ADAMS: #MANSIONGATE and the By-Election: Pension Poilievre's Entitlement Problem

A split-screen image shows Pierre Poilievre celebrating and Ana Poilievre reading while holding an apple, overlaid with the bold text “#MANSIONGATE IS A SCANDAL.”

Pierre Poilievre wanted this by-election. He needed it, in fact. Not for the people of Battle River—Crowfoot. Not for democracy. But for himself. For #MANSIONGATE. For the excuse that lets him keep living rent-free on the taxpayer's dime while pretending he's one of us, sitting at the same kitchen table he can’t stop talking about.

Here's the truth: this by-election never needed to happen.

It's not a matter of procedure; it's not some unavoidable political formality. It's a vanity project. An expensive one. And it tells us more than any speech ever could about how little Poilievre actually respects the people he claims to serve. His wife's tweets only reinforce the image of casual entitlement, the belief that their family "deserves" to live off the rest of us while he lectures Canadians about "doing with less." It's the kind of hypocrisy that's almost too blatant to parody.

When I was 16, I called it out. Several times.

I said Pierre Poilievre wasn't the answer, that his politics were hollow, that he was selling resentment instead of solutions. People laughed. Called me an idiot. Said I didn't understand how politics works. Well, fast forward to now, who's laughing? We're living in #MANSIONGATE, we're paying for it, and his own supporters are starting to wake up to the kitchen table issues I've been shouting about for years.

Let's think about what's happening here. Poilievre forced a by-election, poured public money into it, and what's the likely outcome? Even if he wins, it doesn't mean anything. He's clinging to power by a thread. He could lose his leadership position next year, resign, and trigger another by-election. Another waste of taxpayer dollars. Another episode in a political soap opera nobody asked for.

Conservative voters need to be honest with themselves. If you were outraged over Jagmeet Singh's pension but you shrug off this mess? Don't expect to be taken seriously ever again. Hypocrisy doesn't hold up to the weight of history.

To the people of Battle River—Crowfoot: you don't owe Pierre a damn thing. You owe yourselves a future. Bonnie Critchley. Sarah Spanier. Even my buddy Michael Harris, the Libertarian—he and I don't agree on everything, but at least he believes the political aristocracy needs to die. Even Grant Abraham, of all people, contributes something good just by keeping Pierre Poilievre out of Parliament.

My point is that you have options.

This is bigger than partisanship. This is about accountability. About refusing to bend the knee to special pleading. About refusing to participate in hypocrisy.

It's about asking ourselves a simple question: how much longer are we going to bankroll the political aristocracy's vanity projects before we decide enough is enough?

Pierre Poilievre isn't owed a seat. He isn't owed anything.