The longtime Ottawa-area member of Parliament will lead the Conservative party, after a resounding first-ballot victory in the leadership race
OTTAWA — Pierre Poilievre was already a familiar face in the House of Commons, where he is known for being a political pit bull. Now the longtime Ottawa-area member of Parliament will lead the Conservative party, after a resounding first-ballot victory in the leadership race.Early years: Poilievre says he had a normal, middle-class childhood. His parents divorced when he was a teenager and he spent his youth playing competitive sports such as football, hockey and wrestling.
Before politics: After graduating high school, he went to the University of Calgary, where he earned an undergraduate degree in international relations. But politics was never far away — the young Poilievre served as president of his campus Conservative club. He went to Ottawa in 2002 to work as a political staffer for Stockwell Day, then a member of the Canadian Alliance.
Political record: As a newly elected MP for the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada, Poilievre advocated for local issues, such as trying to prevent Ottawa's Queensway Carleton Hospital from being charged rent by the National Capital Commission. He railed against the Liberal government's proposal to introduce national daycare. In 2005, he voted with the rest of the party's caucus against expanding the traditional definition of marriage to include same-sex unions.
Family: He was adopted by his parents Marlene and Don Poilievre, teachers from Saskatchewan who were married two years earlier and moved to Calgary. They divorced when he was a teenager. Poilievre says his biological mother, who was at the leadership event on Saturday night, had him when she was 16 years old and could not raise a child on her own. He thanked her, along with his parents, his father's partner, Ross, and his brother, Patrick, in his speech.
Quote: "I want to thank my parents, two school teachers who adopted me from a teenage mother. They taught me that it didn't matter where I came from, but where I was going. It didn't matter who I knew, but what I could do. That is the hope I want my kids to inherit."
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