The Decibel - What’s going on with Pierre Poilievre?

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Last week, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre made comments about the RCMP being “despicable” on a YouTube show, accusing them of “covering up” for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This sparked backlash from opposition parties as well as Conservatives, and earlier this week, Poilievre walked those comments back, explaining that he meant to direct his comments towards the former RCMP commissioner. Between his YouTube appearance and some recent social media activity, Globe opinion columnist Robyn Urback wonders: is Pierre Poilievre okay?Today, Robyn is on the show to try to unpack what Poilievre has been saying, and what all this could signal about the future of his leadership — and the state of the Conservative Party.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Many of the scandals of the Trudeau era should have been involved jail time. I mean, Trudeau broke the criminal code when he took a free vacation from someone with whom he had government business. It's just like it's right there in the criminal code. If the RCMP had been doing its job and not covering up for him, then he would have been criminally charged. Conservative leader, Pierre Puellev, was on a YouTube show last week where he shared some thoughts about former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And again, he probably violated the criminal code and the S&C Labelan scandal. These would normally have led to criminal charges, but, of course, the RC&P covered it all up. And the leadership of the RCMP is frankly just despicable when it comes to enforcing laws against the liberal government.

These are serious allegations to make against the National Police Service. And they weren't the only controversial remarks he's made recently. Poliev took to social media to say Nazis were, quote, socialists, and called the Trucker Freedom Convoy, which effectively shut down Ottawa's downtown core, a peaceful protest. All of this has left some people asking, is Pierre Polyev okay right now? Robin Urbach is one of those people. She's an opinion writer at the globe, and she's here today to unpack what Poliaz

been saying, what we should make of it all, and what it could signal about the future of his leadership and the state of the conservative party. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel. from the Globe and Mail. Hi, Robin. Thanks so much for being on the show. Hi, thanks for having me. So Pierre Polilev recently did a sit-down interview with the Northern Perspective YouTube channel, and he made some controversial comments that have gotten a lot of attention,

including calling the RCMP Dispicable. What was your reaction to that? So I heard this interview. It was actually recorded earlier this month, and it was published about a week or so ago. And my first reaction was I was really shocked. that he said this. And I wasn't shocked in sort of like a scandalized way. Like, oh my God, a politician is talking about the police in this way and he's talking about how the former prime minister should have been jailed. I mean, you can be scandalized by that. We live in the Trump area. So it's very hard to be scandalized by those types of things. But I was really shocked that, frankly, Poliev would say such a dumb thing. Like it doesn't fit with his persona. It feeds into all the worst stereotypes and worst criticism. about him, the vulnerabilities that arguably cost him the election. And I was really surprised that he would do it because, frankly, I mean, he has been a politician

for the last 20 years. We've seen him do his thing. And he just gets better and better from a political perspective. Like, he is very good on managing his image about controlling what he says, about putting out the perfect statement. Like, his image is quite manufactured and it's quite disciplined. And the fact that he would go out there and say something like this, particularly when the question wasn't really.

about that. The question was about, you know, how would you handle scandals like this if you were prime minister and this was your government? So really, that was my reaction. It was what is up with Pierre Polyev? Why is he making this sort of mistake? Yeah, and it was interesting. I actually watched the part of this YouTube episode, which was, it was a 30 minute episode, but this was like a very small bit of the about three minutes long. And you're right. Like he just, it was just a question about how would you react to the scandals? And it wasn't very passionate. It was just like he kind of said it. Yeah, I sort of thought it was one of three things. One, I thought, okay, maybe this is a deliberate choice. Maybe this is strategy. Maybe he is thinking about the leadership challenge that

he's going to have to face in January. And maybe he's worried about his prospects. Maybe there's some disgruntlement within the conservative caucus. And he needs to play to the classics. And I guess the classics in this case is talking about Justin Trudeau being in jail. I don't know. I'm not in the conservative party. So I thought, okay, maybe that's number one. Maybe number two, he's playing some degree of 40 chess and he's trying to like provoke the libs by saying something really controversial and he's trying to get people angry at him. And in that way, it'll sort of galvanize his base. Or I thought, number three, he's just angry, frankly. Like, he is upset about how this is all turned out because if you look at what's happened to him over the past year, he went from

the highest of highs. Like he was supposed to become the prime minister. that didn't turn out for him. And that did not turn out for him. And the guy that arguably cast him his job is out on a yacht somewhere making out with a pop star. And he's where he started. I think he's kind of what Trudeau and Katie Perry right there. Exactly. Right. So my inclination is it's the latter that it wasn't strategic at all. It was just something that he felt and something that he wanted to say. Does it seem unusual to you that the leader of the conservative party, which is typically the Law and Order Party, is calling out the RC&P like this? Yeah, it's definitely off brand, right? Because the conservative party, as long as it's existed, has really been in

support of the police and this incarnation of the conservative party in particular. And over the last couple of years, has really been about the idea that law enforcement doesn't have the tools it needs to maintain law and order to keep criminals off the street and so forth. And they've laid responsibility with the governing liberals. So it's off brand. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Polyev did come out on Monday with a statement that he emailed to reporters, basically saying my comments about the RCMP weren't about law enforcement generally. I was referring specifically to the former commissioner of the RCMP, Brenda Lucky. I don't know if that was or was not the case, but it's an effort at damage control.

