OTTAWA–Pierre Poilievre is expected to formally announce his bid to lead the Conservative Party later this month and already has the backing of two party heavyweights.

The Star has learned that John Baird, who held senior cabinet roles in Stephen Harper’s government and at Queen’s Park, will chair Poilievre’s campaign.

Jenni Byrne, a veteran organizer who served as the Conservative’s 2015 campaign manager, will have also have a senior role in Poilievre’s campaign.

Neither Poilievre nor Baird responded to a request for comment Monday. But Byrne touted Poilievre’s backstory — born in Alberta, fluently bilingual, representing an Ontario riding — when asked about her involvement with his campaign.

“He has fought the fight for the conservative cause for years,” Byrne said in a statement.

Poilievre has been rumoured to be organizing for months, but recently dodged questions about his ambitions for the party’s leadership.

Speaking to reporters in December, he delivered a campaign-style statement about who outgoing Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s replacement needs to be.

“We need someone who will stand up, fight back and win — stand up for our principles, fight back against the corrupt Liberal cabal, and win the next election,” Poilievre said — repeating the statement in both official languages — outside the House of Commons on Dec. 16.

If Poilievre does toss his hat in the ring, Baird and Byrne’s support could be a significant boost to his campaign.

Baird is broadly well-respected among the Conservative coalition, recently tasked by Scheer to run the external review into what went wrong with the party’s 2019 campaign. Having served as a senior cabinet minister in both Ottawa and at Queen’s Park, he has deep roots within the party establishment.

Byrne is the federal party’s best-known organizer; one of the architects of Harper’s 2011 majority win and, more recently, served briefly as one of Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s top advisers. Once a backroom operator, Byrne has taken a more public-facing role in recent months as a media commentator and analyst.

The Conservatives were plunged into a leadership contest in December after Scheer, who faced sustained criticism about his campaigns’ failures in Ontario and Quebec, announced he would resign after his replacement was chosen. Conservative faithful will gather in Toronto this June to select their next leader.

The nascent leadership campaigns have been quiet as the party works out the rules of the contest. But behind the scenes, multiple camps have been forming — around Poilievre, fellow Ontario MP Erin O’Toole, former Quebec Premier Jean Charest, and Peter Mackay, the former Progressive Conservative leader and Harper-era cabinet minister. Speculation around former Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose is dismissed by insiders as wishful thinking, but Ambrose has yet to publicly rule out a bid. Bryan Brulotte, an Ottawa-area businessman, is the only candidate to officially declare so far.

Like Scheer, the 40-year old Poilievre has spent most of his adult life within the confines of Parliament Hill. Poilievre was first elected as an Ottawa-area MP in 2004 at the age of 25 — the same year Scheer, then 24, won his Regina seat.

RELATED STORIES Federal Politics Ottawa MP Pierre Poilievre considering run for Conservative leadership

Like Scheer, he’s known as a dyed-in-the-wool partisan, serving as Harper’s parliamentary secretary before ascending to a cabinet post for democratic institutions. He stickhandled the Conservatives’ controversial electoral reform legislation, the Fair Elections Act, which was watered down after widespread criticism and later reversed by the current Liberal administration.

While he has a limited profile outside of Ottawa and Conservative circles, party insiders believe Poilievre is the candidate to beat in the upcoming leadership contest — at least at the outset. A Conservative source said both Poilievre and O’Toole have been furiously working the phones to try to drum up support for their as-yet unannounced leadership bids. The camp surrounding MacKay, who has been working on Bay Street since leaving politics, has been much more muted.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The Conservative Party is expected to announce the official rules for the leadership contest in the coming days. Byrne, along with other Conservative organizers, suggested that the buy-in would be $300,000 and 3,000 signatures of support from across the country — much higher than the bar for entry to the 2017 leadership race, which attracted 13 candidates.

The party’s grassroots will select their next leader in Toronto on June 27.

Read more about: