Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre didn’t adapt enough to Justin Trudeau’s departure or U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to office, says Erin O’Toole, who is now suggesting his successor reconsider his tone and approach to provincial relationships before taking a second crack at becoming prime minister.
In an interview on CTV News Channel’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos, O’Toole said the Trump factor combined with Prime Minister Mark Carney pivoting the Liberal Party of Canada “in a way that surprised people,” made for “a challenging election,” for the party he once led.
Asked if he thought those factors surprised Poilievre and his team, O’Toole said: “They got used to having strong poll numbers, and I think a lot of people thought that Mr. Trudeau was going to stay and then it was going to be a referendum election.” He then said that “radically changed” between late 2024 and early 2025, when leadership shakeups on both sides of the border played out.
“I think Pierre did adapt to it, but I think not to the extent we needed to, and so that’ll be part of the learnings they have,” he said, going on to note the gains that were made by the Conservative campaign despite the overall “disappointing” loss.
The Conservatives won 143 seats and expanded its share of the vote, with 8,113,494 ballots cast for the party, and Poilievre appears poised to stay on with numerous current caucus members and longtime Tories voicing support for him having a second chance to become prime minister.
O’Toole said that while he respects the work Poilievre and his family have put into pushing for change, he thinks his successor has to “learn some of these lessons” to win in circumstances where the next campaign could be another two-party face-off while the NDP are rebuilding.
Changes to tone, provincial relations
Asked if a change in tone should be one of those lessons for Poilievre and his inner circle – amid recent tensions with both Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston – O’Toole said he does think the federal team needs to “make peace.”
“I think when the Conservatives need to grow the tent and win, we’ve got to make peace with our provincial cousins,” O’Toole said.
In the lead up to, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the election, there were a series of spats between federal and provincial conservatives, including a top Ford aide accusing Poilievre and his team publicly of squandering a big lead, and Houston hoping his federal counterparts do some post-campaign “soul searching.”
“The federal party has to rebuild those ties,” O’Toole told Kapelos. “Because when the provinces may be in power and strong, the federal party often isn’t, and our volunteers, our donors, often our staffers, are a lot of the same people.”
O’Toole then said he does think that “overall tone is something I think the leader has to acknowledge himself, but also the whole caucus.”
Should showcase ‘bench strength’
The former Conservative leader also said that he’d “like to see” Poilievre’s caucus do more media.
“We’ve got a lot of smart men and women that step up to serve, they should never skip a debate. They should never skip an appearance to try and give their vision for the country,” he said.
O’Toole’s advice echoes that of his former staffer and current president of Mobilize Media Group Jeff Ballingall, who recently told CTV News that he wants to see Poilievre “utilize the team a bit better.”
Ballingall suggested giving female candidates or MPs a bigger presence and better highlighting the party’s growing appeal across cultures by giving members from diverse backgrounds more profile.
“I think that should be part of the Conservative playbook going forward – to showcase their bench strength,” said Ballingall.
He also advocated for Poilievre’s team continuing to target younger voters through social media – a strategy that saw the Conservatives gain support among millennials – while returning to leveraging traditional media to get their message out to other demographics.
David Coletto, the CEO of Abacus Data, also recently cited the Conservatives’ media strategy as potentially contributing to their failure to win over the largely mainstream media-engaged baby boomer demographic.
“The challenge is always how do you keep those who voted for you while appealing to those who didn’t? And I think the Conservatives in this last election hit a ceiling. They maximized their vote based on what was accessible to them,” Coletto said.
Poilievre should get ‘second chance’
O’Toole said that all things considered, he still thinks Poilievre should get a second shot at forming government, an opportunity he was not afforded.
After clinching the party’s top job on his second try during the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of the Conservative caucus voted to remove O’Toole as leader two years later, after failing to win the 2021 federal election.
Among the concerns expressed ahead of O’Toole’s ouster were that he flip-flopped on key issues, and that the party lost seats and MPs in key regions of the country despite leading in the polls for the early part of the campaign.
His resignation was prompted by a Reform Act vote, using the same powers Poilievre’s caucus opted to reinstall for this Parliament just a few days ago, while insisting their current leader continues to have their support.
“I think he’s earned that right to stay,” said O’Toole, who resigned his Durham, Ont. seat in spring 2023, after a decade on Parliament Hill, and is now president of ADIT North America and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute.
“I think leaders should be given a second chance. You know, won’t be applied retroactively to me, I’m fine with that, but there was a lot of great wins, and some of the labour outreach that I started, Pierre continued.”
“So, I’m very proud of some of those breakthroughs as he should be, but then you also – like we used to do in the military – after contact you have an ‘After Action Report,’ what went right what went wrong, and I think they’re going to be doing that,” O’Toole said.
With files from CTV News’ Judy Trinh
