Conservative MPs lined up Wednesday to endorse Pierre Poilievre’s continued leadership despite recent stumbles that have left the party on the back foot and facing three more years on the Opposition benches.

Privately, there are serious doubts about his viability.

Poilievre has faced a series of setbacks in the months since the last federal election, continuing what former leader Erin O’Toole has called an “annus horribilis,” or a horrible year.

After blowing a 20-point lead and falling to the Liberals at the last vote, Poilievre has lost four MPs to defections, effectively setting up Prime Minister Mark Carney for a majority government.

In Monday’s byelections, which actually clinched that Liberal majority, the Conservative vote share collapsed in the three ridings up for grabs.

The Conservative candidate in the Montreal-area riding of Terrebonne, for example, captured roughly three per cent of the vote — a 15 percentage point drop. The Conservative candidates in the two Toronto seats did not fare much better.

Speaking to CBC News on background following the party’s poor performance in those byelections, some Conservative MPs said caucus morale is at a low point. These MPs also said there have been conversations about whether Poilievre should stay or go.

Conservative sources said there has been some talk about triggering Reform Act provisions to give caucus the power to try and oust Poilievre as leader, as they did with O’Toole.

However, those conversations are not very advanced. Sources also said it’s unclear if such an effort, should it even materialize, would succeed given Poilievre’s continued popularity with some MPs and among the party base.

There are also doubts about whether there is anyone of Poilievre’s stature who can take over as leader and hold the party and its divergent factions — the social conservatives, populists and Red Tories, among others — together as he has done reasonably well to this point, one MP said.

Regardless, another MP said Poilievre likely cannot survive until 2029 — when the next general election is scheduled to take place — without a meaningful improvement in the party’s poll numbers, which have drifted lower as more voters back Carney’s vision for the country at this juncture.

CBC News agreed not to name the MPs so that they would speak freely about internal party matters.

When asked Wednesday what the party can do to boost its popularity, MP Stephanie Kusie said, “I have no idea. I think it’s better to pose that question to Mr. Poilievre.” 

Still, speaking to reporters on their way into a post-byelection caucus meeting on Parliament Hill, some MPs publicly insisted Poilievre is the right man to lead the movement.

“Pierre Poilievre is doing a tremendous job, we saw the membership of the party give him a resounding endorsement at the last convention,” said MP Andrew Lawton, referencing Poilievre’s landslide win at his leadership review in January.

“I think we need to continue doing what we’re doing — talking about affordability,” he said.

While things may look grim now, Lawton said the party is playing “a long game.” 

MP Andrew Scheer, a close Poilievre confidant and the party’s House leader, insisted the caucus is united even though there are rumblings that other MPs are preparing to make the leap to the ascendant Liberals.

“Pierre has grown our movement to historic highs so we’re going to stay focused and do what we promised voters we’d do in the last election: put forward ideas to lower the cost of living so Canadians can get ahead,” Scheer said.

MP Adam Chambers said at least the party’s policy proposals are resonating with an unlikely constituency: the Prime Minister’s Office.

Carney announced Tuesday he will temporarily drop the federal excise tax on gas and diesel, something Poilievre had been calling for in the weeks since the war in Iran rattled energy markets.

This follows Carney’s past decision to axe the consumer carbon tax and cut the GST on some new homes, measures also pitched by Poilievre.

“We will continue to inspire the government with ideas,” Chamber said, with a smile.

The mood on the other side of Parliament Hill at the Liberal caucus meeting was starkly different.

Carney paraded the Liberal candidates who triumphed in the byelections — Doly Begum, Danielle Martin, Tatiana Auguste — before the cameras and into a crowd of jubilant MPs who welcomed the new recruits with huge applause and hugs.

At the front of that welcoming committee was ex-Conservative Marilyn Gladu, who warmly embraced the three women who will soon sit with her in the governing caucus.

“We’re just getting started. We have a great deal of work to do and we approach that with humility and determination,” Carney said.