Pierre Marcel Poilievre (born June 3, 1979) is a Canadian politician who has served as the leader of the Conservative Party and leader of the Official Opposition since 2022. First elected in 2004, he has been the member of Parliament (MP) for Battle River—Crowfoot since August 2025, and previously represented Carleton until his defeat in April 2025.
Poilievre was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, and moved to Ottawa in 2000 to work for Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day. He was first elected in the 2004 federal election, initially representing the riding of Nepean—Carleton before it was reconfigured as Carleton. In 2008, Poilievre graduated with a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of Calgary. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he held various parliamentary secretary roles from 2006 to 2013 before serving as minister for democratic reform from 2013 to 2015 and concurrently as minister of employment and social development in 2015. From 2017 to 2022, he was the Conservative Party's shadow minister for finance and was briefly shadow minister for jobs and industry.
Poilievre ran in the 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, winning a landslide on the first ballot. As leader of the Opposition, Poilievre has primarily focused on economic issues, especially the cost of living in Canada. His policy positions include reducing the budget deficit, cutting personal income taxes, defunding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and repealing what he describes as "anti-energy" laws, including the federal carbon tax on both consumers and industries. He is considered to be part of the Blue Tory faction within the Conservative Party, and has been described as a populist.
Poilievre led the Conservative Party in the 2025 federal election. The Conservatives held a large polling lead in the run-up to the election until the resignation of Justin Trudeau and rhetoric from President Donald Trump calling for Canada to become the 51st state. The party increased their seat total from 120 to 144 seats and achieved the largest share of the popular vote since its founding in 2003; however, Poilievre lost his seat to Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy, and the governing Liberal Party led by Mark Carney was re-elected with a minority government. After losing his seat in Carleton, Poilievre contested the riding of Battle River—Crowfoot in Alberta, where a by-election was triggered following the resignation of Conservative MP Damien Kurek. Poilievre won the by-election on August 18.
Early life Background and childhood Pierre Marcel Poilievre was born on June 3, 1979, in Calgary, Alberta, to 16-year-old high school student Jacqueline Farrell, whose mother had recently died. Farrell had planned to name him Jeff, a name he is still occasionally called in adulthood, before placing him for adoption. He was adopted by two schoolteachers, Marlene and Donald Poilievre, shortly after being born. Donald is Fransaskois, a French-Canadian from Saskatchewan. The couple later also adopted his younger biological half-brother, Patrick. The boys were raised in suburban Calgary, playing ice hockey and going on camping trips. Pierre was raised as a Catholic.
Growing up, Poilievre worked as a paperboy for the Calgary Sun. He attended Henry Wise Wood High School and was on a wrestling team until he was forced to stop due to a temporary shoulder tendinitis injury at age 14. Following the injury, Poilievre attended an Alberta Tory riding-association meeting as a new hobby. As a result, he became interested in politics and started reading political books, including Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, a book that greatly influenced his politics.
Poilievre became active in the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta by participating in meetings of both parties. At age 16, he sold Reform Party memberships for Jason Kenney and did telephone canvassing for him. He also knocked on doors for political campaigns and served on a riding association. Shortly after turning 17, he was a delegate to the Reform Party 1996 national convention in Vancouver, British Columbia. Poilievre graduated from Henry Wise Wood High School in 1997.
Poilievre's adoptive parents, who had married in 1971, separated when he was in his mid-teens. His father, Donald, later came out as gay. In his early twenties, Poilievre met both his biological mother and maternal grandfather for the first time.
University and early jobs As a teenager, Poilievre had a job at Telus doing corporate collections by calling businesses. He later worked briefly as a journalist for Alberta Report, a conservative weekly magazine. At the University of Calgary, he studied international relations, graduating in 2008. At age 19, he staged a protest against a student union that tried to prevent campus Reform Party supporters from campaigning for their candidate in an Alberta Senate election. He was one of many Reform members on campus in conflict with the federal Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, which they believed to be unprincipled.
In 1999, as a second-year student, Poilievre submitted an essay to Magna International's "As prime minister, I Would..." essay contest. His essay, "Building Canada Through Freedom", focused on individual freedom and, among other things, argued for a two-term limit for members of Parliament. As a finalist, Poilievre won $10,000 and a four-month internship at Magna, with the essay published in the book that collected the essays, @Stake — "As Prime Minister, I Would..."@Stake—"As Prime Minister, I Would...". Magna International Inc., 1999, p. 57.
