Good morning. He is the abrasive leader who has taken his party from the conventional right to the populist flank. He paints a dark vision of a “broken” nation and promises to put his country first. He is fond of hurling insults at his political opponents, says he wants to take back control of the border – and Elon Musk loves him. His name is Pierre Poilievre, and he is the favourite to win Canada’s next election.
Poilievre’s similarities to Donald Trump are linked to his positioning as a champion of the anti-vaccine mandate “Freedom Convoy” of truckers that paralysed Ottawa in 2022 – but he has a very different political history, and operates in a very different ecosystem. Now that Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation, in recognition of his unpopularity ahead of a likely spring election, he will have to test his aggressive style against a new opponent – but at the moment, most analysts think that he is likely to prevail.
In the first Trump term, Trudeau’s Canada was widely viewed as a liberal counterweight to its southern neighbour. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Leyland Cecco, who reports for the Guardian from Toronto, about how Poilievre wants to change that. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
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AI | Artificial intelligence will be “mainlined into the veins” of the UK, ministers have announced, with a multibillion-pound investment in computing capacity despite widespread public fear about the technology’s effects.
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Los Angeles fires | With the two biggest wildfires in Los Angeles still less than 30% contained, the death toll rose to 24 and officials in California warned of strengthening winds in the coming days.
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Democracy | One in five generation Z and millennial Britons prefer strong leaders without elections to democracy, a report has found. In contrast, only 8% of people over 55 preferred an undemocratic system.
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NHS | Paramedics in England are unable to respond to 100,000 urgent 999 calls every month because they are stuck outside hospitals waiting to hand over patients, the Guardian can reveal. Doctors said the figures were “jaw-dropping” and called on ministers to take immediate action to tackle the handover delays.
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Ukraine | Ukraine’s capture of two North Korean soldiers has provided a glimpse into Pyongyang’s participation in the Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. The two soldiers were taken prisoner in Kursk oblast, the scene of intense fighting since Ukraine launched a cross-border raid five months ago.
In depth: ‘Nobody really knows what Poilievre’s leadership will look like’
In the dog days of Justin Trudeau’s premiership, Donald Trump exulted in sending insults towards Ottawa as well as threats of a ruinous new set of 25% tariffs on Canadian imports to the US. He called Canada the 51st state, and addressed Trudeau as governor, rather than prime minister. More recently, he claimed he could use “economic force” to annex Canada to the US.
Beyond the serious consequences of any new set of tariffs, a lot of this is bluster, presumably – but as well as belittling Trudeau, it has put Pierre Poilievre in a curious position. How can a rightwing politician who prides himself on patriotism reconcile that presentation with a good relationship with Trump? And how would he seek to resolve that tension if he moves from the peanut gallery to centre stage?
“In a way, he’s the dog that catches the mail truck,” Leyland Cecco said. “Nobody really knows what his leadership will look like.”
Here’s what we do know about Canada’s likely future leader.
Who is Pierre Poilievre?
Poilievre was born in 1979 in Calgary, Alberta. His 16-year-old mother gave him up for adoption, and he was raised by two schoolteachers in the city’s suburbs. Although he hails from the Canadian west, where the vast majority only speak English, he grew up bilingual because his father is Fransaskois, Saskatchewan province’s small French-speaking population.
The west is a Conservative stronghold, and Poilievre has described forming his political identity early, partly as a result of seeing his family forced to move because of rocketing interest rates under the premiership of Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre. But most successful politicians in Canada are French-speaking.
“When you assess a candidate’s viability, you ask if they speak French,” Leyland said. “But there is a big geographic rift in Canada where the more conservative west has a sense of grievance, in many ways justified, about the way all politics moves through the east. So to have a Francophone name but hail from the prairies – straight off the bat, that’s a potent political identity.”
