With the election officially underway, federal Conservatives are opening up campaign offices to prepare for an exceptionally short 37-day election period.
On Saturday, Conservative incumbent candidate Jamil Jivani hosted his campaign office grand opening, rallying supporters and urging them to “fight even harder” to bring Canada out of a “lost decade of Liberal mismanagement.”
Around 50 people packed a tight room in Jivani’s new downtown Bowmanville office, with constituents coming and going throughout the event before heading out to knock on doors. Jivani addressed his supporters and accused the state-funded legacy media of working “very hard” to prop up Carney to give the Liberals another four years of “ruling over” Canada.
“The Liberals and the media are working very hard, hoping that the Canadian people can be treated like the movie Men in Black when they click a button, and you’ll forget what happened over the last decade,” Jivani said. “Well, this lost liberal decade is something we will not forget, and we are going to work very, very hard so that people know what is on the line in this election.”
He said that Carney has “stood side by side” with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau across many different issues, such as housing, taxes, and crime, advising Trudeau on these issues along the way.
“I probably do not need to tell you how bad that would be for Canada. We are, after 10 years of the Liberals, in a position of weakness. Many young people in our community are feeling very pessimistic about their future in this country,” he said. “Their prospects of owning a home, having a good paying job, and having a quality of life that their parents and their grandparents had is not in a good position.”
Despite the Liberals rebounding in the polls after Carney was elected leader, Jivani assured his constituents that Canadians still want change under Pierre Poilievre’s leadership.
“I encourage you to take this as a call to action. We have a country to fight for. We have a future to fight for,” he said. “As close as the polls get, or whatever the media may tell you, I hope and pray that you will see that as motivation. Take it out and fight even harder. Do not be discouraged. Do not be demoralized.”
Several former MPs and GTA candidates flanked Jivani at the event. The Conservative’s Ajax candidate Greg Brady told the room that Conservatives can reach across the aisle to moderates.
Brady said the Liberals can’t be trusted to fix economic policies that have forced many young adults to either share housing with multiple roommates or live with their parents. He framed the election as a choice between an inefficient, bloated government led by the Liberals and an efficient smaller government under Poilievre.
Former Durham MP Bev Oda speculated that Jivani would be appointed as the foreign affairs minister. Jivani would already bring his past relationship with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance to the role of negotiating an end to the trade war.
Former Oshawa MP Colin Carrie said that Poilievre’s new team was made up of effective communicators like Jivani and Brady who are capable of articulating the struggles Canadians face.
He said Canadians face a choice between the Liberals who believe Canada has “no core identity” and is a “post-national state,” and Conservatives who want to keep Canada “true, strong and free.”
Deepti Jolly, the co-founder and director of the Canadian Organization for Hindu Heritage, told True North she supports Jivani in his advocacy around safety, education, parental rights, and opposition to DEI. She also noted that Jivani does a lot of “great” work with youth groups, which she says is instrumental in building the future.
“I look forward to him representing us further on those strong things that are close to our hearts,” she said.
Jessica Street, an organizing member of the DDSB Concerned Parents community group, said she also backs Jivani for his support for parental rights in education. She told True North that Jivani backed her group’s petition calling for teachers to stop keeping parents in the dark and prescribing life-altering treatments to their kids–though the petition was never read in Parliament due to prorogation.
Another supporter, Dean Link, has worked at Pickering and Darlington nuclear plants as part of the emergency response team for 35 years. He said he’s backing Jivani to take Canada off of the destructive path it has been on in the past decade.
He said that in the last 10 years, Liberals have made Canada weaker by handcuffing natural resources, underfunding the military and catch-and-release policies. He said he’s concerned Canada’s debt is over $1.3 trillion, paying almost $50 billion annually on interest alone.
“I’ve got two young children, and I am very worried about how far in debt we’re getting, how big our deficits are, and how long it’s going to go on for how mismanaged our economy has been,” Link said. “The priorities are just completely out of whack for what I think we need.”
He said he thought Canada was emerging from the “bad era” of Liberal governance, but as the Liberals seem to be surging in the polls, he’s worried that what he thought would be a “break” will be extended for four more years.