Dan Knight

Thousands stood in the rain—not for politics, but for hope. And this time, they just might bring it home.

We were there. We saw it with our own eyes. We were out in the rain too.

This was our first rally. No press passes. No backstage passes. Just boots on the ground in Surrey, British Columbia, shoulder to shoulder with five thousand other Canadians standing in line, drenched, cold—and awake. We weren’t there to fanboy. We came to observe. To listen.

And what we saw was more than a political event. It was a moment.

We saw Alex Zoltan from True North (@AmazingZoltan), Mike Le Couteur from CTV (@mikelecouteur), and legendary broadcaster Anita Krishna (@AnitaKrishna1) in the crowd. But more importantly—we saw the people. Working people. Retired people. Young people. People who’ve been ignored for years by the political class, who finally feel like someone is saying out loud what they’ve been screaming into the void.

What we heard from them? It wasn’t rehearsed. It wasn’t ideological. It was heartbreak.

A lot of people are angry. Not the rage you see on Twitter. Real anger. The kind that comes from watching your country stop working—for you. One man told us he’s on a pension and can’t afford groceries. Another woman said she skips meals so her kids can eat. We met a young couple in their late twenties who’ve given up on the idea of owning a home. They’re not lazy. They’re not reckless. They’re just priced out of the country they were born in.

And here’s what cut the deepest—many of them told us, “We want to support this party. But we can’t.” Why? Because they’ve been burned too many times. Promised too much. Betrayed too often. But they came anyway. They stood in the rain for hours anyway. Because there’s a flicker of something they haven’t felt in a long time:

Hope.

I kept asking: “Do you like this guy?” The answer was a resounding yes. And not because they’re buying the hype—but because he’s giving voice to something real. Pierre Poilievre is reaching disillusioned Canadians—not through political poetry or staged empathy—but through hard truths, said plainly, with no filter.

These aren’t people looking for a savior. They’re looking for someone who remembers them. And on that night in Surrey, they believed they found one. They came for a message. For a fight. For a reason to believe that someone—finally—was on their side.

Before Pierre ever took the mic, the crowd in Surrey was already fired up—and a big reason for that was Anaida Poilievre.

Let’s be honest: she’s a bombshell. And not just because she’s beautiful but because she’s the real deal. Industrious, sharp, fluent in two languages, and built from the same immigrant grit that defines so many Canadians who feel left behind by this system.

She opened the rally not like a politician’s wife reading off a cue card, but like a woman who actually believes in what her husband’s fighting for. She talked about Pierre’s adoption, his humble roots, and the hard lessons that shaped him. No privilege. No elite pedigree. Just two schoolteachers raising a kid to believe that if you want something in life, you earn it.

She looked out at a rain-soaked crowd and didn’t flinch. She thanked them. She told them their presence was a sign of hope. She didn’t pander. She didn’t posture. She spoke like someone who’s been watching this country change—and not for the better—and is finally standing beside someone willing to do something about it.

And you know what? People listened.

And when Pierre Poilievre walked onto that stage hugged his wife and said, “Who’s ready to axe some taxes?”—the crowd roared. Not clapped. Not nodded politely. Roared.

Because after a decade of being kicked in the teeth by a government that lectures more than it listens, Canadians are tired. Tired of being broke. Tired of being lied to. Tired of being told their pain is imaginary while the Laurentian elite pockets billions and jets off to climate conferences.

Poilievre knows that. And in this rally, he laid it out in plain language. “The Canadian promise is broken,” he said. And he’s right. Food inflation is higher than it is in the United States. Vancouver is the most expensive housing market in North America. People can’t afford groceries, never mind rent. And Mark Carney—Trudeau’s successor and another unelected globalist—wants you to believe this is fine.

It’s not fine. It’s engineered decline. And the crowd in Surrey knew it.

Poilievre tore into the carbon tax scam. “They told us without the carbon tax, the planet would catch fire,” he said. “I thought you put out fires with water—not taxes.” The room went wild. Because finally, someone said out loud what every working-class Canadian already knows: this isn’t about climate. It’s about control.