Poilievre was the youngest member of the House of Commons when he won election at 25 in 2004, and earned the nickname “Skippy” for his precocious debate-club energy. “He is a nerdy-looking guy, sharp tongued, and very effective in parliament,” Leyland said. “And he is primarily an advocate of the low-tax politics of his region.”
How have his politics changed?
The crucial period in Poilievre’s rise came in early 2022, when he allied himself to the “Freedom Convoy” – a blockade of Ottawa in protest at vaccine mandates for truck drivers that metastasized into a wider-ranging populist movement.
The Freedom Convoy was criticised, including by some conservatives, as a badly behaved partisan mob that combined protest over the handling of the pandemic with conspiracy theories and racist extremism – but Poilievre recognised the potency of their attack on Canada’s liberal establishment.
“It was very risky for him to support them,” Leyland said. “They were widely condemned. But he went and met with the leaders and treated them as proud, honest Canadians whose voices weren’t being heard. He saw the opportunity.” By the end of the year, he had been elected as leader of the Conservatives, easily defeating an opponent, Jean Charest, who said Poilievre’s support of the truckers should be disqualifying.
That support – which came with a move from suits and spectacles to tight-fitting T-shirts and aviators – was viewed by many as opportunistic. In this excellent Macleans profile from 2022, writer Shannon Proudfoot describes Poilievre as a “confounding cipher” who made the conscious choice to style himself as the tribune of the online right:
He is highly intelligent, insightful and reflective when not on display, but snide and reductive when he is. He is a workhorse who has stuffed his brain with knowledge that is almost old-fashioned in its intricacy; but he is also a corrosively of-the-moment politician dedicated to the meme-worthy partisan kick in the teeth. He didn’t have to be the internet troll of Canadian politics, because he had ample other capabilities at his disposal, but here we are.
Poilievre attacks Trudeau’s policies as “authoritarian socialism”, calls him a “wacko”, and deploys tried and tested rightwing talking points on crime, immigration, and the Liberals’ carbon tax. After Trudeau’s resignation speech, he said that he would “cap spending, axe taxes, reward work, build homes, uphold family, stop crime, secure borders, rearm our forces, restore our freedom and put Canada First”.
Leyland points to the carbon tax as “a good example of how he finds grievances and gloms on to them. Virtually all economists will tell you that it is not hurting ordinary Canadians the way he says it is, and that 90% of Canadians are better off. But it’s a cudgel to use against the government.”
If he wins power, his tendency to leap on the populist bandwagon of the moment may be a less useful tool. “His whole being is opposition leader,” Leyland said. “No one really knows what his policies are in terms of the mechanics.”
Why is he favourite to win the upcoming election?
Poilievre is not terribly popular: he has a net approval rating of -15. But that is still well ahead of Trudeau, who is in the doldrums at -52.
“This is a government that’s nine years old,” Leyland said. “And it’s hard to look around in Canada and not see that things are really expensive. The macro indicators suggest that the country is doing well, but people are struggling. You get to a point where, if the other party says they can fix it, you think you’ll give it a try. It’s an anti-incumbency moment.” This short documentary which Leyland made last summer gives a sense of the impact of rising housing costs and how that has fed a backlash against immigration.
In that context, Poilievre’s brand of pugnacious criticism has been an effective mechanism for capitalising on disaffection with the Liberals, and particularly a prime minister viewed as part of an out-of-touch elite. “He had what was needed against Trudeau,” Leyland said. “He’s very well timed. But we don’t know yet how that will work against whoever the new Liberal leader is.”
What would his relationship with Trump mean for Canada?
Trump views politics as a zero-sum game, and a matter of personal relationships: he assails progressive leaders wherever he finds them, and sings the praises of rightwing leaders he views as sympathetic to his worldview without much regard for what their policies mean for the US. He is, in other words, much less likely to belittle Poilievre as “governor” if he wins.
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Whether that will make any difference to his mooted tariff policy, or his attitude towards Canada more generally, is another question. “I don’t know how Poilievre will deal with Trump,” Leyland said. “He’s in a weird position where he wants to be friendly with him, but he also wants to be more nationalistic.”
