Is Pierre Poilievre too ‘in sync’ with Donald Trump?

The Alberta premier thought it was a good thing — a top Conservative strategist begged to differ

Aaron Wherry

2025-03-29T04:00:00-04:00

Six months ago, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre seemed to be riding a populist wave to the prime minister's office. And while he still might win power, right now that wave is being undercut by the spectre and reality of the world's most powerful populist. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

The most controversial statement of the federal election so far was uttered before the campaign even started — not by a federal politician, but the premier of Alberta.

In an interview taped on March 8 with a right-wing American media outlet, Danielle Smith said that, while there would always be disagreements, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would be “very much in sync with … the new direction in America” and that Canada and the United States would “have a great relationship” for as long as Poilievre and Donald Trump were in office.

“If we do have Pierre as our prime minister, then I think there’s a number of things that we could do together,” Smith said. “Pierre believes in development, he believes in low-cost energy, he believes that we need to have low taxes, doesn’t believe in any of the woke stuff that we’ve seen taking over our politics for the last five years.”