There was a time when I regularly tried my hand at preseason puck prognostications to help fill out the vast expanses of editorial column space required each week by then-publisher Jean Morrison. But too many years of my columns being accurate only if held upside down made me lose my heart for it. 

So much so, I swore off making predictions. At least in print.

But I’m breaking my personal pledge to predict Conservative Party of Canada leader and apple-chomper Pierre Poilievre will breeze through this weekend’s leadership review in Calgary.

CPC delegates at the three-day convention and have their say on myriad policy directives. Some CPC members are advocating for stricter penalties and mandatory minimum sentences for sexual assault convictions involving minors. Others want the Criminal Code amended to presume lethal force is reasonable in acts of self-defence involving home intrusions.

Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) restrictions, and policy opposing drug decriminalization (which might become recriminalization by the time the Conservatives are back in power in the House of Commons) will also see votes. 

CPC delegates will also be invited to a formal review of Mr. Poilievre’s leadership.  They will vote on whether he should remain as party leader.

Mr. Poilievre will have no problem garnering at least 80 percent of the vote. Supporters will point to the CPC gaining 24 seats in the 2025 general election and posting its highest vote total, 8,113,484, in the party’s history. That figure represents the highest vote share (41.3 percent) for a Conservative party since 1988. 

But step back and take in the 365 days since former PM Justin Trudeau fell on his sword and the banker Mark Carney swooped in for a massive win.

Mr. Poilievre lost a 20-point lead when Mr. Carney entered the race. Canadians chose an unknown neophyte over an experienced career politician. Adding insult to political injury, the CPC leader lost his own riding and was forced to return to the House by way of by way of Battle River-Crowfoot, also known as the safest conservative riding in Canada.

Since the election, a pair of CPC members have crossed the aisle to bring the Liberals tantalizingly close to a majority government. If Poilievre stays on, it’s likely a few more Red Tories will join Michael Ma and Chris d’Entremont in crossing the floor. The Leadership Review could prove the catalyst for defections that will secure a Liberal majority government until 2029.

That timeline could push Mr. Poilievre beyond the threshold of political relevance.

The majority of Canadian voters tend to lean just right or left of centre. Prime Minister Mark Carney appeals to the huge majority of voters stationed close to the centre line. In Davos last week at the World Economic Forum, Mr. Carney gave a speech that drew a standing ovation because it illuminated, if it did not lead, an increasingly organized and unified opposition to the United States. It is being hailed as one of the greatest speeches in the history of the event. It required the kind of courage that only comes of conviction.

He is vigorously defending Canadian sovereignty by defending that of Greenland. In six months he has accomplished an extraordinary diversification of Canadian trading partners, just as previous PM Stephen Harper instructed him to last July when Mr. Carney sought his advice.

One poll the CPC caucus must be in tune with is the Nanos preferred Prime Minister poll. The poll has remained nearly static month-over-month since October. PM Carney has polled between 48-52 percent favourability while Mr. P remains stuck between 24 and 27 percent. If those numbers are accurate, how does Mr. Poilievre win a general election in 2026 if one is called? 

It’s not just the vast majority of voters that support the PM. In early January, Mr. Poilievre’s predecessor wrote a column in full support of the Prime Minister’s tack on a number of critical issues, including the Armed Forces, Arctic sovereignty, Canadian energy security, Indigenous reconciliation, and a principled foreign policy. 

Former MP Erin O’Toole wrote the the Carney government is doing what Conservatives had advocated doing for many years.

“I have used a little joke at some of my public speaking events that I should ‘start charging royalties’ for the Liberal government’s use of my 2021 Secure the Future platform in 2025,” he added. 

Without mentioning Mr. Poilievre directly, Mr. O’Toole cited heightened geopolitical tensions when advising conservatives to be “serious in the role of opposition and to always remember to be a patriot ahead of being a partisan.”

“Canada needs this approach at this moment.”

Mr. Poilievre’s political persona was carefully and painstakingly developed in a CPC lab somewhere with one intention: to kill the political career of Justin Trudeau. Mission Accomplished. You can’t say the CPC didn’t remove Mr. Trudeau as Prime Minister. 

But they were not able to swoop in and steal the prize. 

Political conventions are partisan by nature. No one is predicting Kumbaya inside Calgary’s BMO Centre this weekend. CPC faithful will rage on about the direction of the country and Mr. Carney’s trade agreement with China — despite Mr. Carney taking a page out of Mr. Harper’s playbook regarding Beijing. There might even be a few Alberta separatists planted in the crowd to fan the flames.

Mr. Poilievre will gain enough delegate support to carry the party flag for the foreseeable future. If his usefulness as a Trudeau foil is no more, he still appeals to the party’s base.

But as for the afterwards, which takes place the real world, far outside the CPC tent, I might predict, if I had the heart for it, that Mr. Poilievre’s kind of politics have run their course.