Both Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Liberal Leader Mark Carney recently visited British Columbia to court voters—but the size of their crowds told very different stories.
Liberal leader Mark Carney packed a 300-person capacity club in Victoria, with an estimated 200 left waiting outside in a left-wing stronghold riding. In contrast, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre outpaced Carney dramatically, attracting an estimated 4,000 supporters to his rally in Penticton, B.C.
Carney held a rally at Victoria Edelweiss Club in James Bay on Sunday, in a riding that should be a steal for the Liberals.
According to the Times Colonist, the 300-capacity club was packed, while 200 others waited outside for a chance to see Carney.
The NDP won the Victoria riding in 2021 with 43.9 per cent of the vote, but 338Canada aggregate polling data projects the riding will go red for the Liberals with 38 per cent support this time around.
True North estimated that Poilievre’s “Canada First” rally in Penticton, B.C., attracted up to 4,000 Conservative supporters on Saturday–a sizable crowd when compared to the town’s population of around 15,000 to 20,000 people.
Carney’s 10-minute rally speech to the packed club audience took several jabs at conservative premiers and was focused on stocking anti-American sentiments in the crowd.
When Carney repeated his comments that the old U.S.-Canada relationship was “over,” the crowd cheered. Fewer people cheered, however, when he said the world he’d lived through his whole life, a global trading system sponsored by the U.S., had also ended.
He vowed to fight the Americans “everywhere they understand.”
“We’re fighting the Americans in the pocketbook. We have retaliatory tariffs on them. We just hit them again in the auto sector,” he said. “We’re fighting them on Fox News, which is what they understand. We’re sending Doug Ford onto Fox News to show them we’re not messing around up here.”
His comments on Canada’s premiers appearing in American media to reach U.S. audiences were said while laughing. He joked that they should send Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to fight for Canada on U.S. media.
“We’re going to send Danielle next. Well, …bad idea, Strike that, strike that, just ignore that back there. So we, we got, and we’re fighting them in the courts, and we’re fighting them in the courts, but what and and we will win,” said Carney.
Some online have criticized his remarks against Canada’s premiers as hypocritical as Carney simultaneously calls for a “Team Canada” approach to the U.S.
As Carney pledged to build Canada into a “clean energy superpower,” his mic cut out, which he joked was Smith interfering to stop him from talking about alternatives to oil and gas.
Smith responded during a press conference Monday, saying his behaviour is typical of a “progressive man” talking about a “strong conservative woman.”
“This is a pretty consistent type of approach that I’ve seen, not only from the current prime minister but the former one as well. And the attitude is, ‘sit down and shut up,’” she said. “Well, I don’t shut up. I make sure that Albertans know exactly how I feel about issues, and I’m going to continue advocating on behalf of my province, whether he likes it or not.”
She criticized Carney’s “keep it in the ground” policies, saying Canadians should be concerned about how he would take the Canadian economy. She warned that a Liberal government couldn’t be trusted to perform its duty to facilitate international trade for the provinces.
Carney also mocked Poilievre’s commitment to purchasing new equipment and machinery for the military in the Arctic and cutting taxes.
“We are taking everything we get from these tariffs, and what are we doing with that? Are we using it to cut taxes like Pierre Poilievre? No. Are we buying a few military toys like Poilievre?” he told the crowd. “No, we are giving it; we are not giving it; we are using it to support our workers and their businesses.”
Despite mocking Poilievre’s platform to support the military and improve Arctic defence, Carney pledged to do the same less than a minute later.
“We are putting year-round troops now. Unbelievably, we didn’t have this year-round troops,” he said before getting cut off by a supporter. “It’s about time, exactly.” He said they would have troops “year-round in the Arctic, 365 days a year, in the air, on the ground, in the water.”
He then continued to pledge new trade corridors with “reliable trading partners” and build millions of homes. Carney released his housing plan, which involves government-subsidized modular homes.
“We’re going to succeed in rooms like this, and the people you represent, the people you, your families, your neighbours, your friends, are coming together as part of the bigger project, Canada,” Carney said. “We’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go, and this government recognizes that it will be at the core of everything we do.”