Who is Pierre Poilievre's wife? What you should know about Anaida Poilievre

Power Play: Strategy Session The Strategy Session panel recaps Pierre Poilievre's first week as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Becoming the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada earlier this month has not only raised Pierre Poilievre’s profile among the Canadian public, it has also brought additional attention of his wife.

On Sept. 10, when he won the party’s leadership contest, Anaida Poilievre delivered a personal speech to a crowd of Conservative party supporters, sharing details from the couple’s respective childhoods. Two weeks later, Poilievre was the subject of an alleged rape threat by the head of a far right political group. That threat is now being investigated by the RCMP.

CTVNews.ca takes a look at what we know about her.

According to her speech on Sept. 10, Poilievre was born Anaida Galindo in Caracas, Venezuela. At eight years old, in 1995, she immigrated to Canada with her family and settled in a working-class neighbourhood in the east end of Montreal.

Poilievre said her father went from “wearing business suits and managing a bank,” to “jumping on the back of a pick up truck to collect fruits and vegetables,” to becoming a small business owner.

According to Poilievre’s unverified LinkedIn profile, she studied communications at the University of Ottawa and worked several retail and customer service jobs before taking a job as a Parliamentary Affairs Advisor for the Senate of Canada in 2008. She still works in the House of Commons, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Poilievre is also the co-founder of Pretty and Smart Co., a lifestyle website for women, where she publishes blog posts offering advice about blogging, productivity, eloping, personal finances and shopping.

Poilievre’s profile on the website describes her as a “first-time mom who is juggling between her new mom life, her husband’s busy political career,” as well as her own career.

“She is a self-proclaimed nerd who loves to read about tech, business and entrepreneurship,” the profile reads. “You may bump into her somewhere in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal or any exotic part of the world. She loves to travel and is always on the quest for the best cappuccino. You can simply call her Ana.”

According to one blog post bearing her byline, she and Pierre Poilievre eloped in Sintra, Portugal in 2017. The couple now live in Ottawa with their two children.

“It was the best decision we could have made for this special day,” she wrote in 2019. “We wanted to make sure that our special day was truly just about us and our commitment to each other.”

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, before re-posting her husband’s criticisms of federal vaccine mandates and travel restrictions on Twitter, Poilievre encouraged readers of her blog to stay home, obey pandemic restrictions and listen to experts.

“Not taking this seriously can have serious repercussions and continue the spread of COVID-19. It is so crucial that governments are no longer messing around with this,” she wrote in a post to the website.

“Disobeying this rule could end up in hefty fines and/or criminal charges for those who were told by health providers to quarantine. So just be proactive, listen to the experts and respect the self-quarantine call for all.”