The chair of the federal Conservative Party’s powerful fundraising arm said Friday the Tories are flush with cash and they’ll spend more money than previously planned to roll out additional ads touting leader Pierre Poilievre.
As part of Poilievre’s summer rebrand, the party has deployed a multimillion-dollar ad campaign that depicts the leader as a family man.
One is narrated by his wife, Ana Poilievre, and features the leader at home with their daughter, Valentina.
In another ad, Poilievre softly recites his key message.
“Everything seems broken in Canada. Unaffordable. Unsafe. Divided. But we can put the pieces back together,” he says while playing with a puzzle.
The Conservative Party of Canada is reintroducing leader Pierre Poilievre to Canadians with a $3 million ad campaign that some insiders say is a move to rebrand him with a softer image.
Long known for attack-dog-style in Parliament, the ads are part of a deliberate effort to soften his image and make him more appealing to swing voters in key ridings.
The ads have shown up on TV — including during highly rated late-summer Toronto Blue Jays games — radio, digital platforms and in print media.
‘More ads ready to go’
Based on their apparent success so far, Rob Staley, the Conservative Fund chair and former prime minister Stephen Harper’s ex-lawyer, said the party will use its surplus to roll out similar ads in the coming months.
“The campaign has been and continues to be successful. We have more ads ready to go,” Staley said in an early morning address to delegates assembled in Quebec City for the party’s policy convention.
“We have a lot more to tell Canadians about the failures of the Trudeau government and we’re going to do just that,” he said.
“We’re going to spend more than budgeted on advertising and going on tour.”
The party is determined to get an edge up on the governing Liberals and spend more than they do before the next election, Staley said.
The Conservative Party retired all 2021 election-related loans last year and all the cash pouring in now is earmarked for the fund’s “principal objective” — defeating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his party in the next campaign, he said.
Looking for more from donors
The party has already set aside money for the next election and it plans to spend the maximum amount it can under the Elections Canada spending cap of roughly $30 million, Staley said.
The fund chair wouldn’t say just how much is in the party’s election bank account but he added that the party plans to take on as little debt as possible.
To accomplish that, Staley said the party will be asking donors to dig a little deeper and send more cash to party headquarters.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has ditched the glasses and started wearing more casual clothes in a bid to widen his appeal to voters.
The party has set non-election year fundraising records in the first and second quarters of 2023, with more than $16 million collected, easily outpacing the Liberals — and Staley’s determined to keep up the momentum.
“I make no apologies for the calls, emails and texts we send — I know people don’t always like to get them — because they’re critical to achieving the goal that we all share. We will not be reluctant to ask for more,” Staley said.
“We are a year into Pierre’s leadership this week and we have accomplished so much but much more needs to be done.”
That includes more stops on Poilievre’s cross-country tour. Poilievre’s jam-packed summer schedule was designed to highlight the government’s perceived failures on inflation, affordability and housing.
Poilievre will address convention delegates in a prime-time address Friday night. Observers say it’s the most important speech of his leadership so far.
