Poilievre tours Quebec as polls suggest voters there aren't warming to him
CBC
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is touring Quebec as he tries to assemble a coalition of voters ahead of the next election campaign.
During his swing through Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City, Poilievre is trying to win over sceptical voters in a province that hasn't been fertile ground for Conservative politicians in a generation.
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney cruised to victory in two successive elections in the 1980s thanks to lopsided victories in Quebec. But since the emergence of the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party of Canada has failed to make any inroads in the province.
The most successful Conservative leader of the 21st century so far, former prime minister Stephen Harper, won only five seats in the province in the 2011 election, even as his party trounced the Liberals in key ridings in English Canada.
Recent polling from Angus Reid suggests Poilievre has a lot of ground to make up if he wants to challenge the Liberals and the BQ for supremacy in the province.
According to a December 2022 poll, just eight per cent of the 849 Quebecers surveyed have a "very favourable" view of Poilievre. Another 12 per cent have a "favourable" view of the Ontario MP. Some 44 per cent have a "very unfavourable" view.
After more than seven years in government, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau still enjoys relatively high levels of support in his home province — 47 per cent of Quebecers surveyed by Angus Reid either "strongly approve" or "moderately approve" of his performance.
Christian Bourque is the executive vice-president of Leger, a Quebec-based polling firm. He said there has been no "Poilievre bump" in the province.
While he easily won virtually every riding in the province during his leadership run, Poilievre's numbers are underwater among the broader Quebec electorate, Bourque said.
"We've seen a bit of improvement in terms of Mr. Poilievre's Ontario numbers, in B.C., but so far nothing in the province of Quebec," Bourque said.
"There are several issues that might explain that," he added. "One is the perception that he is more radical than his predecessor, Mr. O'Toole, on social conservatism in particular, which, we know in Quebec, simply doesn't work." (Poilievre has said he will not re-open the abortion debate in Canada.)
"The other reason might be that Quebecers just haven't warmed up to him."
Poilievre's stridently anti-Trudeau message also has less appeal in Quebec, Bourque said, because the prime minister still enjoys relatively high levels of support in the province.
His anti-establishment message, his support for some aspects of the anti-vaccine mandate convoy protests and his general opposition to COVID-19 policies aren't big vote-getters in the province either, he added.