‘Frustrated and mad’: Conservative insiders say Pierre Poilievre is fumbling the campaign by not focusing on Donald Trump

In the days since, several media outlets have reported about worries over the campaign inside the Conservative party, and on Monday several Conservative sources told the Star they doubt Poilievre can lead his party to victory without changing his core message. There was no sign Monday from Poilievre’s central campaign that a major shakeup was coming, with Poilievre rejecting criticism and declaring he will stay focused on issues like tax cuts, pipelines and tackling cost-of-living struggles that he has championed for years. 

“It’s unbelievable,” said a former Conservative MP from the province of Québec, referring to how polls show the party has lost the sizable lead it held in voting intentions, with surveys suggesting they’re on track to lose to the Liberals. 

“I want (Poilievre) to be prime minister, but I’m kind of frustrated and mad,” they said.

Another Conservative MP who is seeking re-election said Poilievre told the party’s caucus in February that there would be no pivot from focusing on the “carbon tax election” he had been demanding for months — a reference to the Justin Trudeau-era climate policy to have a national consumer carbon price that the Liberals have since abandoned. 

“We’re missing the mark on that,” the MP said, referring to how the Poilievre campaign doesn’t appear centred enough on concerns about Trump. 

A third Conservative source said they believe Poilievre is resisting pressure to change his focus, which is unsettling Tories who fear they can’t win without shaking up their political approach.

“A lot of Conservatives feel this is over,” the source said. 

The sources spoke confidentially to freely discuss internal party affairs. 

At a campaign stop in Saint John, N.B., Poilievre defended his campaign’s focus on the alleged damage of a “lost Liberal decade” since the Grits took power in 2015. Pointing to the increased cost of housing and groceries, as well how Health Canada has reported 50,928 deaths from toxic opioids from January 2016 to September 2024, Poilievre justified his focus on helping people struggling in a Canada he has often described as “broken.” 

He also insisted his “Canada First” agenda of tax cuts and regulatory changes to speed up economic growth is what the country needs to fortify itself against Trump’s tariffs. That includes supporting new fossil fuel pipelines so Canada doesn’t rely so much on exports to the United States, pushing for a faster process to green light new resource projects, and cutting taxes to “unleash” economic growth. 

“So we will continue, despite calls to the contrary, to talk about those things, even if I am the only leader in the country that offers any change.”

Some Conservatives, however, feel the campaign is at dire risk if it stays on its current course. The Star reported last week that Kory Teneycke, Ford’s campaign manager in the Feb. 27 Ontario election, suggested the federal Tories are fixated on tax cuts while Carney and the Liberals are focused on Trump’s tariffs.

“For the Conservatives … in the campaign cockpit, every buzzer and alarm is going off and the plane is like going ‘bzzzzz’ and it’s like, ‘Pull up, pull up, pull up,’” Teneycke said at the Empire Club of Canada last week. 

Teneycke argued Poilievre’s Conservatives needed to pivot their message away from preoccupations like the World Economic Forum, a global summit in Switzerland, and the Century Initiative, which advocates for an increase in Canada’s population. But Teneycke suggested that would be hard, since Poilievre “sounds too much like Trump” and uses similar language to the American leader, including the Conservatives’ “Canada First for a change” slogan that echoes Trump’s “America First” tag line. 

Conservative sources who spoke to the Star on Monday echoed Teneycke’s concerns. 

Spokespeople from the Conservative campaign did not respond to a request for comment Monday about the sources’ criticism. 

“It’s abundantly clear to everyone that he needs to change his message, and he refuses to,” one source said, arguing Poilievre is a “micromanager” who is responsible for the campaign’s direction.

“You’ve got to be able to fit into what’s happening. He is not fitting into it at all.” 

To the ex-MP from Québec, the lack of a change to fit the mood of the moment shows Poilievre’s campaign wasn’t adequately prepared for this type of competitive, Trump-dominated campaign. For months before the election, the ex-MP said, “communication was terrible” from the central campaign, including a lack of discussion about strategy.

The other MP who is seeking re-election echoed concerns about campaign disorganization, and said decisions like highlighting recent allegations of plagiarism against Carney — which the Liberal campaign has denied — are only reaching the Conservatives’ existing supporters.

“I don’t think you’re convincing anyone who isn’t already convinced,” the MP said. 

Another Conservative source said they understand the campaign’s apparent desire to stick to their plan. One of Poilievre’s “greatest strengths” as a politician has been to find a strong message and stick to it, the source said. 

But the source said some change is needed, either to make Poilievre seem more like a “statesman” who is ready to step into the international crisis of the moment, or to “unleash him” more squarely on the public preoccupation with Trump. 

“If people aren’t seeing them react appropriately to the headwinds ... I don’t know how they explain that at the end” of the campaign if they lose, the source said.