Carson Jerema: Here’s how Poilievre can keep his job and defeat Carney

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre at the Outdoor Oilfield Equipment Museum in south Edmonton on Monday, July 6, 2026. Photo by Shaughn Butts /Postmedia

Article content

Conservatives who think leader Pierre Poilievre needs to step down are doing their party no favours. There is also little agreement about why he needs to go, at least when you factor in the differing opinions from online activists and MPs speaking anonymously to Ottawa reporters over the past year.

Article content

He’s by some accounts too mean, and by others, not mean enough. He’s either too much like a Liberal or not enough like one. Not focused enough on U.S. President Donald Trump, or too much like him. Too focused on the economy, or too focused on the culture war. Take your pick, there is a constituency of Conservatives who will identify one or all of these, no matter how contradictory, as the reasons why the Opposition trails in the polls.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Yet the party, under Poilievre, won a higher percentage of the popular vote last election than any conservative party since 1988. More importantly, as others have pointed out, Poilievre’s success at getting younger Canadians excited about voting Conservative is virtually unheard of in the western world.

Article content

Article content

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s unconventional approach to getting a majority by enticing multiple Conservatives to cross the floor, or accept a Senate appointment, might reflect poorly on Poilievre’s leadership, but it’s also an opportunity. It has removed MPs who were not committed to the party, and given the Opposition time to craft a campaign capable of toppling the Carney Liberals.

Article content

Conservatives certainly need time to figure this out because they have yet to develop an effective and coherent approach to opposing the prime minister. Poilievre, who not so long ago appeared so energetic and confident when squaring off against former prime minister Justin Trudeau, seems, these days, to be a lot like Christian Bale’s Batman after the Joker disappeared — a man without a mission, without a purpose.

Article content

Article content

At the beginning of “The Dark Knight Rises,” years after the Joker escaped, without receiving justice, the outside world continued to rot, but Bruce Wayne is a shadow of his former self. I am not suggesting Canada is anything like the fictional cesspool Gotham became (though some days, I tell ya), or that Carney resembles the terrorist Bane, who ultimately provoked Batman back into action.

Article content

Article content

But the same problems that plagued Canada under Trudeau, plague it still. High taxes and the government’s environmentalist agenda are strangling economic growth. Yes, Carney has referred a pipeline to the Major Projects Office, but the fact that a prime minister needs to approve an infrastructure project that should be private is a symptom of what is wrong, not proof that he cares about business. The pipeline will still be subject to the same resource-blocking environmental regulations as before.

Article content

Not a single major infrastructure project has been approved since Carney entered office, and the economy flirts constantly with recession. Housing remains unaffordable and the cost of groceries is an insult to families everywhere whose wages have not caught up. Instead of getting a deal with the United States, as promised, Carney is leading the “resistance” against Trump.