Poilievre was president of the University of Calgary's Young Conservatives Club, which was composed of both Progressive Conservative and Reform members focused on Alberta politics. He clashed with Patrick Brown, at the time the president of the national Progressive Conservative Youth Federation. Their dispute was over Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark, whom Poilievre considered anti-youth. Concerned that anti-Clark members would be removed, as Brown was an executive for the Progressive Conservatives, Poilievre threatened to shift the Progressive Conservative club to the United Alternative. Media outlets obtained a leaked memo saying that Brown planned to remove anti-Clark youth leaders, but Brown denied it, leading Poilievre to back down from his threat.
Canadian Alliance work In 2000, Poilievre was an organizer on a website called Organization to Draft Stockwell Day, seeking to recruit Alberta Treasurer Stockwell Day as leader of the Canadian Alliance party. With Day running in the leadership election, Poilievre and his colleagues made phone calls to canvass and raise money, dubbing themselves the "Fight Club".
In 2002, after Day's tenure as Leader of the Official Opposition, Poilievre left Calgary and university without graduating to work as an advisor to Day, but he completed online coursework through Athabasca University to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Calgary in 2008. After Jean Chrétien announced he would retire as prime minister in 2002, Poilievre and Ezra Levant, who practised law at the time, wrote an op-ed advocating the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties. Poilievre was campaign communication director during Levant's campaign to replace Preston Manning in the 2002 Calgary Southwest by-election, until Levant withdrew to allow Stephen Harper to run.
In 2003, Poilievre founded 3D Contact Inc. with business partner Jonathan Denis, who became an Alberta Cabinet minister years later. 3D Contact provided political communications, polling and research services. After founding the company, Poilievre ran for MP as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, which had recently been formed from a merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives.
Early political career (2004–2022) Backbencher (2004–2006) With preparations being made for the 2004 Canadian federal election, the 24-year old Manordale resident Poilievre won the Conservative nomination in the riding of Nepean—Carleton against Liberal incumbent David Pratt. Though Pratt was a two-term incumbent and cabinet minister, the election was projected to be close between the two. Poilievre won his riding, and the Conservatives formed the Official Opposition to a Liberal minority government. Poilievre entered the 38th Canadian Parliament at the age of 25 along with Andrew Scheer as the youngest members of the Conservative caucus. Poilievre introduced himself and his young colleagues to media outlets as "libertarian-minded" members of the party. Poilievre was given the nickname "Skippy" early in his political career.
Poilievre took up the cause of the Queensway Carleton Hospital, which was in the midst of an expansion project while facing provincial funding reductions for operations and an increase in rent as its lease with the National Capital Commission was set to expire in 2013. Seeking to eliminate the rent the hospital paid, Poilievre introduced, on June 20, 2005, a private member Bill C-414, titled An Act to prevent the Government of Canada from charging rent to non-profit hospitals. The bill was defeated in a vote of 165–111 but with Nepean—Carleton MPP John Baird they advocated the hospital only pay a $1 per year rent and implemented that once Baird became President of the Treasury Board the next year.
Poilievre also sponsored private member Bill C-383, introduced on May 11, 2005, to create a means to recall Members of Parliament through a petition, and Bill C-456, on November 24, 2005, to insert parental responsibility into the Criminal Code by making it an offence for a parent to contribute through negligence, inappropriate action or lack of appropriate action to behaviour that results in their child committing an offence.
Poilievre voiced opposition to the appointment of Michaëlle Jean as the Governor General of Canada by taking an issue with Jean's past support of the Quebec sovereignty movement. Poilievre took out a petition asking the Queen of Canada to dismiss Jean. After the death of Elizabeth II in 2022, Jean said that the Queen dismissed Poilievre's petition over the Queen's belief that she cannot intervene in Canadian affairs.
Parliamentary secretary (2006–2013) Poilievre won re-election with over 50% of the vote in the 2006 federal election, by which the Conservative party formed a minority government. Entering the 39th Canadian Parliament at the age of 26, he remained the youngest MP in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Poilievre to act as Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, who was his fellow Nepean-area Conservative MP John Baird. Poilievre's parliamentary work included overseeing the drafting and adoption of the Federal Accountability Act.
Addressing the prime minister's apology on behalf of the Canadian government for the Indian residential school system and planned reparations, Poilievre stated he did not think Canada was "getting value for all this money", instead suggesting "we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self-reliance." Poilievre apologized in Parliament the next day, saying, "Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer a full apology to aboriginal people, to the House and to all Canadians. Yesterday, on a day when the House and all Canadians were celebrating a new beginning, I made remarks that were hurtful and wrong. I accept responsibility for them, and I apologize."