To the Point for the Week of July 12, 2026
To the Point for the Week of July 12, 2026
The worst kind of controversy at the worst possible time. Everything is baked in with Pierre Poilievre.
ONTARIO
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
Ontario’s 2026 fire season began slower than in recent years. However, as the end of June approached, forest conditions became dry and warm. Every year we pine for warm, dry weather as we suffer under the harsh realities of a wet and cold Canadian winter. Unfortunately, those same conditions we long for each year make it easier for a stroke of lightning, a careless camper, or a spark to turn into out-of-control wildfires like the ones raging in northern and northwestern Ontario that blanketed the rest of the province – and some parts of the United States – in an eerie orange haze that resembled the colour filter in the Mexico episodes of Breaking Bad.
All eyes have been on the response to the wildfires and the conflict between the Premier’s claim that the government has increased base funding allocation for emergency firefighting by 93% since 2018 and his critics who claim the main Emergency Forest Firefighting fund – the fund that pays for crews, aircraft, evacuation procedures, and on-the-ground firefighting – is chronically underfunded. Ontario has only budgeted $150 million for 2026, despite smashing through last year’s $135 million allocation by more than double in actual spending.
It is completely cynical but reflective of the unfortunate nature of politics that the debate over how much should be spent on forest firefighting and its potential real-world ramifications simply doesn’t resonate with the average person. Of course, the fires are having a devastating impact on people’s lives, especially on First Nations communities, and those impacts may have local political ramifications come election time, but the point is that this – on its own – does not have the potential to politically harm the government to a significant degree.
That all changed this week.
All the hallmarks of an expenses scandal emerged this week when it was reported by Global News that now former Minister Stan Cho billed $16,203 to taxpayers under a “special circumstances” category for hotel rooms in downtown Toronto despite not living far from his riding of Willowdale. According to the report, that special-circumstances category is only available to MPPs in the Toronto area. The idea of the special-circumstances category is that MPPs could draw upon it in case they are caught in downtown Toronto in a snowstorm and need accommodations.
If you think about it rationally, one can reasonably justify an expense like that under reasonable conditions. And the size of the expense is all relative too. Will equal outrage be directed to the Prime Minister whose 55-person entourage earlier this week was found to have spent $160,000 on airplane food on a single trip that included items like chicken chasseur and “death by chocolate”? Probably not.
All in all, around twenty PC caucus members claimed just over $120,000 since 2023 when the special-circumstances category was introduced. The government is now moving to eliminate that special-circumstances category, and the Premier has said the named and unnamed caucus members will be personally repaying those expenses.
Like the debate around wildfire budget figures, the expenses controversy on its own does not have enough legs to bury the government, although it did cost Stan Cho his seat at the cabinet table (we’ll see who else may fall on the sword in the coming days). Coupling the attacks of underfunding wildfire management with MPPs who are a little too laissez-faire with how they expense hotel stays downtown, it could prove to be a small nick in a death of a thousand cuts for the Ford government.
The perception of “nickel-and-diming” wildfire management while allowing MPPs to claim pricey downtown hotels for the odd late-night sitting or brutal snowstorm is something that resonates with the average person. It looks even worse when there is a clear and present affordability crisis gripping the province. The amount of the expense doesn’t matter to the average voting Ontarian when they are price locked out of the housing market or must work a side gig to make ends meet. Lastly, the expenses controversy seen through the lens of the $28.9 million private jet fiasco – not to mention $143,000 in private chartered flights in 2025 on trips to the U.S. – now begins to show a pattern of behaviour that may reinforce perceptions that the government is insulated from public concerns and less responsive than it should be.
What should also be worrisome to the government is the concern that where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and that the early reporting on these expenses are embers that risk igniting into a political firestorm for the government. The government may feel confident that they have put out these small flames before they spread out of control, but like any expenses-scandal story, intrepid journalists may be trying to uncover a can of gasoline.
FEDERAL
When Perceptions are Baked In
It has become a pattern in Canadian politics for conservative leaders to be routinely attacked for being too “pro-American.” Brian Mulroney battled John Turner in the 1988 election over free trade with the United States, with Turner framing Mulroney’s push for the agreement as an attempt to “Americanize Canada” and erode the nation’s sovereignty. While a short surge for the Liberals threatened to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives regained their lead and won a majority. Free trade was such a defining part of Mulroney’s legacy that many argue he may have been the most pro-American prime minister in Canadian history.
By 2004, siding with America had become almost a third-rail position for any political leader. The world rallied around the United States after 9/11, and a bi-partisan consensus emerged in Ottawa that the relationship between Canada and our neighbours to the south was something more than just economic partners and allies. That began to shift in 2002 as the Bush administration started making the case for war against Iraq, and by March 2003 Stephen Harper — then Opposition leader and head of the Canadian Alliance, and soon to be leader of the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada — had publicly backed that war.
