Poilievere ran with a cabinet that had constant issues of candidates calling out support for MAGA-like policies and conduct across the board. He threatened jail time for political rivals, had issues with various perspective MPs talking about their personal stances on repealing abortion protections or saying things regarding indigenous affairs that were racist or in denial of a well documented genocide. He made clear his position as anti-trans which many queer people rightly see as being simply the first domino to fall in the repeal of queer and a whole host of women's rights.
His economic policies were very much out loud every thing that Carney is up to now and perhaps you forgot that. Carney was in effect a traditional conservative politician with a liberal coat of paint. He wasn't talking about vote reform or taxation policies on billionaires. The kind of person you run when you want to shore up Conservative style financial values while basically not actively threatening civil rights issues like your opponents do. He was a traditional Conservative wet dream of basically everything a Whig government wants without the culture war bullshit If you think progressives actually liked Carney at the point of voting him is that's bloody insane. The man's a banker who has been strengthening old colonial ties and wheeling and dealing during a sovereignty crisis where the US, our historical trading partner is softly threatening annexation. The only reasons Conservatives are critical is because they think "Conservative" means "fiscally Conservative" and not the branch of political philosophy of the likes of Edmund Burke that thinks channeling money into the hands of the rich and conserving a social hierarchy that keeps certain people at the bottom and punishing deviance from a social norm, removing safety nets because "families" are easier to control than individuals. Meanwhile "Conservative" government spending has never actually been fiscally conservative historically. They just pump money into whatever makes their friends rich because that's kind of the point. It doesn't matter who is in the seat for government if they don't gave the pretty label that seems to say to them "This guy won't waste money" you can what if any scenario where your guy wouldn't be doing the same or worse. At least Carney had the shame to not say that shit out loud and feels like he needs to court the public instead of getting tacit endorsement for that kind of behavior right out the gate on election day the way Poilevre would of had.
If your intention is to approach politics as team sport then your post makes sense but what about anything I said makes you think I am defending Carney? Polivere is simply the bigger asshole of the two and his economic policy was vibes based -but they are both shit and the Conservative base is just too hung up on minute differences to see that their shit also stinks. Until we actually reform the voting system we're stuck in this duality of it all going to shit as the Overton window shifts right and rights trickle away.
I'm not interested in playing defend or compare the assholes. You asked why he got voted in, that was all the point I had to make. He got voted in because he played conservative better than the Conservatives. It would have been their election otherwise. If you're thinking I give a shit what any conservative platform whether the label on the front is red or blue you can piss off.