And it's also interesting, too, that the Toronto Star reported that Polyev's office essentially issued a damage control cheat sheet to its caucus, basically saying when you get asked by reporters, by members of opposing parties about these comments that Polyev made. during this interview, here's what you say, and you say that we support law enforcement. Wow, so interesting. And is it unusual for Pierpoliab to kind of backtrack on these statements? It is, actually. Like, I can't think of a lot of other occasions where he has backtrack. And I think it shows how off-brand and how off-mess he was and how potentially damaging this is. I also find it very interesting that this information about damage control for the caucus has leaked out. It's not so interesting that the office of the official opposition would give instructions to its caucus about how to handle a scandal. That happens all the time. But what does not happen all the time is that the information is leaked to the media.

And that tells me that there's a bit of conflict and something funny going on within the conservative caucus specifically about these statements. That's fascinating. And we should also point out that, you know, there's this backtracking happening, but Pierre Polive did not apologize for the comments. No, he did not apologize. If anything, he's doubling down. he's just targeting his comments towards Brenda Lucky and not towards law enforcement writ large. Can you just kind of help me understand? Why is it such a big deal that he made these comments on a YouTube channel like this?

I think what's really interesting and relevant to Pollyev specifically, I mean, on the one hand, it's pretty egregious for the leader of the official opposition and for someone who wants to be prime minister to talk about a conspiracy to cover up criminal wrongdoing by the former government. I mean, that in and of itself is pretty astounding to hear. I think it's relevant to his political fortunes in particular because it feeds the perception of him that arguably cost him the election last time. So him saying this makes him seem unserious, unprincipled, unhinged, frankly. And it draws a direct line of comparison between him and Donald Trump. Because as we know, the U.S. president is fond of talking about his political.

enemies in terms of criminals and getting them behind bars. And that was a criticism that Pahliav had to face during the election was that he was too like Trump and that he would be soft on Trump. So for him to feed into that perception now, I think he's basically handing it to his critics on a silver platter by putting out these statements and giving them the opportunity to draw that direct comparison. I think that's why it's so significant as a political misstep because it really feeds into that perception of him as not the right guy to lead Canada at this time. Right.

And this is not just about this interview. He's also been doing some tweeting. Tell me about that. Yeah, I mean, we all do things that are not good for us, but we can't help ourselves, right? Some people smoke, some people tweet, and I tweet, and so does Pierre Pahliav. I mean, he tweeted recently. One of the things that got a lot of people excited, let's say, was he was quote tweeting his wife, Anna, who was talking about socialism, and Polyev tweeted something about all of the failures of socialism in the past.

And he referred to the Nazis as socialist, which, I mean, perhaps is true if you consider North Korea democratic because they have the word democratic in their name. But that's about as far as it goes. So he got pretty annihilated online for that one. And the other thing that he's been doing, which is more of a trend, is tweeting defenses, not necessarily of the trucker convoy, but of participants in the trucker convoy, as they've been going through the sentencing process. Of course, a few of them were, a couple of them were sentenced just a week or so ago. Two of the organizers involved in the trucker convoy were sentenced to house arrest. So the most interesting one was recently when he called them peaceful protesters.

And I suppose that's a matter of debate. I mean, the protesters during the trucker convoy weren't lighting cars on fire or breaking windows. But I don't know, I think when you occupy a downtown core for three weeks and you impede businesses and you make it difficult for residents to go into their homes and you honk at all hours of night and you ignore police instructions and when there are elements of your group that are talking about overthrowing the government, I don't know if you could call that peaceful, but Pahliav did. So I think together it creates an impression of him, certainly, along with this interview, that he is kind of becoming sort of like those right-wing trolls that go online and try and provoke the libs and talk about how the Nazis were actually socialist and the trucker convoy was good and how the RCMP is in the bag for the liberals. It creates its impression that he has kind of lost what he's trying to do. Interesting. So we might not know the motivations of Peer, probably have at this moment. But do you think that he's getting the reaction that he wants?

