Becoming leader of the Conservative Party of Canada earlier this month not only raised Pierre Poilievre’s profile with the Canadian public, but also caught the attention of his wife.
On September 10, when he won the party leadership race, Anaida Poilievre gave a personal speech to a crowd of Conservative Party supporters, sharing details about the couple’s respective childhoods. Two weeks later, Poilievre was the subject of an alleged rape threat by the leader of a far-right political group. This threat is now being investigated by the RCMP.
CTVNews.ca takes a look at what we know about her.
According to her September 10 speech, Poilievre was born Anaida Galindo in Caracas, Venezuela. At the age of eight, in 1995, she immigrated to Canada with her family and settled in a working-class neighborhood in eastern Montreal.
Poilievre said his father went from “wearing suits and running a bank” to “jumping in the back of a van picking up fruits and vegetables” to becoming a small business owner.
According to Poilievre’s unverified LinkedIn profile, she studied communications at the University of Ottawa and held several retail and customer service jobs before accepting a position as parliamentary affairs adviser for the Senate of Canada in 2008. She still works in the House of Commons, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Poilievre is also the co-founder of Pretty and Smart Co., a lifestyle website for women, where she posts blog posts offering advice on blogging, productivity, running away, personal finance and shopping.
Poilievre’s profile on the website describes her as a “first-time mother juggling her new life as a mother, her husband’s busy political career,” as well as her own career.
“She’s a self-proclaimed nerd who enjoys reading about technology, business, and entrepreneurship,” the profile reads. “You can bump into her somewhere in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal or any exotic part of the world. She loves to travel and is always on the lookout for the best cappuccino. You can just call her Ana.
According to a blog post bearing her signature, she and Pierre Poilievre married in Sintra, Portugal, in 2017. The couple now live in Ottawa with their two children.
“It was the best decision we could have made for this special day,” she wrote in 2019. “We wanted to make sure our special day was really about us and our commitment to each other .”
At the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, before repost her husband’s criticism of federal vaccination mandates and travel restrictions on Twitter, Poilievre encouraged her blog readers to stay home, obey pandemic restrictions and listen to the experts.
“Failure to take this seriously can have serious repercussions and further spread of COVID-19. It is so crucial that governments stop fooling around with this,” she wrote in a post on the website.
“Failure to comply with this rule could result in heavy fines and/or criminal prosecution for those told by health providers to self-quarantine. So just be proactive, listen to the experts, and heed the call for self-quarantine for all.