Mulroney backing Conservatives' Poilievre, but cautions he won't win going 'extreme right'

People angry because 'they're hurting': Poilievre Speaking on the current political climate, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says many people feel angry because "they're hurting."

OTTAWA — Former prime minister Brian Mulroney told CTV’s Question Period he’s impressed with new Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre — who’s been on the job for nearly a month — but that he cautioned him to tack closer to the political centre if he hopes to win a general election.

“I thought he was very good,” Mulroney said of the first time he watched Poilievre in the House of Commons as the official leader of the Opposition. “He developed a sense of humour, and he thinks on his feet, which is indispensable for a successful opposition leader or prime minister.”

“I think that he's going to take the Conservative Party in a good and proper way,” he added.

Mulroney said he had a private dinner with Poilievre — at Poilievre’s request — and found him to be “a very good listener,” and “a reasonable guy.”

But Mulroney also warned the new Conservative Party leader will likely have to “set aside” some of the “extraneous things” he campaigned on: threatening to fire the governor of the Bank of Canada, supporting the trucker protests, and encouraging Canadians to “opt out” of inflation using cryptocurrency.

“Look, you can't get elected with that kind of stuff,” Mulroney said. “Canadians are not there. Canadians are in the broad, general centre.”

“I did say to him — which is pretty obvious — you cannot, in this country, get elected from the extreme left or the extreme right. It can't happen. We have 155 years of history to prove it,” he added.

Meanwhile one of Poilievre’s top advisers, Jenni Byrne, said last month ahead of Poilievre’s victory and election as leader that he’s unlikely to take a more moderate approach post-campaign.

“What you see is what you get,” Byrne said. "What you should expect to hear from Pierre is exactly what he's talking about."

Mulroney said he also cautioned Poilievre against underestimating or trivializing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, especially given his record beating out former Conservative Party leaders Stephen Harper, Andrew Scheer, and Erin O’Toole in the last three respective consecutive general elections.

“You can question his policies as prime minister, that's fair ball, but what is pretty clear is that he, Justin Trudeau, is a champion campaigner, and he's a retail politician of the highest order, so you have to take that into account if you want to win an election against a successful politician like that,” he explained.

The next general election is not expected until 2025, and in the meantime the NDP have bolstered the Liberal government with a supply-and-confidence agreement the two parties struck last March.

With files from Rachel Aiello