I don't think he is because I think if he was getting the reaction that he wanted, he wouldn't be backtracking. He wouldn't be issuing these clarifications and these statements. I mean, I think, as you say, it's hard to get into its head, right? I don't know what his motivation is. I think if this was a deliberate strategy, then whoever came up with the strategy should be fired. And if it's pure, probably, yeah, that makes things kind of complicated, right? But I don't think it's deliberate strategy. I think of, and again, I'm reticent to psychoanalyze him because I have no idea what's going on in his head.

But I try and think of it from a very human perspective. And I think, you know, if I was someone who had spent 20 years working towards this one specific goal and it was right there, like I could touch it, I could taste it. I was measuring the drapes. I was putting pictures of my kids on the desk in the prime minister's office. And all of a sudden, Justin Trudeau leaves. And then this guy, Mark Kearney, comes in. and he becomes prime minister. And then he calls an election.

And he wins that election again. And now you're on the outs and you lose your own seat. So now you have to go and accept the resignation of one of your MPs and work in a by-election and win back your seat despite the fact that you won the best showing that the Conservative Party has ever had. And you're still not there. And you look at the polls now. And Mark Carney is still actually doing okay,

despite some of the hiccups he's faced in office, I mean, I would be angry too, and I'd be looking at who to blame, and I'd be looking at the RCMP, and I'd be looking at all of the people who called me this and that and thinking, is it my fault or are all these things lining up against me? So, I mean, I understand the frustration. I don't think the method is doing him any favors. We'll be right back. So, Robin, how is this all being received by the Conservative Party? The Conservative Caucus is quite disciplined, usually. So we're not hearing a lot from the caucus itself other than the leaks about the instructions that came out from Pierre Polyev's office. What was interesting, though, is last week there was an op-ed published in the Toronto Star by Dimitri Sudis, who was high up in Stephen Harper's government. And it just annihilated Polyev for these comments.

for his behaviors, really, since the election and during the election. He said that the principled, serious, and credible conservative party that was established under Stephen Harper is falling apart under Pierre Pahliav. And it's not necessarily a new criticism. We heard it from Ontario Premier Doug Ford, his campaign director, Corey Tonight, during the election, was repeatedly going after Palliev for not pivoting during the election, for not being serious for sort of keeping up with his somewhat juvenile schick of slogans and attacks and those sorts of things during the election.

So it's not a new criticism, but I think that failure to pivot is becoming even more apparent now. How much weight does someone like Dimitius Sudez have in this conversation? It depends on who you ask, frankly. I think he does a lot to outsiders as well. I don't know how involved he is in the current incarnation of the conservative. party. But when someone like that who was part of the federal conservatives, there's a big divide between the provincial conservatives in Ontario and the federal conservatives in terms of ideology in terms of their fidelity to conservatism, there's a whole topic that's outside

of this that we can talk about with that. But I think Sudist does carry some weight. I don't know how representative he is of the conservative caucus itself, but of the conservative brand. He's still a quite credible name. So it's something that's making people take a second look at what's happening within the Conservative Party. There still isn't a credible challenger that would pose a significant risk to Polyev's leadership in January. That's right. He's up for leadership review in January. Right. He is up for a leadership review. So right now it looks like he's still got that solidly in the bag. But we know from last year, like a lot of things between December and January can change, right? That's a funny time of year. We lost a prime minister around

that time. So right now it looks like his grip on the leadership is still quite strong, but a few more mistakes like this, that could change. And you mentioned something earlier about how the fact that there was that leak to the media about this strategy of how to deal with these comments. That's a very interesting thing to point out that something's going on in the Conservative Party there. Right. Those leaks don't happen all the time from the conservatives and you usually don't see it a lot from opposition as well. Like in the government, people sometimes feel constrained in caucus to have their voices heard. And that's generally where we see the leaks come from for a leak to come from an opposition party at this point. You stop and take note and you

wonder what's going on. Yeah. So let's talk a bit about how Pierre probably attacked Trudeau in this conversation. So questioning the RC&P is a pretty big deal for the opposition leader. And Pahliav was questioned the RCP in reference to Justin Trudeau, who of course is not our prime minister anymore. Why do you think he's still going after Trudeau? Oh, he's not over him, right? Trudeau is gone. He's gone, man. He's not coming back.

I think, well, first of all, it's a bit of a tangent. But what I found so interesting about the Pollyav Trudeau dynamic is I think in politics there's a lot of theater, right? And people will argue in the House of Commons or in front of the cameras and then they'll go back home and they'll shake hands and ask each other about their kids and stuff. I think there was a general dislike between these two guys. I think that was really genuine, actually. So it's interesting to see that manifest.

