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But the moment Donald Trump returned to the White House and started talking about , while also rolling out a punishing new trade policy, the public mood shifted again. Scarcity gave way to precarity. Fear replaced anger. More than half of Canadians told us they were deeply worried about uncertainty, about big systems no longer working, about things getting worse.

And into that atmosphere stepped Mark Carney. His arrival at the head of the Liberal party could not have been better timed. Carney embodied reassurance 鈥� the elite with the resume, the experience, the gravitas that Canadians suddenly craved. Elites, long distrusted, were now sought after as guardians of stability.

The effect was profound. Older Canadians, especially men, who had been leaning Conservative, shifted. They weren鈥檛 looking for disruption; they wanted a safe harbour for their homes, pensions and a sense of order. Carney provided that harbour. Poilievre, in contrast, still embodied risk and volatility.

Compounding the problem, the Conservatives had turned their backs on mainstream media. In an election where Boomers 鈥� loyal readers of newspapers like this one and viewers of CTV and CBC 鈥� were pivotal, Poilievre effectively cut himself off from their information diet. That decision widened the gap between a campaign of reassurance and one of disruption.

That, in short, is why the Liberals prevailed. Carney reassured; Poilievre unsettled. Canadians with something to lose chose stability. Those with little to lose, disproportionately younger and middle-aged Canadians, chose disruption.

Now, with Poilievre back in the House of Commons following his byelection win, the question is whether he has changed. From my vantage point, I think the answer is yes and no.

The most obvious shift has been media strategy. The Conservative leader now regularly engages with mainstream outlets he once spurned. He鈥檚 sat down with CBC鈥檚 “The House,” appeared on CTV鈥檚 “Power Play,” and Conservative MPs are back on “Power & Politics.” Expect more of this: the party knows it must reconnect with Boomers if it wants to ease a path back to power.

On Donald Trump, too, there鈥檚 a change. Poilievre now frames himself as tougher on Trump than Carney, criticizing what he calls the prime minister鈥檚 鈥渆lbows down鈥� approach to trade talks and promising that if he was prime minister there wouldn鈥檛 be a trade deal with any tariffs. The politics are clear: Trump is a liability for the Conservatives鈥� older, risk-averse voters and Poilievre needs to be on the right side of that file.

Even his rhetoric has softened. Listen closely in Question Period and interviews and you鈥檒l hear fewer sharp slogans, less repetition of 鈥淎xe the Tax鈥� 鈥� style sound bites. He is still combative, but the volume is dialed down.

And yet, at his essence, Poilievre is still Poilievre. The dichotomy that defined 2025 鈥� Carney as reassurance, Poilievre as disruption 鈥� remains intact.

Polls today show a competitive race. Most surveys put the Liberals and Conservatives neck and neck. Carney is more popular than Poilievre, but Poilievre is not deeply unpopular. He is polarizing, which is often worse: those who dislike him rarely change their minds. Justin Trudeau鈥檚 final years as prime minister showed just how immovable negative perceptions can become.

Poilievre continues to hunt for wedge issues. Immigration is the latest. He has called for far lower immigration levels and even for abolishing the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, positions designed to split the Liberals鈥� coalition but ones that risk further polarizing his own. He insists the government鈥檚 spending restraint is inadequate and warns that fiscal decline threatens prosperity.

And looming over all this is his leadership review in January. Internally, he must prove two things: that he represents the instincts of his base and that he can win nationally. That tension, appealing to his activists while broadening his reach, has always defined the modern Conservative dilemma.

And so, like many things with a pollster like me, it comes down to simple math. I鈥檝e long argued there is no natural Conservative majority in Canada. It is possible, as Stephen Harper demonstrated in 2011, but only under unusual circumstances. The 41 per cent of the vote Poilievre captured in 2025 is likely close to the ceiling. Expanding beyond it risks fracturing the coalition.

That coalition is firm but there are some deep fault lines. In our surveys, about 1-in-4 Conservative voters express favourable views of Donald Trump. Others despise him. The gap between fiscal conservatives, populists and traditional 鈥減rogressive鈥� conservatives has cracked before. Think back to the Mulroney coalition splintering into Reform and the Bloc. It could crack again.

That is why, for Poilievre, holding the coalition together may matter more than converting new supporters. Reinforce what brought people into the tent, wait for Carney鈥檚 popularity to erode as governing gets harder, and hope the NDP and Bloc reassert themselves enough to weaken Liberal dominance. It is a defensive strategy, but perhaps the only viable one.

The risk is that it cedes initiative. If Carney continues to embody reassurance and stability 鈥� and if Canadians continue to prize those qualities in the face of uncertainty 鈥� disruption alone may never be enough to tip the balance.

This helps explain why, if I were Poilievre, I would want another election sooner rather than later. Economic conditions may worsen, eroding Carney鈥檚 glow. But other crises loom, none bigger than the threat of Quebec separation.

The Parti Qu茅b茅cois is on track to win the next provincial election. Its leader has within his first mandate. That means within three years, Canada could once again face a national unity crisis. And in that environment, Canadians will not seek disruption. They will seek reassurance. They will look to the leader who offers calm, stability and protection against disintegration. That plays into Carney鈥檚 hand.

The longer Poilievre waits, the greater the risk that the demand side of politics shifts even further away from his supply. Timing is everything.

I don鈥檛 know Poilievre well. I鈥檝e only spoken with him a handful of times. But from what I鈥檝e seen, disruption is not just his tactic, it is his identity. He is the Disruptor-in-Chief.

That may be an asset in certain moments. It may even have been the right posture in the years leading up to 2025. But in today鈥檚 Canada, a country caught between economic strain, Trump鈥檚 aggression and looming constitutional uncertainty, disruption is not what most people say they want. They want protection. They want assurance. They want calm hands.

Tactically, Poilievre has changed but the open question and the one that will define politics in Canada for several years is whether Canadians will once again be in the market for disruption. If they are, Poilievre is ready. If not, his tactical shifts may prove insufficient.

Either way, I think the politics of reassurance versus disruption remain the central fault line in Canadian politics. And Pierre Poilievre, no matter how he recalibrates, is still standing firmly on the disruption side.