Federal Parties: 1)Harper calls for national unity, independence at portrait unveiling; 2)Conservatives, Poilievre seek to carry convention momentum back into Parliament 3)Conservatives say they are united after strong endorsement of Poilievre’s leadership; 4)Poilievre and his caucus are not bound by any of the policies debated and adopted at the convention
1)Harper calls for national unity, independence at portrait unveiling
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Catherine Morrison, February 3, 2026
Former prime minister Stephen Harper’s official portrait was unveiled in Ottawa Tuesday, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the election of his first Conservative government.
Speaking to a crowd of ministers, premiers, current and former MPs and other dignitaries, Harper stressed that parties must work together to preserve Canada’s national unity and independence.
“I sincerely hope that mine is just one of many portraits of prime ministers from both parties that will continue to be hung here for decades and centuries to come,” said Harper.
“But that will require that in these perilous times, both parties, whatever their other differences, come together against external forces that threaten our independence and against domestic policies that threaten our unity.”
Harper added that “we must preserve Canada.”
“We must make any sacrifice necessary to preserve the independence and the unity of this blessed land,” he said.
Harper’s portrait was presented in a ceremony at the Sir John A. Macdonald Building in downtown Ottawa.
The portrait was painted by Canadian artist Phil Richards, who is known for the Diamond Jubilee Portrait of Queen Elizabeth 2.
Richards said he and Harper started “serious work” on the project in 2023 at Harper’s home in Alberta. He said the experience allowed him to get to know the former prime minister as “a brilliant, pragmatic intellectual with expansive interests and an authentic curiosity of the world around him.”
The portrait depicts Harper in the 1920 office of the prime minister, which is undergoing renovations but was recreated based on architectural drawings. The painting is filled with references relating to Harper, including his cat, Stanley, and some of the books he has written.
Harper was sworn in as prime minister in February 2006 and served in the role until November 2015, when he stepped down after his party was defeated by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
The Harper years brought some sweeping changes to Canada, including a cut to bring the GST to five per cent and some controversial tough-on-crime policies.
Harper also successfully introduced a motion in the House of Commons in 2006 that recognized the Québécois as “a nation within a united Canada” and formally apologized in 2008 on behalf of Canadians for the residential schools system.
Before the portrait’s unveiling, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told the House of Commons Harper “reminds us of better days” and pointed to his leadership through a recession and two wars.
Poilievre said Harper passed laws that kept Canada’s streets safe and expanded opportunity for Canadians.
“We look back on his many successes not just in nostalgia but with hope. Because it’s been done before, it can be done again,” Poilievre said.
During question period Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney pointed out that Harper was sitting in the gallery and said it would be an honour to unveil his portrait.
Speaking on Tuesday afternoon, Carney said the official portraits of prime ministers seek to capture their character and the context that defined their leadership. He said Harper’s portrait pays tribute to his service to others, his leadership and love for Canada.
Carney said Harper was a balanced-budget conservative, a comment which received applause from the crowd.
He also said Harper spoke about the importance of national unity and that he shares that vision.
“In a political climate increasingly buffeted by noise, he brought composure, intellect, and decisiveness to public life,” said Carney, who was appointed governor of the Bank of Canada under Harper.
“Qualities that helped see Canada through one of the most perilous times since the Great Depression.”
— With files from Sarah Ritchie
2)Conservatives, Poilievre seek to carry convention momentum back into Parliament
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Craig Lord, February 1, 2026
Political analysts say the federal Conservatives and leader Pierre Poilievre have momentum coming off a unifying convention in Calgary but the party still has a hill to climb in Parliament to one-up Prime Minster Mark Carney and the Liberals.
The Conservatives wrapped up their three-day national convention on Saturday touting party unity. Poilievre easily passed his mandatory leadership review with 87.4 per cent support from delegates.
Pollster Nik Nanos said Poilievre’s result was “quite striking.”
He said the test should put an end to talk that the Conservative leader doesn’t have a firm grasp of the party after a tough 2025 that saw the party raise its vote share but lose the spring election.
A pair of MPs — Chris d’Entremont and Michael Ma — also crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals late last year, which Nanos said suggested there could be more discontent within Poilievre’s caucus.
