Conservative campaign manager Jenni Byrne said she will not be taking the lead in the party’s next election campaign, but maintains her support for Pierre Poilievre.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Conservative Party campaign manager Jenni Byrne says she won’t oversee the party’s next election bid.
Ms. Byrne told the podcast Beyond a Ballot she believes Pierre Poilievre remains the best choice to lead the party to victory, but she wants to step back and focus on her own consulting business.
The interview, which published Friday, is the first time Ms. Byrne has spoken at length about the campaign and the party’s failure to win even though they had been leading in the polls for months heading up to the election call.
Ms. Byrne defended herself from critics who’ve held her responsible for the loss, saying they don’t understand how political campaigns are run.
“They don’t know Pierre. They don’t know the senior level people that we had in the campaign that were part of discussions or the face that we made decisions based on research,” she said.
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Among the criticisms of the party’s strategy was a perceived failure to focus enough on how Mr. Poilievre would stand up to threats posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Ms. Byrne said Mr. Poilievre spoke about Mr. Trump daily, but it was never going to be the only message because it would have turned off or demotivated some of their own voters.
She said while there are some things she would do-over in the campaign, she thinks none of them would have changed the outcome. They include figuring out earlier that Mr. Poilievre was going to lose his own riding.
He’s currently running in a by-election for a seat in Alberta, and is expected to win that vote on Aug. 18.
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The Globe and Mail had previously reported that Ms. Byrne was stepping back from her involvement in party’s operations.
She said in the interview she will continue to speak to MPs and others in the party on a daily basis, but doesn’t need to be involved things like in daily budget meetings or question period preparations.
“I think that’s good for the party and for Pierre as well.”