Pierre Poilievre seemed to be on an unstoppable march to political victory.
It was late December and Justin Trudeau’s government was in disarray. The Canadian prime minister had lost his finance minister, was deserted by key members of his party and had gone into hiding from the media. Poilievre’s Conservative Party, already well ahead in opinion polls, expanded its lead. As 2025 began, one projection had them on course to win two-thirds of seats in the country’s House of Commons, a landslide.
Poilievre can look back wistfully on that moment now. Trudeau is gone, Donald Trump has upended the world order, Canada is abuzz with talk about the president’s frequent threats — and the Conservatives’ lead has evaporated with little more than four weeks to go until election day.
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