Conservative Party names Pierre Poilievre its new leader

After months of campaigning, the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) announced Pierre Poilievre was the winner of the party’s 2022 leadership race in Ottawa.

The 43-year-old Poilievre won the election by receiving 68.1 per cent of the vote, while runner-up Jean Charest had 16.8 per cent of the vote.

Poilievre, a party veteran and former cabinet minister known for his combative style, won a first-ballot victory as the results were announced before a room of Conservative faithful in Ottawa on Saturday evening.

Poilievre is the first CPC leader to win on the first ballot since Stephen Harper won in the first round in 2004.

In 2020, it took three rounds of counting for former leader Erin O’Toole to be elected the winner.

Poilievre, who faced off against four other candidates, was the clear frontrunner in the CPC’s latest contest. According to his campaign, he sold 300,000 memberships.

Sixty-two of the party’s 118 members of Parliament also supported him.

Poilievre was raised in Calgary. He has said the reason he became interested in politics is because of an injury that left him unable to keep playing competitive sports as a teen.

In the years since the Conservatives lost power, Poilievre served as the party’s finance critic, honing his economic messages against government spending and deficits, which he delivered more loudly once the COVID-19 pandemic hit and inflation surged.

Poilievre was first elected in 2004 as one of the youngest MPs in the House of Commons, where he represents the Ottawa-area riding now called Carleton.

— With files from The Canadian Press