Conservatives celebrate anniversary of Harper’s first win while contemplating the party’s future

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Former prime minister Stephen Harper, right, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre raise hands at a rally during a campaign stop in Edmonton in April, 2025.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press

The future of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party will collide this week with its past: The party as run by Stephen Harper.

The party’s three-day convention in Calgary is being followed by nearly a week’s worth of events beginning Monday to mark 20 years since Mr. Harper first led the Conservatives to electoral victory, serving up an immediate contrast between the two leaders.

Much was made in Calgary of the fact Mr. Poilievre received 87.4-per-cent support in his leadership review – more than Mr. Harper secured when he had to face the membership after losing the 2004 election.

Mr. Harper would go on to win three governments after that, raising the question of whether Mr. Poilievre can pull off a win of his own.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Jason Kenney said he thinks he can – but it will take work. Mr. Poilievre, he said, has alienated traditional supporters, such as provincial and business leaders, in the past.

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Mr. Kenney said he needs to mend fences with them, and also with former Conservative voters who’ve left for the Liberals because they want to see a serious response to the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“That doesn’t mean dropping the broad populist appeal and the focus on kitchen-table economics, but it does mean, I think, demonstrating more statesmanship and gravity,” Mr. Kenney said.

That starts by actually naming Mr. Trump, he said, noting Mr. Poilievre failed to do that in his Friday night speech to delegates. “Pretending that Trump doesn’t exist is not a strategy for dealing with an 800-pound gorilla who body-slams this country every week,” he said.

Mr. Poilievre was 24 years old when Mr. Harper became leader of the Conservative Party.

He was in the same demographic then as the voters his party is counting on to deliver them the next election.

He spoke directly to them in his Friday night remarks, saying he was fighting for them.

“I’ll never give up, because the young couple scrimping to start a family, and the single mother fighting each day to feed her kids, they never give up,” he said.

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Though much has been made of Mr. Poilievre’s direct appeal to young voters, one young delegate said he was drawn to the party first by the energy and passion of MPs Raquel Dancho, Melissa Lantsman and now-former MP Michelle Ferreri.

Mirco Peters, a 22-year-old tow-truck driver, said he still thinks the party can win, but that effort is broader than Mr. Poilievre’s alone.

“I was a football player. When you fall short, it’s not just one player, it’s not just the captain or the coach, it’s the whole team,” he said. “I think we all fell short, and we need to find what caused that.”

Mr. Peters was not yet born when the modern-day Conservative Party was forged from a merger of the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance.

Tension between the two factions dominated party politics for years afterward, and hampered the party’s electoral success as rivals accused Mr. Harper of having a hidden social agenda.

Many members of the modern-day party have no experience in those trenches. But the divide is still visible in the relationships between Mr. Poilievre and conservative premiers.

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The Ontario Progressive Conservatives, led by Doug Ford, scheduled their convention at the same time as the federal one. Tim Houston, the PC Premier of Nova Scotia, said publicly last week he’s not a member of the federal party.

Ian Brodie, who has previously played several key roles in the federal party, said he’s been watching to see if federal-provincial party tensions will become a new minefield for Mr. Poilievre.

But he said by and large, the Red-versus-Blue Tory divisions are a thing of the past. Now, Conservatives face the challenge of recognizing why people voted for Mr. Carney’s Liberals.

“There’s a more powerful movement today that wants things their way and has trouble understanding why people might vote for a different party,” he said. “To win, you have to put yourself in the feet of the people who voted for a different party last time.”

Mr. Brodie also said it’s a positive to have the events commemorating Mr. Harper after the party’s convention. It allows everyone to be energized by the convention debates and then be reminded the party has a purpose, he said.

“It’s not just about airing your views in opposition, but that the party was put together to be competitive, to win,” he said.

Conservative convention delegates show little division after Poilievre’s leadership win

Mr. Brodie said there was a time 25 years ago when conservatives thought the Liberals would win forever. “And that’s not healthy for the country, no matter what,” he said.

“And so we put our minds to making sure that people would have an alternative. I think that’ll be in people’s minds next week, if the challenge this time is a little bit different.”

When Mr. Harper led the Conservatives to victory, Canada’s political landscape was markedly different. The political right had unified under his leadership while the Liberals were divided after an internal civil war. The New Democrats, with Jack Layton at the helm, were on their way up, too.

It wasn’t a runaway victory for Mr. Harper in 2006. He secured a minority government with 36 per cent of the vote.

In 2025, the Liberals were united around new leader Mark Carney, and the NDP were in a free fall. The Poilievre Conservatives captured 41 per cent of the popular vote, but it wasn’t enough – Mr. Carney won a minority government.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Tony Clement said Mr. Harper took lessons away from the 2004 defeat. “He had to really do some soul-searching. ‘Am I the right leader for this generation of conservatives?’ ” Mr. Clement said.

“He came to the conclusion he was. He made some adjustments to his campaign and his campaign style in terms of how he presented Conservative policies, and that became a winning combination for 2006. I think Pierre is learning.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Michelle Ferreri’s surname.