles overwhelmed the parking lots and ground traffic to a halt; I had to get out of my taxi and walk the last kilometer, alongside hundreds of others. 

No one seemed to mind.

Once gathered inside, the base became an army. This is the Conservative heartland —  sort of. Edmonton has grown so fast it has nine seats up for grabs, three more than in 2021, and the Liberals and NDP are competitive in several. Hence, Monday’s rally. 

As we waited for things to get going, I struck up conversations on the margins of the crowd. Spectacular turnout, we all agreed. Way more than Carney could pull. What does that say about the polls? 

“Polls are bought and paid for,” said Dawn from Leduc, a lean forty-something woman with short hair and a steady gaze.

“What drew you here tonight?” I asked. 

“This country is circling the drain,” she said. Health care, education, housing, all in shambles. Immigration was largely to blame, she said. The only remedy was a Conservative victory. She was crisp and confident, almost serene. Look around —  how could they lose?

I asked her about the concern some Canadians have that Poilievre is too much like Trump. “I like Trump,” she said, unabashed.

Randa from Edmonton, with two little maple leaf flags tucked in her hair, agreed. “The polls are delusional,” she declared. Randa wasn’t into politics until the pandemic, and she wasn’t into Twitter until Elon turned it into X. I asked her, too, about the Liberal argument that Poilievre is a Trump understudy. “I like what Trump’s doing,” she replied with a shrug. “He’s smashing the bureaucracy. I want Poilievre to do that, too. I actually wish he’d go harder.”

Two couples in their fifties asked me to take their photo. I obliged, then told them I’m a journalist and asked if we could chat. Their faces hardened but they obliged. They’ve voted Conservative all their lives. They’d like Poilievre to be more aggressive like Trump. Stop trying to hide it. Get tougher on immigration, protect our borders. Tariffs? Who cares about tariffs? There have always been tariffs.  

Brock was a tall psychology student at the University of Alberta, 19 years old and psyched for his first chance to vote. He wore a blazer over his Conservative-branded t-shirt. When I asked him about Trudeau, he surprised me: he gave Trudeau credit for trying to represent the country. Not that Brock liked the guy. Brock likes Trump, and doesn’t think Poilievre should worry about being compared to him.

Every person I spoke with said some version of this. Everyone liked Trump and didn’t think Poilievre should shy away from the comparison. Nobody believed the polls that put Carney in the lead. When I compared notes with a reporter from the Edmonton Journal later on, he’d had the same conversations.

Then Stephen Harper took the stage. Pandemonium. I retreated into the press pit. This was a rare appearance: Harper has endorsed previous Conservative leaders, but never campaigned for them. When the crowd quieted down, he reminded us that it was him, not Mark Carney, who’d guided the country through the 2008 financial crisis. He described watching Poilievre grow under his watch to become the leader he is today, the only man Canadians could trust to lead them out of crisis and return Canada to its rightful place as the most prosperous country on earth. These comments drew full-throated applause. But the cheers died down markedly when the threat of Trump came up.

Finally, around 8:30, Poilievre took the stage. Twenty-four thousand hands smashed together. “This has got to be the biggest political rally of the twenty-first century!” he exclaimed, visibly moved. 

Poilievre opened with nostalgia: an homage to how good life used to be in Canada, up until 10 years ago, when Liberals unleashed crime waves and deficits, tore hunting rifles from farmers and banished pipelines. No longer, he declared, returning to familiar refrains. A prime minister Poilievre will “unleash our resources” instead of debt. He will “lock up the criminals.” He will “axe the taxes.” He will “cut the red tape.”

These slogans brought people to their feet. His promise to end foreign aid was an even bigger hit. But the loudest applause of the night came when he repeated a favourite line: “It warms my heart to think of the beautiful family rolling up in their u-haul to move into their wonderful new home in the former headquarters of the CBC.” 

“I love you!” bellowed a fellow just behind me.

“I love you, too,” Poilievre replied.

What he may not have loved was the way the applause kept dying down whenever he invoked some aspect of the American threat. For Poilievre did sprinkle counter-Trump measures throughout his hour-long speech, as he always does now. He knows he has to; knows that if the polling is to be believed,a majority of the Canadians not inside this warehouse will no longer vote for someone who reminds them of Canada’s new enemy. But every time Poilievre stops talking like Trump, the applause becomes … dutiful. 

The cheering doesn’t disappear entirely, of course. The audience knows it, too, has a part to play. Cameras are everywhere. So they clap. But it’s not until Poilievre reverts to form and talks about restoring Canada to its former glory —  that is, not until he speaks like Trump —  that everyone goes bonkers. And in those moments, when everyone’s on their feet with their hands in the air, what you see in Poilievre’s face is that same look of victory beaming forth from those 12,000 believers in the crowd.

That’s the trap Conservatives have set themselves. The very qualities that propelled Poilievre to the top of his party, and for a while to the top of national polls, have suddenly become kryptonite outside his base. Now that trap is snapping shut before our eyes, in real time. It’s too late for Poilievre to escape. But Canadians can still choose to walk away. The question that remains is, will they?