OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s message to fellow Tories at the Canada Strong and Free Network conference on Thursday was to keep fighting.
The annual event in Ottawa is billed as the country’s largest gathering of the conservative movement, and this year’s theme is “a winning vision.”
Poilievre gave the keynote address on the conference’s first full day in front of a crowd of about 500 people who greeted him with polite applause, and gave a standing ovation after his 20-minute speech.
The Tory leader did not directly speak about the next election or articulate how the party would turn around its fortunes to win that election after four consecutive losses to the Liberals since 2015.
Instead, he said the Conservatives are already winning in matters of policy.
“We have won every single debate, on every single public policy issue in the last decade: On inflation, carbon taxes, housing, drugs, crime, resource development, we’ve been proven right,” he said, drawing some applause.
He added that Conservatives won the debate “so thoroughly that Liberals have stopped debating us altogether and started plagiarizing.”
But Poilievre argued Prime Minister Mark Carney is failing to follow through, and as a result Canadians are less happy and the country less prosperous.
“Something bad is happening out there, and it’s getting worse,” he said.
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Poilievre characterized the material difference between the Carney Liberals and the Trudeau Liberals as “an illusion” evidenced by high government spending and deficits, and the lack of progress on the major projects Carney pledged would be built at speeds not seen in generations.
Poilievre said the opposition has to fight for the people who voted Conservative in the last election — in record numbers, he reminded the crowd. The conservative movement, he said, must decide what kind of country it wants to fight for.
“Do we want state-controlled crony capitalism or do we want free enterprise capitalism?” he asked.
He argued that special interest groups have outsized power under Liberal rule, and their reliance on lobbying and government handouts means they’re focused on maintaining the status quo.
“And that’s exactly why they want to stop and change me,” he said.
Since losing the election last April, Poilievre has faced criticism from within the conservative movement, and even within the Conservative caucus, that he failed to adapt when a new Liberal leader and a new U.S. president changed the central question of the campaign.
Pundits and party insiders have privately and publicly urged him to change his message and tone for over a year. While the Conservative leader did adjust in recent months, with two international trips and a softer tone in some long-form independent media interviews, he has never fully committed to changing the playbook that saw him push Justin Trudeau from office and had the party on the cusp of winning a massive majority government in late 2024.
On Thursday, he stuck with some of his greatest hits.
“The illusion was that Mark Carney was not as woke as Justin Trudeau, and certainly he is not quite as nauseating,” Poilievre said, earning a laugh from the crowd.
The Canada Strong and Free Network conference is also scheduled to feature a fireside chat with former U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo this evening.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, are both set to speak on Friday.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2026.
Canadian Press Staff, The Canadian Press