I think Polly has ongoing fixation with Trudeau, you know, it's kind of like when people peek in high school and you always want to talk about how you were the prom queen and it was such a great time and you'd have parties on every weekend. And then, you know, it makes you feel better about sitting in your cubicle when you're like 35 years old and you're a bookkeeper. And, you know, you think back to that glory time. And that really was Pierre Polyev's glory time, right? Like he was an excellent, excellent nemesis for Justin Frudeau.

And he is not for Mark Kearney. He is not the leader in waiting, which he was during Justin Trudeau's time, right? He was an effective foil so effective that he got Justin Frito to resign. And it's almost like he's not done prosecuting that case because it works so well for him. So certainly, I think from an outsider's perspective, you would say to him, like, dude, high school's over. I know you did great. I know you loved it. But it's time to move on.

I think he's in that space right now where he's still thinking about high school and thinking about how fun it was to be, you know, the high school quarterback and all the girls loved you. But that time is gone now, right? You've got some bookkeeping to do. Yeah. So that's a good point that, you know, high school is over. This person that you've been fixating on is gone. So does he have any moves against Carney, the actual prime minister? So the conservatives are in a really difficult spot right now because what Carnie's liberals have done essentially coming in is they've taken action very quickly on a lot of the things that the conservatives have demanded action on.

So the carbon tax is gone. The digital services tax is gone. The EV mandate has been paused. We're seeing action on home building, albeit in the form of more bureaucracy, which the conservatives don't want. But, I mean, it's action nonetheless. We're going to get new measures to address bail reform. So all of these things that the conservatives have been pushing for are happening in one way or the other. And that puts the conservatives in a tough spot because how do they oppose something like that?

Well, they oppose it by saying this isn't going far enough. I think there is, however, an opportunity in immigration. Yeah, tell me about that. The conservatives are very good at tapping into public sentiment. And public sentiment right now on immigration, which we can see from a variety of different. sources and polling is not favorable, to put it mildly. I think people are really anxious about the numbers of temporary foreign workers in the country, for example, and international students and so forth.

And the Carney government has made some indications that they're going to crack down on it. But I think it's an opportunity for the conservatives to come in and really make that push forcefully. And we've seen that already last week, Michelle Rumpel-Garner came out. with an amendment that would have essentially ended birthright citizenship, which is the right for anyone who is born on Canadian soil to be automatically granted Canadian citizenship. And that's something that we do in Canada and the U.S., but a lot of pure nations don't do that, actually. They require that a parent either be a citizen or a permanent resident. So Remblegarner came out and said, let's change this. The government, of course, said no, shut it down immediately.

But I think it got a conversation going. And I can see the conservatives continuing to go down that path, especially because the liberals, I think when you think about the party writ large, there is this almost sort of like Laurentian hesitation with pushing back on immigration. Like it's sort of against the liberal DNA. So I think there is a real opportunity for the conservatives there to take this issue, exploit it, and make it something that really defines them. Are they seeing support for this, this push? They are seeing support. I mean, this particular proposal went nowhere, as I think everyone's sort of expected, but they can see the public increasingly getting on side. And I think if they need to find attention and a way to distinguish what they are talking about compared to what Kearney is doing, that's an area that they can do that. So, Roman, you've argued that perhaps Polyeva is playing this 4D chess here. Let's entertain the idea that he could be playing 40 chess. He's really strategic. here with his message. Do you have any sense of what that game could be? Like, can you see a way

through to a long game that ends with a prime minister, Paulyev? Not the way it's going, frankly. I don't think so. Because I think in this moment right now, if there were to be the budget were to fail, for example, and we've got an election right away, I don't think the mood of Canadians has changed significantly enough to elect this guy who is talking about RCMP conspiracies, frankly. I think if you look at polling, some opinion has changed in terms of a ranking of most important issues. So during the election, it was Trump and tariffs in the U.S. and potentially being annexed and all of those things. And we can see in the past couple of months that's sort of faded. But cost of living again.

Exactly. Cost of living and housing. And all of those old concerns are creeping back up, right? But that doesn't mean that we're not still looking for someone credible and serious and competent to take on those issues. And right now, Mark Carney seems to be the guy. When you look at opinions of who would make the best prime minister, Kearney wins every time, right? And the polls are showing that right now.

Exactly. I don't think Pollyev is in a position right now to take that over. So I don't think the way that things are going, the long game would pan out for him, frankly. I think he really needs to change tactics and change approaches if he hopes to be successful at another election go, certainly against a guy like Mark Kearnie. All right, Robin, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you.

That was Robin Urbac, an opinion columnist for the globe. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you.