Conservatives opt for more infighting instead of beating Liberals
Petty personal grievances come to head on election night as Conservative MP-elect Jivani slams Ontario's PC premier
Author of the article:Brian Lilley
Published Apr 29, 2025 • Last updated 4 hours ago • 4 minute read
The crowd at the Conservative party’s election night event in Ottawa erupted with cheers when Jamil Jivani blasted Premier Doug Ford.
Like Jivani, who was re-elect Monday to represent the federal Tories in the Bowmanville-Oshawa North riding, many of those cheering on his attack on Ford should probably be doing a bit of self-reflection about their own role amid conservative infighting in Canada.
It’s not that Jivani was wrong in calling out Ford for some of the things he’s said during the campaign, but Jivani has often been the instigator of the internal battles facing the Canadian conservative movement.
“When it was our turn to run the election, he couldn’t stay out of our business — always getting his criticisms, all his opinions out, distracting our campaign, trying to make it about him,” Jivani said about Ontario’s premier.
It’s not like Jivani hasn’t launched repeated and unprovoked attacks of his own on Ford and his Progressive Conservative government over the years that have left friends of both of them, like myself, scratching their head.
Ford’s incursions into the federal campaign and those of his campaign manager Kory Teneycke were ridiculous and not helpful at all. It’s doubtful that they cost Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre the federal election or his seat in Ottawa’s Carleton riding, but they helped push a negative narrative on the campaign. Even on the Sunday before the election, there was Ford bad-mouthing Poilievre’s campaign manager Jenni Byrne in a profile in Politico that was supposed to be all about Donald Trump and U.S. tariffs.
But let’s step back because it’s not like Jivani or Byrne are innocent here – nor is Poilievre – when it comes to the bad blood with Ford.
Byrne worked on Ford’s first successful provincial campaign in 2018 and then took up the role of Ford’s principal secretary. Her time didn’t last long and there has been bad blood between Byrne and Ford ever since. That’s a big part of the dysfunction between the two camps, but not the only issue.
Ford has been elected three times under the PC banner in the country’s largest province. He is arguably the most powerful and influential politician in the Canadian conservative movement, but since 2019 the federal party has treated him like garbage.
While Stephen Harper embraced Ford Nation when he was in office, Andrew Scheer held a rally around the corner from Ford’s house when he was leader of the federal party in 2019 and didn’t even invite Ford. Federal candidates were told to keep their distance from Ford and anyone associated with him.
While that may have made sense during Ford’s tough times in 2019, it didn’t make sense when Ford cruised to re-election victories in 2022 and 2025, but the rules remained the same. Ford’s MPPs and candidate weren’t welcome alongside Poilievre’s party and Queen’s Park staffers were considered suspect.
While I’ve never heard Poilievre bad-mouth Ford or Ford bad-mouth Poilievre, people from Poilievre’s team would come to Toronto with nothing good to say about Ford. Loudly calling him “Comrade Ford” — to imply he was a communist — and saying he was no better than former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne didn’t go unnoticed by Ford and his camp.
Shortly after Poilievre won the federal leadership in September 2022, Ford called to congratulate him. When Poilievre didn’t answer, Ford said he left a voicemail but never heard back from the newly elected federal leader.
Poilievre wouldn’t call Ford back until March 17, 2025, when he asked Ontario’s three-time majority premier for advice on how to win the province. None of this is to absolve Ford of his boneheaded interjections into the federal campaign, but it is meant to provide context.
Poilievre was equally boneheaded in not forging relationships with Ford or Nova Scotia’s Tim Houston, another successful conservative premier who Poilievre never reached out to. That’s a real theme to this campaign: The number of people who Poilievre and his team didn’t reach out to and didn’t ask for help, even though it would have been forthcoming.
In Brampton, several seats were within the Conservatives’ grasp and yet at no time did the Poilievre campaign reach out to Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, a former Conservative leadership contender. Sure, Brown fought a tough battle against Poilievre in 2022, but he’d fought tough battles against Ford as well and still helped him win across Mississauga and Brampton provincially.
Jean Charest could have been utilized in Quebec, Peter MacKay should have been part of an official secondary tour in Atlantic Canada, Rona Ambrose and Jason Kenney should have been campaigning across the Prairies, James Moore should have been asked to do the same in British Columbia.
Not all of these conservatives come from the same place, but that is the reality of the conservative movement in Canada. The choice is to either work together to win or allow the other side to win by default.
Poilievre and Byrne ran one hell of a campaign, they pulled in more votes (more than 8 million) than any winning party in the past – more than Harper in his 2011 majority, more than Trudeau in his 2015 majority. The problem is that it wasn’t enough in the face of Trump’s threats, the rush of older voters to the warm embrace of the Liberals or the collapse of the NDP.
Imagine if the alliances Poilievre should have been building with premiers and different factions of the conservative movement were all active during this campaign. The result would be very different.
It’s time for everyone involved to put aside their petty grievances and act like adults who want a change in government rather than high school kids involved in cafeteria drama.
The infighting inside Canada's conservative movement was a major factor in the just-finished federal election campaign.
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