Pierre Poilievre, the front-runner to become Canada’s next leader, described his country as “broken” and riddled with “crime and chaos.” He mocked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “lunatic” and his ministers as “insane”, “disastrous”, “incompetent and discredited”.

He is in Parliament called the left-wing opposition leader and former Trudeau supporter “a fake, a fake and a fraud” and a “sellout”. Enraged, the leader rose from his seat, went to the aisle and shouted, “I’m here, brother.”

“Do it,” replied Mr. Poilievre as the Speaker of the House of Representatives tried to restore calm and begged lawmakers to respect “the rules we have.”

Mr. Poilievre, 45, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, is stretching the rules of Canadian political discourse with a combative, attacking style and an anti-elite, populist message that supporters describe as authentic and critics describe as Trumpian.

It worked so far.

In the last year, Mr. Poilievre and his party enjoyed a double-digit lead in the polls over Mr. Trudeau and his Liberal Party. If the polls hold, Mr. Poilievre will emerge as the next prime minister in a general election that must be held by October but is most likely to be held in the spring after Mr. Trudeau announced on Monday that he would resign as party leader and prime minister after what his party decides about the successor.

A career politician long known as a fierce attacker of his party, with an instinctive feel for topics that resonate with voters, Mr. Poilievre successfully struck the unpopular Mr. Trudeau in the past year and made him look untouchable.

Mr. Poilievre has steered the nation’s political agenda by cherry-picking the issues — housing costs, inflation and immigration — that many Canadians say Mr. underestimated or mishandled Trudeau.

But at the press conference where he announced his resignation, Mr. Trudeau said that Mr. Poilievre’s “vision for this country is not right for Canadians,” adding that the opposition leader does not offer an “ambitious, optimistic view of the future.” ”

Can Mr. Whether Poilievre will maintain his lead in the polls, or even build on it now that voters know him better, remains unclear. In the months ahead, the election of a successor to the Liberal Party could lead to an increase in the party’s popularity. And Mr. Poilievre, who became Conservative leader in 2022, will have to campaign on his own platform to win over mainstream voters.

“He would be very different from any other prime minister we’ve had,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. “He was very combative, and he’s been like that all his life. That’s great as an opposition leader, and even as a junior minister. But can he do it as prime minister?”

Like other populist leaders, Mr. Poilievre has tapped into voters’ post-pandemic frustrations over the rising cost of living, unaffordable housing and what many saw as a complacent Trudeau government that made big decisions — like increasing immigration to historic levels or imposing a carbon tax — without much explanations or consultations.

Three years ago, Mr. Poilievre was one of the few politicians who openly supported the truck drivers who paralyzed downtown Ottawa, the capital, for weeks to protest the vaccine mandate.

“He channeled anti-elitism in Canada,” said Lori Turnbull, a political scientist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “It is populist, anti-institutional. That’s a big part of his messages.”

Mr. Poilievre pushed a traditionally conservative message of personal freedom, small government, lower taxes, getting tough on crime and looser regulation of Canada’s oil industry.

But he has hedged his message against the “globalist elites of Davos,” threatening to fire Canada’s central banker, embracing cryptocurrencies and attacking the mainstream media, especially the public broadcaster, the CBC, which he has promised to cut funding to.

“The problem we had in this country and in all the countries that were affected by this terrible utopian awakening was that it was focused on the magnificence, the grandiosity of the leadership of the egotistical figures at the top, and not on the things that are grand and great for the common people,” ‘ said Mr. Poilievre in a recent interview with Jordan Peterson, Canadian psychologist and conservative social media star.

“And that’s another reason why I think we’re doing really well,” Mr. Poilievre added. “People are saying that finally there is someone who is focused on letting me take control of my own life again.”

Elon Musk, billionaire and one of the most influential supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump, he said “big interview” about the appearance of Mr. Poilievrea in the podcast Mr. Peterson. Mr. Musk appeared to embrace Mr. Poilievre even as he continued to disparage Mr. Trudeau.

“Girl, you’re not the governor of Canada anymore, so it doesn’t matter what you say,” Mr. Musk published on social media after Mr. Trudeau said there was “not a snowball’s chance in hell” of Canada becoming part of the United States, as Mr. Trump suggested.

In his personal life, Mr. Poilievre couldn’t be more different from Mr. Trudeau, who — as the son of Pierre Trudeau, who led Canada for nearly 16 years and helped define the modern Canadian identity — grew up in the prime minister’s official residence. in Ottawa.

In an apparent effort to emphasize his humble origins, Mr. Poilievre often told the story of how he was born in Calgary to a 16-year-old mother and given up for adoption. His adoptive parents were teachers who separated when he was 12, after which his father discovered he was gay.

When he was convincingly elected leader of the Conservative Party in 2022, he greeted his biological mother, his adoptive parents and his father’s long-term partner, all of whom were in the audience.

“We are a complicated and mixed group, like most families, like our country,” said Mr. Poilievre, who supports same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

Mr. Poilievre has two young children with his wife, Anaida Galindo, a former Senate aide whom he met in Ottawa. Ms. Poilievre was born in Venezuela but grew up with her family in Montreal. Her husband often spoke of the benefits of immigration, citing Ms. Poilievre’s family as an example, saying they came to Canada “with nothing” and “like many immigrant families, they built our country.”

Involved in Conservative politics in Calgary since his early teenage years, Mr. Poilievre became the youngest member of parliament when he was elected in 2004 at the age of 25. He quickly rose through the ranks, impressing senior politicians with his hard work, shrewdness and combativeness, earning him the nickname “Skippy”.

He tried to discard the image caused by the nickname with a makeover in the summer of 2023. Discarding his dark blue suits and ties, he began to appear in public in jeans and sometimes tight T-shirts. He ditched his square glasses for contacts and aviator sunglasses.

“He’s transformed his self-image from this little geek with glasses and a scowl all the time to this kind of Bitcoin bro who appeals to young voters, male voters,” said Ms Turnbull, a political scientist.

Mr. Poilievre is in an interview with Mr. Peterson said he had become “tougher” since becoming leader of the Conservatives and that he was ready to become prime minister.

“It’s personal for me,” he said. “I don’t come from a privileged or wealthy background. I was adopted by teachers, I grew up in a normal suburb. We didn’t always have money. But I managed to get here.”