Pierre Poilievre is not prime minister, but that hasn’t stopped him from changing Canada. Just like Preston Manning did in the 1990s, the Opposition Leader is transforming the country without formally having the seat of power. That may sound counterintuitive, but it is nevertheless true.
First, a flashback. The Reform Party captured the Western conservative vote in the 1993 federal election and became the Official Opposition. Their condemnation of deficit spending, combined with the unpopularity of the Goods and Services Tax introduced by the Mulroney government, meant the Liberals had only one choice. They had to balance the budget through spending cuts. This led to an 11-year interruption of deficit budgets which, sadly, had occurred every year since 1970.
Fast forward to more recent times. Under Justin Trudeau, Liberal policies had sent immigrants pouring in, investment dollars pouring out, and economic growth per capita close to zero. It’s why Poilievre was so far ahead in the polls until Mark Carney took the Liberal helm and the prime minister’s chair.
Why do you think Carney axed the carbon tax on April 1, 2025? He had already lauded Canada’s carbon tax schemes in his book Value(s), so it’s not like he didn’t believe in them. But Poilievre had pointedly and successfully established in the public mind that the carbon tax drove inflationary costs that many Canadians found difficult to manage. In a large, cold, sparsely populated country like Canada, you can’t do much, transport much, or produce much without burning fuel.
Poilievre also labelled the prime minister “Carbon Tax Carney”- a moniker that Carney could not allow. So, Carney did an otherwise unexpected thing. He eliminated the tax entirely on March 14, 2025. A week later, Carney also eliminated a scheduled rise in capital gains taxes, addressing another criticism of Poilievre’s.
In the 2025 general election, the Poilievre-led Conservatives reached a high-water mark for a right-leaning party not seen since the 1980s. This kept the Liberals to a minority status. Although the Liberals now have a tenuous majority, they have aggressively disallowed Poilievre from keeping any talking points.
In the election campaign, Poilievre announced that a Conservative government would eliminate the GST on home purchases. The Carney government subsequently introduced zero GST for first-time buyers of new homes up to $1 million and reduced GST between $1 million and $1.5 million for a maximum tax savings of $50,000.
In August 2025, Poilievre announced a national campaign to have Ottawa scrap the electric vehicle mandate. The policy required an increasing proportion of vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission vehicles, reaching 100 per cent by 2035. On Sept. 5, 2025, Carney announced a one-year pause in the targets, a 60-day review in the policy, and said the target of 20 per cent of sales by 2026 would be waived. The timing is impossible to miss. And earlier this year, the EV sales mandate was repealed entirely.
On April 2, 2026, Poilievre called for the federal government to eliminate the federal fuel excise tax on gasoline and diesel for the remainder of 2026. Twelve days later, Carney did just that. That reprieve began on April 20 and was slated to end in September, and Poilievre pressed for an extension until Canada Day 2027. Carney responded with an extension through the end of January 2027. The fuel taxes will be phased back in at half the normal rates for February and March until, apparently, returning April 1, 2027.
Poilievre criticized the Trudeau government for issuing too many student visas and bringing in too many immigrants. The Trudeau government reduced levels, but Carney has reduced them even further. Immigration rates that dropped to 673,650 in 2025 fell even further to 385,000 in 2026 and will drop to 370,000 in 2027 and 2028.
The Poilievre Conservatives called for a “Jail Not Bail” approach, and the Carney government has once again responded. The Carney government introduced 80 targeted changes to the criminal code through Bill C-14, the Bail and Sentencing Reform Act. They took effect on July 15.
Poilievre also called for less foreign aid, fewer bureaucrats, and more defense spending. Again, Carney has responded on all fronts. Poilievre’s major call, for pipelines to be built to increase Canada’s export capacity, has not yet resulted in any finalized projects. However, efforts to make them real are well underway.
People once said half-jokingly that 1970s Progressive Conservative Leader Robert Stanfield was the greatest prime minister that Canada never had. Poilievre can now easily take that title. Even from the Opposition benches, he is playing no small role in turning Canada around.