That didn’t show up at the convention, he said.
“The convention shows that not only is he in control of the party, the Conservatives — at least today — are united behind him as the leader of the party going into the next election,” Nanos said.
Amanda Galbraith, a former adviser to Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper and now partner at public affairs firm Oyster Group, said a well-managed Calgary convention gives the party momentum in the nascent winter session of Parliament.
Poilievre could have survived with delegate support in the mid-70s, but it would have been problematic, she said.
“But to have such, I think, a resounding endorsement from the party was very good for him and shows the unity there,” Galbraith said.
The Conservatives trailed the Liberals by four points in Nanos polling from the week before the convention but the firm also finds Carney now leads Poilievre by 28 points as Canadians’ preferred prime minister.
Nanos said Poilievre’s flagging support compared to the prime minister is less a comment on the Conservative leader and more a reflection of Carney’s own surging popularity in recent weeks, capped off by a high-profile speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Canadians might be playing closer attention to internal party conventions than in previous years, Nanos said. Canadians worried over U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade aggression and the future of Canada might plug into these forums to get a sense of the leaders’ visions for Canada.
In his speech Friday night, Poilievre’s main message was one of hope in the face of the rising cost of living. He repeated recent pledges to work with the Liberals to get U.S. tariffs removed and build out new markets, promising to put “country ahead of party.”
Galbraith said she believes the affordability angle is a “weak spot” for Carney that Poilievre can continue to exploit, even as the Liberals crowd out the Conservatives on core policy issues like defence spending and energy production.
Carney last week proposed a top-up the existing GST credit aimed to help Canadians struggling with the cost of groceries. The Conservatives accused Carney of recycling policies from his predecessor Justin Trudeau but Poilievre signalled the party would let the measure pass.
Galbraith said the Conservatives will have to pick their spots where they want to obstruct the Liberal agenda in the coming months, which could lead the minority government to fold early and trigger a spring election.
The Official Opposition can be productive in Parliament by proposing amendments to crime legislation and others areas that can advance the Conservatives’ agenda without fully endorsing the Liberal approach, she argued.
Nanos agreed that co-operating with the Liberals is a sound short-term strategy, but in the long run, the party will need to differentiate itself from the incumbent.
“If there’s no difference between the Carney Liberals and the Poilievre Conservatives, that will favour Mark Carney because he’s so far ahead when it comes to his personal brand compared to Pierre Poilievre,” Nanos said.
With the Conservatives sitting at 35.2 per cent support to the Liberals’ 39.2 per cent in his firm’s latest polling, Nanos said the level of support for the Tories is at a point where the party could win an electoral victory.
The problem is not the magnitude of support, he said, it’s the vote distribution.
With the NDP polling at 11.6 per cent, Nanos said there’s not enough interest in the struggling party to draw progressive-leaning voters away from the Liberals — restricting the Conservatives’ path to forming government.
“This isn’t about people switching from the Liberals to the Conservatives. This is about people more likely to switch from the Liberals back to the New Democrats,” he said.
After an historically weak finish in the 2025 election, the NDP lost official party status in the House of Commons, which limits their representation on Parliamentary committees and the ability to hold the government to account in question period.
Nanos said it could be in the Conservatives’ best interest to find a way to co-operate with the NDP in Parliament by sharing questions or other efforts that would boost the party’s standing in the eyes of voters.
Monday is the start of the second week MPs are back in Ottawa for the winter session of Parliament. The week will also feature a series of events in the nation’s capital to mark the 20-year anniversary of Harper’s first federal electoral victory in 2006, including the unveiling of his official portrait on Tuesday.
Before he would go on to lead the country for nearly a decade, Harper also survived a Conservative leadership review in 2005, securing 84 per cent of the vote.
Galbraith, who worked in Harper’s office from his time as Opposition leader to the early days as prime minister, said Harper’s experience offers hope to Poilievre coming out of his own successful convention.
Harper was rarely, if ever, the “preferred prime minister” in polling when she was his adviser, Galbraith recalled.
“And he still won government. So I think it’s possible,” she said.