And here’s the kicker—while Canadians are being taxed into oblivion, what’s Carney doing? Poilievre didn’t mince words: “He’s moved his headquarters out of Canada, shifted billions to offshore tax havens, and wants to tax our industries into extinction.” And it’s true. Brookfield took $276 million from the Bank of China. That’s the man now lecturing you about sovereignty and security.

And just when you think it couldn’t get more absurd, Poilievre nailed the punchline: “Imagine the one thing Trump and Carney agree on—taxing Canadian industry.” One with tariffs. One with carbon taxes. The same result: you lose. They win.

And then Pierre Poilievre started talking about the one thing the political class won’t touch—housing. Real housing. Not photo ops with construction helmets. Not climate-smart TikTok renderings. Actual places where real people live. You know, the thing you used to be able to afford before Justin Trudeau and his handpicked successor, Mark Carney, burned the Canadian economy to the ground.

And when Poilievre said it costs $250,000 a year to buy a home in this country? The crowd didn’t gasp. They nodded. Because they already know. They’re living it. They’re paying $2,600 a month in rent in Vancouver—more than most mortgages in the U.S. They’re watching housing slip into fantasy while their wages stagnate and taxes climb.

Poilievre didn’t just diagnose the problem. He named the villains: gatekeepers. Bureaucrats. Urban planners with six-figure pensions who spend five years approving a duplex. Politicians more concerned about aesthetics than affordability. And of course, the federal Liberals who reward this dysfunction with your tax dollars.

He looked them in the eye and said: We will cut them off. No homes, no money.

You want to build homes? Great—we’ll help. You want to stall, delay, regulate and strangle supply while pretending to care? Goodbye federal funding. And when he said he’d pay cities a bonus—$10,000 per unit—for every home completed, the crowd erupted.

Because for the first time in a long time, someone isn’t just “raising awareness.” He’s ready to bulldoze the roadblocks.

Then he got to the scam of the century: the carbon tax. He said, “They told us the planet would catch fire without it. I thought you put out fires with water—not taxes.” That’s not a joke. That’s clarity. And clarity is dangerous to the people who make billions off confusion.

Now Carney—Canada’s favorite unelected international banker—is floating his latest con: “Don’t worry, we’ll scrap the carbon tax and give you a rebate instead.” Right. The government takes your dollar, runs it through three ministries, skims 30 cents, then hands you back 70 and tells you it’s a gift. That’s their model.

Poilievre? He cuts through the lie: “Just let people keep their damn money.”

And here’s what made this rally different. This wasn’t a campaign stop in a suit-and-tie showroom. This was a declaration of war against the elite cartel that’s run this country into the ground for the last decade.

He talked about immigration, not from a place of fear, but of reality. Canadians aren’t against immigration. They’re against chaos. They’re against bringing in more people when we can’t even house the people already here. It’s not anti-immigrant. It’s pro-sanity.

And most of all, he spoke about something you rarely hear from a politician in this country: pride. Not in institutions, not in photo-ops—but in the tradesman, the small business owner, the truck driver, the welder. The people who actually build Canada. He said we’re going to make things again. That we’re going to stop outsourcing our sovereignty and start bringing it all home.

And the crowd? They didn’t just applaud—they believed him.

This was not a speech for journalists or corporate donors. It was a speech for people who still love this country, who want their kids to own homes, who want to work and not be punished for it.

It was for the family that’s cut out takeout to pay the heating bill. For the welder who can’t get approved for a mortgage in his own city. For the young couple living in their parents’ basement, not because they’re lazy—but because everything is rigged against them. And for the first time in a long time, they heard someone say out loud what they’ve been thinking in silence: This isn’t your fault. It’s theirs.

We don’t need more government programs.

We don’t need more subsidies or slogans.

We need leaders with a spine—who will stop apologizing for this country and start rebuilding it.

Pierre Poilievre stood in front of thousands in Surrey and said: “We’re going to bring it home.”

And maybe, just maybe, this time… we will.