Poilievre and Rustad would serve their parties best by stepping aside

Both conservative leaders still have loyal backers, but swing voters are walking away

Interview requests

Leading a political party in Canada is a thankless job, reserved mostly for those with huge egos and skin as thick as a rhinoceros. Two embattled conservative leaders are feeling that reality in full force.

While internal dissent exists across all parties, it seems especially fraught for conservatives in British Columbia and Ottawa.

The two leaders, federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad, are not as different as they might appear at first blush. Each came within a hair’s breadth of winning their respective electoral races last year, only to lose at the finish line. And the things they’ve said and done since have only hurt their chances in the next round.

They are both brash and confrontational, managing to alienate not only a large chunk of the public but also key members of their caucuses. Quietly in Ottawa, and not so quietly in B.C., former supporters are questioning whether they’re the right people to lead lost conservatives to the electoral promised land. Increasingly, the answer is: probably not.

Together, their dilemmas say much about the state of the conservative movement in Canada.

For all his protestations to the contrary, much of what Poilievre says has a Trumpish taint. His frequent MAGA-style proclamations have been widely covered. Polling by the Angus Reid Institute found that 59 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Pierre Poilievre sounded too much like Donald Trump” during the 2025 campaign, compared with 35 per cent who disagreed.

Those hoping he might have learned something after the last election were disappointed last week when Poilievre made explosive accusations on a podcast targeting Canada’s federal police force.

He told the audience of the YouTube channel Northern Perspective that former prime minister Justin Trudeau broke the law when he took a free vacation as a guest of the Aga Khan in 2019 and probably did so again during the SNC-Lavalin affair. Poilievre alleged the RCMP failed to enforce the law and, in the podcast, described its leadership as “despicable.”

The problem, of course, is that Poilievre offered no verifiable evidence to support his claims. That kind of unverified allegation may spread freely on social media, but it’s unbecoming for someone who hopes to carry the weight of the prime minister’s office.

When his outburst triggered backlash, Poilievre tried to walk it back, splitting hairs about what he meant. Not many people were buying it.

Rustad’s problems are more overt. He’s facing a revolt from a caucus he once had eating out of his hand. A letter jointly authored by former supporters urges him to quit, citing sagging poll numbers, falling memberships, poor fundraising, a shrinking caucus, inconsistent policy, low morale and—perhaps most damning—a lack of enthusiasm from the party base.

The latest ex-ally is Amelia Boultbee, MLA for Penticton–Summerland. She quit the caucus last week, calling Rustad’s leadership “erratic” and telling media she couldn’t believe he hadn’t already stepped down.

Yet neither of these besieged conservative leaders seems ready to throw in the towel. It’s in their combative nature. The more troubling issue is that they’re leaning on the hard-right wings of their parties to resist leadership challenges.

Poilievre has hitched his wagon to supporters of the Freedom Convoy—a protest movement that descended into chaos when it occupied downtown Ottawa for three weeks in 2022 to protest COVID-19 restrictions. From Poilievre’s perspective, appealing to this group makes tactical sense. There are enough of them in the party to help him survive a leadership review in January.

But the problem is, Canada is not Alberta-times-10. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith tightened her grip on power through grievance politics. That strategy won’t work nationally. This country is a complex cat’s cradle of competing interests, ideologies and aspirations that span the political spectrum. As former prime minister Stephen Harper learned during his own tenure, maintaining a tent big enough to bring the Conservative Party of Canada into power requires the kind of compromise hard-right conservatives despise.

That’s Poilievre’s dilemma. By holding fast to the hard right, he’s forcing Canadians into a binary choice: us versus them. But Canadians aren’t ready—and hopefully never will be—to seesaw between extremes. Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled off the Liberals’ unlikely comeback by being the kind of leader most Canadians are looking for: a progressive conservative who just happens to wear a Liberal suit.

So, members of the Conservative Party of Canada can make what feels like the safe choice, though it may not be, and give Poilievre a pass for his election failure. He did, after all, improve the party’s share of the popular vote.

But the swing voters Poilievre needs to win over aren’t interested. Another Angus Reid poll found that a majority (54 per cent) of Canadians who considered voting conservative but ultimately didn’t want him replaced in January.

Rustad in B.C. may soon have no choice but to step down. Poilievre, on the other hand, could quite possibly cling to power. But if he wants the conservatives to have a shot at forming government anytime soon, he’ll step aside for a leader who can rebuild a coalition that actually reflects the Canadian mosaic.

Doug Firby is an award-winning editorial writer with over four decades of experience working for newspapers, magazines and online publications in Ontario and western Canada. Previously, he served as Editorial Page Editor at the Calgary Herald.