Pierre Poilievre looks set to lead the Conservative Party to a fourth successive defeat

  • Unless something big changes soon, the Liberals will win a majority on April 28, leaving Pierre Poilievre’s Canadian Conservatives to look forward to another four years on the opposition benches. It will give them lots of time to consider how they might have handled things differently.
    Some have helpfully offered critiques even before the election has concluded.
    Kory Teneycke, the political guru who has managed three electoral victories for Doug Ford, Ontario’s Conservative premier, caused a stir when he described the party’s campaign as “malpractice at the highest f***ing level”.
    “This campaign is going to be studied for decades as the biggest f***ing disaster in terms of having lost a massive lead,” he said on a popular podcast. (The Sunday Times)

The Polls

Liberals lead in polling as final week begins

  • Liberals 43.2% / Conservatives 38.0% / NDP 8.3% / BQ 5.9% / Green 2.1% / PPC 1.7%

The Liberal lead in national polls has held steady, though it has slipped from around six or seven points to about five points on average. So far, it doesn’t appear that last week’s debates shifted voting intentions enough to bump the Liberals out of majority territory, as the Conservatives have been unable to break the Liberals’ electorally-decisive advantage in Ontario. The Bloc Québécois and New Democrats remain on track to suffer significant seat losses. (CBC Poll Tracker – April 21, 2025)

Conservatives aren’t closing the gap in Ontario

  • Three of the four polls included in the Poll Tracker update this morning show very similar results. Nanos Research, Liaison Strategies and Pollara Strategic Insights put the Liberal lead at between six and eight points, while Mainstreet Research moves back toward the consensus with yesterday’s two-point Conservative lead now a tie at 41% apiece.
    Excluding Mainstreet, the three other polls put the Liberals between 43% and 44%, the Conservatives between 36% and 37% and the NDP between 8% and 11% — Liberal majority territory across the board. (Éric Grenier – The Writ)

Conservative Poilievre seemed poised to be Canada’s next leader. Then Trump declared economic war (AP)

‘We’re behind’ » Senior Conservatives call out central campaign for failing to focus more on Trump’s tariffs

  • According to seat projections by polling aggregator 338Canada.com, if an election were to happen now, the Liberals would win 193 seats, the Conservatives 121, the Bloc Québécois 21, the NDP eight, and the Greens one seat.
  • “As you can see, we’re behind,” said a senior Conservative in an interview with The Hill Times who did not want to be identified. “The numbers are very challenging to win government. We need to see a change [in messaging]. There’s no way around that, that’s pretty straightforward. We’ve got to appeal to more Canadians who want to vote for us. We’re killing it on the ground. It’s a very unusual campaign.” (The Hill Times)

Can the Conservatives break through in the GTA?

  • Among all respondents, the Liberals receive 48% support—seven points ahead of the Conservatives, who stand at 41%. The NDP trails far behind in third place with just 5%. Given the sample size, the Liberal lead is statistically significant. So while the race in the GTA remains relatively close—and not far off from the 2021 results—the Carney Liberals continue to hold the upper hand. If these Pallas numbers are reflected at the ballot box on April 28, the Liberals should be well positioned to win most GTA seats—and with them, perhaps, the most seats from coast to coast. (338Canada)

Voters surge to advance polls for a most ‘consequential’ election

  • It will be impossible to form conclusions about the partisan bent of this advance poll surge until after the votes are counted on April 28 but one reasonable observation seems appropriate. When Liberal leader Mark Carney says, as he did in Calgary on April 10, that “this is the most consequential election of our lifetime,” it would appear many voters agree and were eager to participate as soon as possible. (Global News)

Latest Nanos polls show Conservative support is behind the Liberals

On The Campaign Trail

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre dodges questions about repealing national handgun ban

  • Poilievre told a Quebec firearms advocate in January that any firearms ban is “stupid” and he vowed to repeal C-21 — comments he hasn’t made in public since then.
  • Asked Sunday what he would do about the handgun ban specifically at a campaign stop in Surrey, B.C., Poilievre said most firearm-related crime is caused by illegal firearms coming up from the U.S. and he questioned whether there is even really a handgun ban in place.
    “Criminals are able to get handguns everywhere they go,” Poilievre said. “The problem is illegal guns coming from the United States of America.”
    Poilievre pivoted to his proposal to lock up criminals for longer, including those convicted of firearms offences. Poilievre is proposing life sentences for certain traffickers. (CBC)
The campaign team for local Conservative candidate Larry Brock is apologizing for a recent post on social media
  • The post showed what purported to be an official government document found in a jail “aimed at turning inmates against Conservatives” that was found to be fake. 
  • “Are the Liberals really trying to win votes from convicted criminals by attacking Conservative crime policies?” Brock wrote in his post on X on April 13. “This after a decade of Liberal soft-on-crime laws coddling criminals and unleashing chaos in our communities.” (Brantford Expositor)