Just over a week after Liberal leader Mark Carney held a rally in the City of Peterborough, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is also coming to the area — but it won’t be a rally and it won’t be in the city.
According to the Conservative Party of Canada’s website, Poilievre will be visiting Keene in Peterborough County on Sunday afternoon (April 27) in what is labelled as a “Whistle Stop for Change.”
The event takes place at Keene Truck Inc. at 15 McCallum Place, off Highway 2 just west of Keene. Doors open at 3:30 p.m.
Conservative MP Michelle Ferreri, who is running for re-election in the Peterborough riding, also announced Poilievre’s visit on her social media accounts on Thursday (April 25).
“A lot of you are asking me what is a whistle stop,” Ferreri says in a video. “This is like a drive through. It’s not a rally. It’s not like his giant rallies, but it is a stop over on his way to Ottawa.”
Poilievre’s visit is one of a series of three “whistle stops” Poilievre will be doing in Ontario on Sunday, the day before election day, after returning from western Canada. He will be hosting a rally in Oakville at 10:30 a.m. and then stopping in Pickering, Keene, and Carleton.
In the Peterborough riding, Ferreri is facing Liberal challenger and political neophyte Emma Harrison in what appears to be a neck-and-neck race.
Considered a bellwether riding, Peterborough usually elects a candidate who is a member of the party that forms government. Ferreri, who herself was a political neophyte at the time, bucked the trend in the 2021 election by defeating Liberal incumbent Maryam Monsef by 2,738 votes.
Ferreri received 27,402 votes to Monsef’s 24,664, while NDP candidate Joy Lachica received 13,302 votes. Some local activists have been urging NDP supporters to vote Liberal in the 2025 election to avoid splitting the “progressive vote” between the Liberals and the NDP.
