Are Conservatives still united behind Pierre Poilievre?

xx transactions before Pierre Poilievre accused the RCMP of participating in a massive political coverup, the Conservative leader was explaining to his interviewers how, in his own judgment, he had kept his party united behind him.

Within the party, he said, there are a number of distinct philosophical groupings. There are "law-and-order conservatives" and libertarians and fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. And so, Poilievre said, he chooses to focus on the things that all of these groups can agree on.

"I draw a circle on a page for each one of those groups and I look at the place where all of those circles overlap and I put all of my energy in those places," he explained.

"And that way the various parts of our coalition feel like they're getting something that matters to them."

This explains, Poilievre said, why he has focused on things like low taxes, small government, free enterprise and getting tough on crime.  (It perhaps also explains why he has had so little to say about climate change — an issue that divides conservative voters in Canada.)

"And that's why, if you look at our party over the last three years, we've had very little dissent," Poilievre said. 

Having explained how to hold a team together, Poilievre decided to test the limits of what Conservatives could agree about, suggesting that the "despicable" leadership of the national police force helped cover up alleged crimes of the last prime minister. 

Those comments were uploaded to YouTube last week. And now there is a little more dissent than there was before — the first real wobbles within the Conservative Party since Poilievre became leader in September 2022.

And perhaps Conservatives have cause to consider how much they agree with their leader.

It's unclear how much Poilievre himself is willing to stand behind his claim, though he has neither apologized for nor retracted his comments.

Talking points distributed to Conservative MPs on Monday stopped short of repeating Poilievre's own claims. A written statement later released by Poilievre's office attempted to argue that he was specifically referring to former RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki, who stepped down in 2023. (Poilievre didn't mention Lucki by name in the interview and his description of the RCMP's leadership as "despicable" was phrased in the present tense.)

Appearing before reporters on Wednesday, Poilievre tried to insist he had not said Justin Trudeau should be in prison — though he had said that Trudeau had violated the Criminal Code in the Aga Khan affair, that he "probably violated" the Criminal Code in the SNC-Lavalin affair and that "many of the scandals of the Trudeau era should have been involved jail time."

Poilievre defends recent comments about former PM Trudeau, RCMP

Such attempts to retroactively finesse his comments suggest a certain amount of regret on Poilievre's part — or at least an understanding that his comments didn't advance his hopes of becoming the next prime minister. 

If Poilievre's comments are to be taken seriously, there are any number of questions to ask, starting with what evidence he has to support his claims and ending with whether he would make changes to the force's leadership or structure if he ever became prime minister.

But it's also apparently now necessary to ask how many Conservative MPs are still eager to unite behind Poilievre.

Conservative MPs have largely avoided commenting about their leader's recent remarks when asked by reporters. But on Wednesday, Radio-Canada reported that at least some Conservative MPs now have doubts about their leader.

"These comments are proof that Pierre Poilievre will never be prime minister,” one source told Radio-Canada.

The most strident public voice against Poilievre is Dimitri Soudas, a former director of communication to Stephen Harper. In an op-ed in the Toronto Star, Soudas accused Poilievre of "dismantling the principled, serious and credible" party that Harper "worked so hard to lead and bring to power, one of substance, maturity and integrity."

"We are a democracy of rule of law. Therefore the leader of the opposition, [the] prime minister in waiting, cannot just throw out there that we should be jailing a former prime minister, that the RCMP covered up evidence and the RCMP leadership is reprehensible," Soudas added in a radio interview.

"These are institutions that, while they are imperfect — somebody who vies to be prime minister of this country is seen as a moral compass."

Liberal government calls on Poilievre to apologize for RCMP comments

But as remarkable as it might be for the leader of the Opposition to accuse the RCMP of participating in a political coverup, it is also not the first time Poilievre has turned his ire on a non-partisan institution.

His attacks on the leadership of the RCMP have something in common with his attacks on the governor of the Bank of Canada in 2022 and his attacks on the chief electoral officer in 2014. And the reaction of Soudas now has something in common with the reactions of Jean Charest and Sheila Fraser then — each worried that Poilievre had made a reckless attack on a public institution.

Poilievre thrives on conflict and is quick to identify opponents, from the media to the World Economic Forum. And whatever else might be said about him, he is not shy or subtle about how he does politics. 

In the same interview in which he made his accusations against the RCMP, he said the "authoritarian left" was to blame for the murder of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Earlier this month, the Conservatives loudly took aim at diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

If anyone had misgivings about their leader's approach before now, they were, as Poilievre noted, pretty quiet about it. Of course, up until relatively recently it seemed that Poilievre was leading the Conservatives to a large and certain victory.

Questions were raised about Poilievre's style during this spring's election campaign. But based on the available evidence, Poilievre has not come away from defeat with a feeling that he needs to make major changes to the way he does politics. As he said around the time he became leader, "I am who I am."

Recent polling by Abacus Data showed that Canadian public opinion of Poilievre remains split — 39 per cent of Canadians viewed him positively, while 42 per cent viewed him negatively. But among Conservative voters, the view was overwhelmingly favourable, with 80 per cent viewing him positively and just five per cent negatively.

Such numbers may bode well for Poilievre's leadership review at the next Conservative Party convention in January. But perhaps his comments about the RCMP are giving some Conservatives cause to reflect.

Poilievre has been fairly clear about who he is, what he believes and how he does politics.

And now it is for Conservatives to decide where they would place him on their own personal Venn diagrams.

Senior writer

Aaron Wherry has covered Parliament Hill since 2007 and has written for Maclean's, the National Post and the Globe and Mail. He is the author of Promise & Peril, a book about Justin Trudeau's years in power.

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