Why Can't Poilievre Grab Headlines?

News across the summer has been dominated by Mark Carney's Liberal government. US President Donald Trump changed the deal surrounding the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Trade talks between Canada and the US imploded acrimoniously. Then, Carney's international investment summit and movements towards ties to the EU have been the topic du jour across publications. Obviously, a lot of this is important to cover. But what's notable is that the opposition has been given less news coverage in response to these events. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is largely absent from the news cycle.

For the headlines that his Conservative party have grabbed, it isn't good. His caucus is a "fractured mess." The party has been infighting. "The leader's not leading," one former campaign manager said to CBC News. Conservative MP and best friend of US Vice President J.D. Vance Jamil Jivani has been repeatedly breaking out on his own agenda. One crank Conservative MP is exploiting the very real but very minimal problem of vaccine injuries to whip up anti-vaxx voices.

Meanwhile, former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper delivered the closing address to Carney's investment summit, praising the Liberal government in multiple ways. "I wish I had thought of it," Harper said about Carney's investment summit.

In an August poll, Canadians were asked who was most likely to unseat Mark Carney. Poilievre came in at 15 per cent, Harper came in at 16 per cent. Ouch.

It's not like Poilievre hasn't been making moves, either. When the Gordie Howe International Bridge debacle was unfolding, Poilievre demanded the government release the text of the deal. Recently returned from a US trip, Poilievre told CNBC he wouldn't attack Carney "on foreign soil." Now hosting a Conservative caucus retreat, Poilievre continues to bang his drum to... barely any coverage. What has been covered is far from reassuring. "It seems like every week the road through hell for Poilievre keeps getting longer and longer and longer," a former government advisor told CTV News. "I think he's pretty much become irrelevant."

Poilievre's fall from media darling to desperate scrambler will be a topic studied by political scientists for decades. However, the lack of news coverage can be boiled down to a few salient points. In short, his very proposals have become irrelevant– Carney has taken up all space typically afforded to the Conservative opposition. Poilievre's notoriously difficult personality initially came with a real change in governance. Now, with that possibility gone, there's very little reason he should receive more than the most minimal coverage.

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Upon Carney's ascension to Liberal leadership, his first moves were to end the consumer carbon tax and cancel the planned increases to the capital gains tax. These two taxes were the focus of Conservative talking points for the entirety of their existence. Then, in one fell swoop, Carney implemented right-wing tax policy, leaving Poilievre in the dust. The subsequent election saw the sweeping defeat of any left electoral representation, but entwined with this, as POLITICO put it, the Conservatives saw "its strongest showing in decades, despite coming second." Poilievre himself lost his seat. Despite the rabid base retaining him at the leadership convention the following January, the party itself had deteriorated further in the time in between. Multiple floor crossings eventually handed the Liberals a slim majority from minority status, with at least one MP citing a toxic environment under Poilievre's leadership in his decision to cross the floor.

But that last point remains the most crucial for understanding why Poilievre has failed to gain headlines. Upon Chris d'Entremont's change from blue to red and Alberta MP Matt Jeneroux initially announcing his resignation in November, Poilievre said he would not change his leadership style. Nearly a year later, his commitment has held strong. Put simply, he's too stubborn to change... and he's really off-putting.

Polls from Angus Reid show the Conservatives at 32 per cent, their lowest showing since February 2026 "which itself had been the party’s lowest mark in an ARI poll since January 2022, when Erin O’Toole was still Conservative leader." Polls from the summer aren't much better, with Conservatives showing 34.6 per cent in a late June poll. A Nanos poll from late August shows a poor showing for the Conservatives at 30 per cent, but preference for Poilievre as prime minister hits 18 per cent. As a note, this poll shows him tied neck-and-neck with "Don't know" as an option. This, coupled with Harper as a better alternative, shows Poilievre is deeply unlikable.

It's also important to note that Poilievre rose to leadership on a wave of dissatisfaction with the Liberals under Justin Trudeau. His tactics in that time were truly effective, even if distasteful. News outlets repeatedly touted the viability of Poilievre to end Trudeau's tenure. In January 2023, he gave a "fiery speech" according to Radio Canada. "Pierre Poilievre is the man who could beat Trudeau," reported a POLITICO headline in September 2023. "Canada’s Conservatives are crushing Justin Trudeau," The Economist praised in August of 2024. "Meet the Combative Populist on a Path to Become Canada’s Next Leader," gasped The New York Times in January 2025.

Carney stole all that energy from Poilievre in the blink of an eye. Yet, in many ways, the Conservative leader has refused to even switch his targets. In April, Poilievre attacked Carney by saying he was "badly educated in economics," possibly the one thing that no one reasonable could critique Carney for. He followed this up by tying Carney to Trudeau in the deficit.

All this, buttressed by the internal division plaguing the Conservatives means news media simply has no appetite for Poilievre's stances. When Trudeau was flailing in the polls and this new leader happily brandished his snide, toxic and gleeful attacks, there was at least a point in covering this viable alternative. Now that Carney is implementing Conservative economics and security policies, without any of the populist rhetoric, Poilievre has no reason to receive more than the most perfunctory coverage. Without a massive change in the political environment, he'll fade into irrelevancy. Maybe post-leadership, he'll finally gain headlines he actually wants.