In a recent interview with the rightwing culture warrior Jordan Peterson, Poilievre said: “If you look at the history of President Trump, he negotiates very aggressively and he likes to win, but in the end, he doesn’t appear to have a problem if his counterparty also wins.”
“He has to be really careful,” Leyland said. “If he’s seen as not serving the national interest, he will be punished. There has been a lot of handwringing about Canadian identity and national cohesion recently, and if he’s seen to be undermining that, he could pay a price.”
What else we’ve been reading
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Caroline Darian (above), the daughter of Gisèle Pelicot, finds herself in a horrifying position: the child of both victim and perpetrator, facing the mental torture of not knowing what he did to her. Angelique Chrisafis heard her remarkable story. Archie
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What’s the deal with the American rightwing and seed oils? Robert F Kennedy and other conservative influencers are dead against sunflower oil, vegetable oil and the like – but as Joel Snape writes, the science simply isn’t on their side. Charlie Lindlar, acting deputy editor, newsletters
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Almost two years into Sudan’s devastating war, writes Nesrine Malik, the fear is that the country is simply being written off by many global actors. Her column makes a powerful argument for what a terrible mistake that would be. Archie
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From Ally McBeal to Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill, Lucy Liu has been a pioneer for Asian actors. Ahead of starring in Steven Soderbergh’s forthcoming Presence, she spoke to Emine Saner about success, shame and what gives her strength. Charlie
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ICYMI: as the RMT leader Mick Lynch retires, Polly Smythe lauds a “trade union icon” who fought for his 80,000 members, never betrayed his working-class roots – and never backed down from a TV pundit. Charlie
Sport
Football | Manchester United progressed to the fourth round of the FA Cup despite playing for over an hour with 10 men at Arsenal. They had their goalkeeper, Altay Bayindir, to thank with a penalty save in normal time keeping the tie level 1-1 and one in the penalty shootout from Kai Havertz (pictured above). Elsewhere, Tottenham needed extra time to see off non-league Tamworth 3-0.
Tennis | Hady Habib became the first Lebanese player to win a match at a grand slam with a 7-6 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (6) win over Bu Yunchaokete of China in the first round in Melbourne. Greek 11th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas was sent packing by American talent Alex Michelsen in four sets.
Rugby union | Toulon defeated Harlequins 33-21 in the Champions Cup, with their former England second row David Ribbans putting the win down to the “different level of physicality” in the French league.
The front pages
The Guardian splashes on Labour’s public rollout of artificial intelligence, with “From schools to potholes: huge expansion of AI in public sector”. The Times reports on the prospect of Chinese renewable energy infrastructure in the UK with “Labour’s net zero push ‘hands power to Beijing’”, while the Telegraph reports “Cabinet told cuts must be ‘ruthless’”.
“Grindr dating app linked to dozens of child sex abuse cases,” reports i. The Financial Times leads with “Meta retreat on fact-checking triggers advertisers’ fears of toxic content surge”. The Mail (“Half a million in 12 hour A&E trolley hell”) and Mirror (“Stab horror in A&E”) take aim at the NHS.
Today in Focus
Culture 2025: what to watch, read and listen to this year
Culture critics Lanre Bakare, Ben Beaumont-Thomas and Catherine Shoard look ahead to the best of the year in film, TV, books and music
Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Phil Daoust’s Fit for ever column catalogues his quest to “stay well” from his 60s into his 70s and 80s. He’s explored everything from micro-workouts to long bouts of yoga, and yet his latest discovery may be the most potent yet: the power of the humble squat.
It turns out this one motion, and the many variations upon it, may be the key to keeping on going. As Phil writes, “A good squat, after all, trains and tests everything from balance to coordination to mobility; your hips, your knees and your ankles; your quads, your glutes and your calves; your bones, your tendons and your muscles. If you can’t squat, you’re pretty much stuffed.”
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.