4 things to know about Pierre Poilievre, Conservative Party leader running to be Canada's next PM
3. He was adopted
Poilievre shared more about his upbringing in a March 2017 Facebook post, which featured a picture of him alongside his biological grandfather. “Because I was adopted, my biological grandfather and I did not meet until I was in my early 20s,” he explained. “Patrick Farrell was the kindest, gentlest and most Irish man I ever knew.”
“He started St. Patrick’s Day suffering in his hospital bed. He ended it in Heaven — a place full of shamrocks, four-leaf clovers and maybe a little Bushmills Irish Whiskey. On my final visit to see him a few weeks ago, he was so weak that he could barely speak. As I said goodbye, he grabbed my arm and would not let go. He was trying to say something, but his lungs could not make words. Finally, he pulled me in close and said, ‘I never forgot you.’ I will never forget you either, grandpa.”
In a 2022 speech delivered to the Empire Club of Canada, Poilievre detailed how his upbringing influenced his political views: “I was born of an unwed 16-year-old mother who had to put me up to adoption to two schoolteachers."
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"But they always taught me that it didn’t matter where I came from. It mattered where I was going," he continued. "It didn’t matter who I knew but what I could do and that is the country I want my children to inherit and that is the country that we will restore when I am prime minister.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
