Half of Canadians would be ‘ashamed’ to call Pierre Poilievre PM: Angus Reid

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during a news conference in Surrey, B.C., Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

Despite a decisive byelection victory on Monday, winning him back a seat in the House of Commons, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is coming up short in winning over Canadians nationwide.

According to new numbers from the Angus Reid Institute, while 73 per cent of Canadians view Poilievre as a “strong critic of the government” in his official opposition role, 50 per cent say they would be “ashamed” to call him prime minister.

Fifty-two per cent of survey respondents also said they believe him to be insincere. According to the polling firm, both those latter figures have increased since December 2023, which was a little more than a year after Poilievre became leader of the party.

The percentage of people who said they would be “ashamed” to call Poilievre prime minister is up 10 percentage points since late 2023.

Poilievre has been Conservative leader since September 2022, when he won the leadership with a resounding first-ballot victory. That leadership is up for a mandatory review vote at the end of next January.

During the April general election, Poilievre lost his longtime Ottawa-area riding to a Liberal political rookie. But, while Poilievre himself lost his seat, the party picked up two dozen ridings nationwide.

In the rural Alberta riding of Battle River—Crowfoot, former Conservative MP Damien Kurek stepped down to give Poilievre the chance to run to replace him. On Monday, Poilievre did just that, winning back a seat in the House of Commons during a byelection with more than 80 per cent of the vote, just shy of the nearly 83 per cent Kurek garnered in the April election.

When it comes to Conservative voters, the numbers from Angus Reid show 68 per cent still support Poilievre. But, of the people who were considering voting Conservative in April and ended up deciding against it on election day, 54 per cent want to see Poilievre lose the January leadership review and be replaced.

Of that same group — those who considered voting Conservative but made the last-minute decision not to — 59 per cent said Poilievre sounded too much like U.S. President Donald Trump, 59 per cent said the campaign was too negative, and 70 per cent said the party “didn’t articulate a clear plan for the country.”

Conservative voters, meanwhile, don’t appear to blame Poilievre for the election loss. According to Angus Reid, 39 per cent said Trump was the most to blame for the defeat, followed by Prime Minister Mark Carney at 22 per cent. Only 14 per cent of Conservative voters consider Poilievre to be the most responsible for the defeat.

Poilievre trails Carney: Nanos

New numbers from Nanos Research also show a similar drop in support for Poilievre.

According to new data from this week, the Liberals are 12 points ahead of the Conservatives, at 44 per cent and 32 per cent respectively. But, Poilievre is trailing Carney by 27 points when it comes to the preferred prime minister question.

Those numbers are a sharp contrast to the start of the year when the Conservatives led the Liberals — under former prime minister Justin Trudeau — by more than 20 points.

Nanos said Poilievre will have to move quickly to close the gap between his party and the Liberals, and critically, between himself and Carney, with January’s leadership review as a possible target date to see improvement in national polling.

With files from CTV News’ Stephanie Ha