Kitchener Conservatives Back Pierre Poilievre After Byelection Setbacks — April 2026

Conservative MPs emerged from their weekly caucus meeting on Parliament Hill with a coordinated message on Wednesday: Pierre Poilievre still has the support of his team, even as questions continue to swirl in Ottawa about his future as leader. The show of unity came just two days after federal byelection results reinforced the Liberals’ new majority-government position and revived debate about whether Poilievre is the right person to lead the Conservatives into the next campaign. For voters in Kitchener and across Waterloo Region, the story is less about internal party theatre than what a prolonged period of federal political stability could mean for housing, infrastructure and local economic issues over the next several years.

House leader Andrew Scheer was among roughly a dozen Conservative MPs who stopped to speak to reporters before caucus, saying plainly that “our caucus is united behind Pierre Poilievre.” Deputy leader Melissa Lantsman repeated the same message, saying caucus is united behind a leader with a vision. The carefully managed statements signalled that the party wanted to shut down speculation quickly after Monday’s byelections and the broader fallout from the spring federal election.

That speculation has not come out of nowhere. Poilievre lost his own Ottawa-area seat in the April general election, a major symbolic blow for a leader who had once seemed poised to become prime minister. After that loss, the Conservative caucus voted last spring to give itself the formal power to review his leadership. Under that process, signatures from 20 per cent of caucus members can trigger a secret-ballot vote, and a majority against the leader would remove him and begin the process of choosing an interim replacement. Even with that mechanism in place, Newfoundland MP Carol Anstey said she has not heard of anyone organizing to oust him.

Conservative MPs are instead pointing to the party’s broader electoral base. Several repeated a familiar argument first circulated last spring: more than 8 million Canadians voted Conservative a year ago, the party’s strongest raw vote total since the modern Conservative party was created. They also argue Poilievre has expanded the coalition to younger voters, new Canadians and people who had not voted before. That is the case the party is making internally and publicly, even if recent results have made it harder to sell with confidence.

The underlying tension is that a united caucus message does not automatically erase real concerns about momentum. Poilievre’s brand was built on relentless pressure, clear lines of attack and the claim that he could turn dissatisfaction with the Liberals into a winning national coalition. Now the question in Ottawa is whether that same approach can work over a much longer horizon, with Prime Minister Mark Carney heading a majority government that does not need to face voters again until 2029.

The immediate reason for the latest round of scrutiny was Monday’s byelection performance. Conservative support dropped sharply in several ridings. In Terrebonne, the party won just 3.3 per cent of ballots cast, down from 18 per cent a year earlier. In Scarborough Southwest, the Conservative candidate finished a distant second with just under 19 per cent, compared with 30 per cent last April. In University—Rosedale, the party fell to third place with 12 per cent, down from 23 per cent in 2025.

Lantsman dismissed some of the criticism by arguing these were ridings “the Liberals had won before and certainly won again.” That is true on its face, but the party’s own recent history makes the losses harder to ignore. In June 2024, when Poilievre was polling strongly and dominating headlines against then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, the Conservatives shocked observers by flipping Toronto—St. Paul’s, a Liberal stronghold that had been held continuously since 1993. That upset result became one of the clearest signs that the Liberals were vulnerable in urban Canada.

The political context has changed dramatically since then. The Liberals not only recovered Toronto—St. Paul’s in the general election under Mark Carney, but Monday’s results also solidified their majority after five opposition MPs crossed the floor to the government benches over the last six months. That matters because opposition parties no longer have the combined numbers to threaten the government in confidence votes, something that has shaped minority-Parliament politics since 2019. Conservatives now have to operate in a Parliament where they can criticize, oppose and campaign, but not realistically trigger an election.

That shift explains why Tory MPs are emphasizing patience and discipline. Ontario MP Andrew Lawton called it “a long game,” while Ontario MP Costas Menegakis described the mood inside caucus as “very, very positive.” At the same time, rumours continue that Liberals are still trying to recruit more MPs. AI Minister Evan Solomon said the government is talking to “lots of people” about crossing the floor. Those comments keep the pressure on Poilievre, because every additional defection would feed the sense that the Conservatives are not just out of power, but vulnerable from within.

One of the most striking examples remains Marilyn Gladu, who joined the Liberal caucus on April 8. Her move drew attention because she had been known for a socially conservative voting record, opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and support for the “Freedom Convoy.” Just weeks earlier, she had sharply criticized the government for appealing a Federal Court ruling that found the use of the Emergencies Act against convoy protests was unlawful and infringed Charter rights. On March 21, she posted that “violating our Charter rights has become normal” for the Liberals. By Wednesday, she was leaving her first Liberal caucus meeting smiling and calling it “fantastic.” That kind of floor-crossing adds to the sense of instability that Poilievre is now trying to contain.

For Waterloo Region, including Waterloo and Kitchener, the biggest takeaway is that federal politics may now enter a more predictable but slower-moving phase. With Mark Carney’s Liberals holding a majority and Poilievre saying he will lead the Conservatives into the next election, local housing, transit and growth debates are more likely to unfold against a stable federal backdrop rather than under the constant threat of another campaign. That stability could affect how buyers, sellers and builders read the next few years, especially if major federal policy on housing supply, infrastructure funding and affordability remains tied to a Parliament that is no longer in immediate election mode.