Stephen Harper had only been leader for just a few months before he faced his first general election in June 2004. The Paul Martin Liberals’ attack line against Harper was that he was going to usher in American-style conservatism that was pro-gun, anti-abortion, and pro-private health care. Remember Harper’s “hidden agenda.” Many will recall the famous Liberal attack ads that claimed – and this is true – that Stephen Harper was going to put troops in the streets with guns and usher in martial law.
Despite losing the election, Harper’s infant Conservative Party of Canada reduced the Martin Liberals to a minority, increased the party’s seat count, and made gains in Ontario. Harper faced a leadership review after the election but garnered 85% approval to stay on as leader. Provided with a second chance to reposition and reframe the Conservative Party, Harper set out to build a professionalized opposition leader’s office and a highly sophisticated campaign machine focused on strict discipline, strategic patience and laser focus on the long-term payoff.
In the years between the 2004 and 2006 elections, Harper insisted on strict message discipline and organizational control. It was an intentional pivot away from the norm of opposition politics, which was chaotic and reactionary to the faults of the governing party. Strict discipline was put on staff and caucus. Media relations were tightly orchestrated and controlled. This translated into effective messaging that slowly resonated with the electorate: tax cuts, accountability, and crime (among other things).
Observers credit Harper’s leadership style at the time as patient, hardworking, with a razor-sharp focus on the long term despite the daily challenge of survival in minority parliaments. He was also intensely focused on learning from past failures. In the run-up to the 2006 election, Harper’s Conservatives set out to soften the image of the party as more moderate than the right-wing characteristics of the U.S. political system. The objective was to make the Conservative Party closely relatable to hockey dads, soccer moms, and generally everyday Canadians.
The discipline, patience, and perseverance of Harper and the Conservative Party paid off in 2006 when the party secured its first electoral victory and a minority government led by now-Prime Minister Harper. The strategic pivot implemented post-2004 that secured a minority in 2006 never let up in the years leading up to the party’s majority victory in 2011.
For conservatives looking back on the Harper years — the Conservative Party’s strategic positioning, Harper’s personal leadership style, and a political climate marked by simmering anti-American sentiment — it is painful to ask why Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre is now struggling not only to rebuild the party after an election loss, but also to sustain confidence in his leadership, all while trying to remain hopeful about an electoral victory roughly three years from now.
There are so many similarities. Poilievre was painted as the pro-American who wanted to usher in an American style of populist conservatism. Poilievre and the Conservatives were leading in the polls as a potential election approached before losing (albeit in a spectacularly different way). In 2025, Poilievre led the Conservatives to an increase in seats, vote share and notable gains in the 905 regions of Ontario. All the potential of a Harper-style resurgence of the party and comeback for Pierre Poilievre was evident.
But that hope has not materialized. Despite retaining confidence of the party membership at his own post-election leadership review, the Conservative Party leader has failed to chip away at the Carney Liberals’ dominance in favourability and polling resilience. There was a shimmer of hope after Poilievre appeared on the world’s most popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, where Poilievre was successful in humanizing himself and rounding out some of the sharper edges that were evident before and during the election campaign. However, the attempted rebrand was short-lived, lasting only a single news cycle.
The type of message discipline and strict caucus management that made the Tories under Harper so effective in its rebuilding phase post-2004 is noticeably less consistent under Poilievre. Several floor crossings and both private tensions inside caucus and public spats with different factions within the conservative tent have led many to question whether Poilievre’s leadership style is as unifying as it needs to be.
Messaging and policy stances are also murky. For a short time, Conservatives were focused on pushing for the removal of taxes on the sale of used vehicles. While a practical policy stance, it’s not what Canadians are overwhelmingly concerned with. Even worse, the early signs of a public schism among caucus on emerging policy issues like the locating and building of data centres is a troubling sign for a party that hasn’t been remotely close to winning an election in over ten years.
Poilievre’s leadership struggles impede him and the party from elevating themselves as a serious alternative to the Carney Liberals and from taking advantage of the government’s political weaknesses, namely the failure to secure a CUSMA renewal (one of the Prime Minister’s, if not the, major campaign promise in 2025) and more recently the BC condo “bailout” and the secretive Gordie Howe bridge agreement with the Trump administration.
A debate is emerging on the online right about Pierre Poilievre’s leadership, as the ongoing backroom feud between him and long-time conservative strategist Kory Teneycke spills into public view. Some argue it’s a clear signal that Poilievre and his inner circle have failed to learn from the Harper years or grasp what the current political environment demands. What we keep seeing — and it’s getting worse — is petty internal sniping, message and posture tailored to conservatives who live online, and a lackadaisical effort to brand Mark Carney as either a thief of conservative policies or some kind of economic illiterate. None of it appears to be working and, at worst, makes Poilievre look petty and weak. The remaining question for Conservatives is whether there is enough runway before the next election for Poilievre to address these challenges.
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