Federal Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre calls members to vote during a rally in Charlottetown on Saturday, August 20, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot Pierre Poilievre’s first words in the House of Commons were a sure sign of things to come. It was October 2004, and even though at 25 he was one of the youngest faces in the room, he had prepared for this moment. As a teenager, he had read economist Milton Friedman’s 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom. By 15, he had joined the board of his Calgary MP, Preston Manning. By 20, he had written an essay about being prime minister. At university, Poilievre led his conservative club on campus. He learned the ropes of campaigning from political heavyweights like Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day. So when Poilievre stepped up to speak for the first time as an MP, he knew exactly what he was doing. He went straight for Paul Martin’s swag: “The Prime Minister has indulged in a smorgasbord of patronage so impressive it would make even his predecessor blush.” Eighteen years later, what strikes those who knew him then is how little the 43-year-old has changed. “He was fully prepared on day one to stand up to the question and go right after the premier,” said Jeremy Harrison, a Saskatchewan cabinet minister and former Conservative MP who was elected in his early 20s alongside Poulievre. “Fearless,” he said, with “a lot of talent.” Poilievre, one of the first people elected under the banner of the federal Conservative Party of Canada, is now the most likely candidate in the contest to become its next leader. If he was already flashy then, his image was made even more polarizing by embracing the anti-lockdown vein of right-wing populism that fueled this year’s “Freedom Convoy.” Looking back at his early career offers a look at how he became one of the most divisive figures in Canadian politics. It was easy to underestimate Poilievre back then — at least before he opened his mouth. When Poilievre ran for his then-Ottawa region’s federal seat of Nepean-Carleton, the first-time candidate was a 24-year-old who wanted to take it from popular Liberal David Pratt, who was then a minister. national defense. “I swear to God, I looked like I was 14,” he said during a debate on youth in Conservative politics in 2009, recalling the backlash to a photo distributed in campaign materials during the final days of the campaign. “Our office started getting so many calls asking, ‘How old is this kid?’ Can he really vote for himself in this election?” But Poilievre proved a quick learner and enthusiastic door-knocker with a knack for connecting with people, including the teenagers he recruited to volunteer on his campaign. In Parliament, the high-energy, baby-faced MP earned the nickname “Skippy” and showed his debating skills and penchant for catchphrases by slamming the Liberals’ proposed national daycare program in 2005 as “big government childcare paperwork.” Poilievre’s profile continued to rise when the Conservatives took power in 2006 under former prime minister Stephen Harper, another of his teachers. Harper appointed him as his parliamentary secretary in 2008, and he was sidelined as the government’s chief defense attorney. Poilievre’s no-nonsense style and impressive command of various policy files — accompanied by a self-indulgent turn, critics say — made him the Conservatives’ attack dog. Former Tory MP Scott Armstrong recalls that when Poiliev spoke, he and his colleagues would take notes on his delivery. “I watched how he handled himself, physically,” said Armstrong, who would later become Poilievre’s parliamentary secretary during his brief stint as employment minister in 2015. “He was probably our most effective communicator,” Armstrong recalled. “It can really get the Conservative message out.” Poilievre seems to know his talents are rare. During his 2009 speech to young conservatives, he named communication as Parliament’s “most demanding and underserved skill”. “I’ve found it a real struggle to hire people who know how to write in language that real people understand,” he said. Poilievre’s mouth has also gotten him into trouble. In 2006, he was caught taunting “f— you guys” to members of a parliamentary committee, the young MP wearing glasses, a roomy blue striped jacket and the centre-part hairstyle popular in the late 90s. And in 2008, Poilievre apologized after asking in a radio interview whether Canada was “getting value for all this money” by compensating Indigenous school survivors. He also suggested they work harder – making the comments hours before Harper delivered a historic apology to the House of Commons for the country’s wrongdoing. “It just showed me a real lack of judgment,” Charlie Angus, a longtime NDP MP, said in an interview. Poilievre’s judgment was questioned again in 2010 when, one day, he became so impatient while waiting in his car to go through Parliament Hill security that he broke protocol by pressing a button to pass. If the brash way in which Poilievre presented himself in those early years had evolved significantly during his time in the Commons, Angus would have been there to see it. But he says today that Poilievre “hasn’t really been transformed by it.” Despite these few exceptions, or perhaps because of them, by Poilievre’s early 30s the discipline of his messages was becoming a well-oiled machine. His colleagues began to notice that he was adding physical discipline to his arsenal, too, with an intense training routine. He was still young, but a little less gangly, when he was appointed to Harper’s cabinet in 2013 as minister of democratic reforms. Chris Alexander was appointed to oversee immigration during the same cabinet. He described Poilievre as open about his lack of life experience outside politics and willing to make up for it. “He always had a book or talked about what he was reading and asked what the rest of us were reading,” Alexander said. Poilievre was tasked with managing the controversial legislation amending Canada’s electoral system. It included a provision that prohibits “voter verification,” or allowing a person without documentation of their name or address to bring someone to the polls to vouch for their identity. Critics argued that this could lead to voter disenfranchisement. The current Liberal government has since reversed this policy. When then-chief elections officer Marc Mayrand criticized the proposed law in 2014, Poilievre attacked its motivations: “He wants more power, a bigger budget and less responsibility,” he said during a Senate committee meeting. Former NDP MP Craig Scott, the party’s critic on the issue, said a well-known competitor who was the face of the bill made it easier to drum up public opposition. Scott thought that people who were already suspicious of the Harper government tended to read ulterior motives into everything Pulyev touched. They would think, ‘Because this is Pierre Poilievre, there must be something more going on,’” he said. Despite his gruff exterior, those who worked most closely with Poilievre say the well-prepared lawmaker was always funnier, kinder and more down-to-earth than his performances suggested. Those who were there to see it start are hooked. Former Conservative cabinet minister John Baird, then a political mentor, now serves as his campaign chairman. Jenni Byrne, a longtime party operative who Poilievre dated early in his career, is a senior aide on his team. His wife, Anaida, whom he married in 2017, also works as a civil servant on Parliament Hill. They believe in the recipe for political victory that Poilievre had shared with Conservative youth earlier in his career. “If you want to be successful in conservative politics,” the young Poilievre said, “you have to stand for something.” “You have to support ideas that excite a large number of people. Electricians, engineers, carpenters, everyday workers who might not be completely fascinated by politics.” Poilievre has grown up in public. He has spent the past 18 years building a reputation for being a bold and timely communicator, in a way that has made critics revile him, rivals hate him and colleagues admire him. Now, the career politician may be ready to put his days of championing other leaders’ policies behind him.