3)Conservatives say they are united after strong endorsement of Poilievre’s leadership
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Sarah Ritchie, January 31, 2026
Conservatives wrapped their three-day national convention in Calgary on Saturday, ready to look ahead to the future after solidifying Pierre Poilievre’s leadership.
“A united Conservative party has come out of this weekend, telling Canadians that we are ready to govern and fix the problems that the Liberals have created over the last decade,” said former Alberta MP Damien Kurek, who stepped down in the spring to allow Poilievre to run in a byelection.
Poilievre easily passed his mandatory leadership review, earning 87 per cent support from delegates who voted after listening to him speak on Friday evening.
Poilievre’s main message was one of hope in the face of the rising cost of living. He blamed the Liberals for those struggles and pledged that his party would have solutions.
Ian Brodie, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, said Poilievre did what he needed to do to turn the page on a difficult year.
“I think that the party is as united as it’s ever been,” said Brodie, who was also chief of staff to former prime minister Stephen Harper.
On Friday morning, the Conservative fund chair Rob Staley praised Poilievre’s team for another record fundraising year in 2025 and told delegates the party is financially ready to go for another election.
“Now the campaign team’s attention can turn to the campaign focus … to showing off a bit more of the policy positions (Poilievre) is going to have into the next election,” Brodie said.
He said there seemed to be good conversations between Poilievre’s new campaign team and the grassroots members.
Poilievre acknowledged a strategic error Friday evening, saying he had learned from frustrations aired after the election over the way his team inserted itself in some nomination contests.
Delegates voted for a number of amendments to the party’s constitution aimed at handing local riding associations more autonomy and control.
One such change ensures sitting MPs cannot be unilaterally removed as candidates — something that Alberta MP Garnett Genuis was pushing for, saying it ensures members of Parliament are accountable to their constituents and caucus colleagues.
“I think that discussion is healthy and it’s good that we come together and work that out,” he said.
Saturday’s featured speaker was Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who gave Poilievre a hearty endorsement.
“The Conservative Party of Canada has strong leadership, leadership with moral clarity with a plan to restore Canada’s economic leadership,” she said.
Smith’s eight-minute speech took aim at “the terrible Liberal policies of the last 10 years,” but focused almost entirely on former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
She got big cheers for referring to the “federal left-wing activist coalition government” of Trudeau’s Liberals and the NDP led by Jagmeet Singh, and for pointing out that Steven Guilbeault is no longer a member of the Liberal cabinet.
Smith did not mention Prime Minister Mark Carney by name, nor did she attack his policies.
“Pierre Poilievre and our Conservatives believe in our Constitution, in leaving the provinces to be provinces, focusing on what the federal government needs to do,” Smith said.
The crowd heartily agreed with Smith’s assertion that “myself and the majority of Canadians agree, biological men do not belong in women’s sports, period.”
Despite that, delegates did not take up a number of policy changes pushed by the party’s social-conservative wing on abortion and parental rights.
Technical issues plagued the voting on a resolution that inspired some debate on the convention floor, which stated the party should oppose the federal conversion therapy ban and endorse the right of parents to “arrange for body-affirming talk therapy for their gender-confused child.” Eventually, the resolution did not have enough support to pass.
Another proposal that aimed to overturn the long-standing party policy that “a Conservative government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion” did not make it to the convention floor for a vote.
Delegates passed a raft of other policy changes, including a number focused on justice issues: opposing the decriminalization of illicit drugs and safe-supply programs and supporting harsher sentences for those convicted of intimate partner violence.
There was more than 90 per cent support for a “castle law” policy that encourages a future Conservative government to change the Criminal Code to “presume any force, including lethal force, is reasonable when used to defend against an uninvited intruder in one’s home.”
Delegates also supported a policy that Poilievre has long endorsed, calling for the party to end government funding of the CBC.
4)Poilievre and his caucus are not bound by any of the policies debated and adopted at the convention.
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Sarah Ritchie, Jan. 30, 2026.
Conservatives vote to keep Pierre Poilievre as leader after speech in Calgary
Pierre Poilievre’s position as Conservative leader was cemented Friday after 87.4 per cent of delegates voted in a mandatory leadership review to keep him at the helm of their party.
The vote came after Poilievre spoke for more than 45 minutes at this weekend’s national convention in Calgary, flanked by supporters holding signs bearing slogans such as “real change” and “choose hope.”
