Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to delegates at the Conservative Party Convention in Quebec City on Sept. 8.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
There’s not really a way to sidle into this that will make it less startling, so let’s just go for it.
The Conservative convention in Quebec City kicked off on Thursday night with a musical extravaganza in which a man in a Tom Cruise mask and an Air Force uniform scaled a small scaffold, balanced sideways on his arms with his legs stretched out behind him, then played the theme from Top Gun on a guitar made over to look like a fighter jet.
To be clear: this was awesome. But also really confusing.
“It’s cultural,” someone standing just inside the main doors said to the person next to them, by way of explanation. “When in Rome …”
Political conventions are their own little worlds – part trade show, part tent revival, part summer-camp reunion. But while Quebec’s own Painchaud Productions provided the dazzle, it was of course party leader Pierre Poilievre who was the real draw. The volume of both bodies and voices in the Centre des congrès de Québec rose on Friday evening as the leader’s primetime address approached.
The main convention hall had been completely reconfigured around the type of central boxing-ring stage Mr. Poilievre has favoured on his rallies. Before he arrived – nearly an hour late, proving he is in indeed in serious training to be the next prime minister – volunteers whipped up different sections of the crowd with rehearsals of unified enthusiasm.
Poilievre appeals for Quebec support as national Conservative policy convention begins
Anaida Poilievre introduced her husband with a lengthy speech, invoking her own family’s journey from a fragile immigrant beginning involving food banks and donated Christmas gifts to an established life of promise – a path she said others would now find difficult to follow.
“When someone shows you their pain and fear, it is not the time to turn your back on them and call them names,” she said in implicit indictment of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, drawing a roaring standing ovation.
Mr. Poilievre sparked a rapturous eruption when he finally strolled into the room beneath an enormous Canadian flag, enacting the ritual laying on of handshakes on his way to the stage.
His speech was an expansion of themes that he’s been mining all summer as he crisscrossed the country. In his rendition at the convention, Mr. Trudeau inherited a Canada that was in fine shape thanks to Stephen Harper, but he squandered that and left in its place a scorched wasteland where ordinary people cannot afford to live, and don’t even feel like anyone cares.
In this mental landscape, Mr. Poilievre positions himself as a sort of empathy warrior – the person who sees the suffering this government not only caused but is now ignoring, and the one who will battle to restore the basic bargain of a decent life that people thought we’d all agreed to.
“You see, politicians often break their own promises. But this is different,” he said. “This promise didn’t belong to him. It belonged to all of us.”
Mr. Poilievre has clearly tapped a vein of something deep and real. This convention is the first since he won the leadership a year ago, and the gathering was suffused with partisan giddiness after a summer of congenial news about how Canadians are responding to him and his party.
Poll after poll shows the Conservatives leading the Liberals by solid margins, most recently climbing into the double digits, as voter fatigue with Mr. Trudeau’s government and the high cost of living accumulates.
The convention included an update from the party’s fundraising arm that amounted to a restrained version of Scrooge McDuck backstroking his way through a vault of gold coins. Robert Staley, chair of the Conservative Fund, detailed several recent quarters of record-setting fundraising, along with plans to spend an undisclosed chunk of it on more advertising before campaign period spending limits kick in, whenever the next election happens.
A $3-million ad buy already deployed this summer introduced the leader to Canadians by way of soft-focus footage of him playing with his children, as narrated by Anaida Poilievre. It appears to be having the desired effect, as Mr. Poilievre’s popularity ratings have improved.
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A similar aesthetic to those ads – more youthful and sophisticated, maybe even knocking on the door of trendy – was on display throughout the convention centre. Video boards played clips of the leader and his wife waving beatifically before surging crowds, while models on other screens posed in branded gear.
At merchandise tables selling that swag, a khaki T-shirt emblazoned with “Protect Hunters” was especially popular, along with a camouflage ballcap. But most of the other gear had a different and very distinct look, like souvenirs from a tasteful faux general store in cottage country. Camp gear for partisan grown-ups. Staff at the tables told admiring visitors that Ms. Poilievre had designed it all herself.
At one end of the table, John Mykytyshyn, a Conservative consultant, was raving about the merch, saying Conservatives hadn’t had fun like this since Mike Harris’s Common Sense Revolution. But to him, the point isn’t the swag, it’s about being proud to be a Conservative again and having meaning to attach to that.
He supported Patrick Brown’s leadership bid, but over the past year, Mr. Poilievre has won him over by showing people who he is, and going at it like he wants to win.
“It’s defining himself, it’s saying, ‘Here’s who I am, here’s what I believe in,’ ” Mr. Mykytyshyn says. “It’s actually having a message, connecting with people and saying – sometimes well-worded, sometimes less well-worded – ‘I feel your pain. I get the housing thing.’ ’’
The empathy warrior is prepared for battle; get his armour ready.