He told Conservative supporters the theme of the convention was hope — and he promised not to give up as he asked delegates to give him another shot at leading the party into an election.
“Hope is the knowledge that your work will fulfil your purpose,” Poilievre said, becoming emotional as he spoke about being away from his young family and hoping to see his daughter Valentina, who has autism, speak for the first time.
He said young people in Quebec and Alberta can look forward to a country they can be proud of under a Conservative government — and placed the blame for rising separatist sentiment in those provinces at the feet of the federal Liberals.
Poilievre talked about uniting the country and offered to support Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government in its efforts to lower U.S. tariffs — but never mentioned President Donald Trump by name.
He did attack the Liberals for failing to bring about meaningful change since Carney was elected.
“Sure, the words have changed, the style has changed, but what’s changed in your life?” he asked.
Poilievre told supporters the Conservative party is the party of workers — including unionized workers — small business owners and young people.
He argued the Tories “won the debate” on the big issues in the last election campaign, such as crime, immigration, housing and taxation.
The crowd responded enthusiastically as he vowed the Conservatives would soon “be proven right once again on the wasteful and insane Liberal gun grab.”
The packed ballroom at Calgary’s BMO convention centre erupted in cheers and occasional chants of “Pierre, Pierre” as he spoke.
Still, the energy in the room was more subdued than it was during the rallies that became a signature feature of the Conservative election campaign.
Back in April, Poilievre was trying to convince Canadians to make him prime minister. On Friday, he was trying to convince Conservatives to keep him on as leader.
The last time the Conservatives held such a vote was in 2005, when Stephen Harper earned the support of 84 per cent of delegates.
Many of the Conservatives gathered in Calgary, including 21-year-old Jesse Affleck from New Westminster, B.C., said Poilievre has their full support.
“When I go to these events, he will shake the hands of every single person and have an actual conversation with every person,” he said.
Vincent Kunda said Poilievre’s message is what drew him to politics and he’s the right leader to take on the challenges posed by Trump.
“I voted for him in the last election because I put my vote and my faith behind him to handle Trump,” he said.
Not everyone was convinced. Susan Friedman, from the Ontario riding of Parry Sound—Muskoka, said she knows her opinion of Poilievre puts her in the minority.
“I was in Ottawa when he was elected. I didn’t support him then, and a lot has happened since then and it’s not good,” she said.
“I don’t think that he really can lead the party.”
Conservatives who oppose Poilievre often point to his sharp, aggressive tone and unwillingness during the election to pivot his campaign to confront Trump. In Calgary, Poilievre clearly sought to send a more positive, optimistic message to Conservatives and the country at large.
Poilievre uncharacteristically admitted to a tactical error Friday evening, when he acknowledged the party needs to hold open nominations earlier in local ridings.
That became an issue during the spring election campaign, when a number of local riding organizations complained the team around Poilievre had hand-picked candidates against their wishes.
Poilievre said those local riding associations were “the backbone of our organization” and thanked delegates in the room for their feedback.
The convention featured a debate on proposed amendments to the party’s constitution that would give local associations more power to choose candidates.
Poilievre’s speech also touched on some of the highlights of his election platform, with promises to boost military recruitment “based on merit and not political correctness” and to build a “warrior culture” in the Canadian Armed Forces.
He called for an American-style “castle law” to allow people to use force to protect their property — which got a big cheer from the crowd.
Friday’s speech largely echoed messages Poilievre launched last February, when the party held a “Canada First” rally in Ottawa.
At the time, Trump’s trade war had just triggered a wave of national pride and the Liberals were surging in the polls with the prospect of a new leader taking the helm.
The Conservative leader adjusted his tone, dropping the message that “Canada is broken” and turning to a more positive vision of the country.
“We stand united tonight together, always, because this country, its people and promise are worth fighting for,” Poilievre said as he wrapped his speech.
Conservative MPs who spoke before Poilievre on Thursday and Friday insist the party is united, even after two MPs crossed the floor to the Liberals in recent months.
“The Liberals have tried to sow division in our party for months now,” said Ontario MP Costas Menegakis.
— With files from Dayne Patterson in Calgary