ANALYSIS: In Northern Ontario, peril for Liberals, opportunity for Conservatives, NDP [Video]

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre opens a week of campaigning for votes in Northern Ontario on Monday with a rally in Fort Frances, Ont., in the riding of Thunder Bay—Rainy River, a region that a small-c conservative candidate has not won since 1930.

The incumbent MP for the riding, a Liberal and former emergency room physician Marcus Powlowski, is not surprised at Poilievre’s chutzpah, looking for enough votes in a riding to do what no leader of a conservative party has done in 90 years — namely, win over the voters in this vast riding, which includes the Fort William part of Thunder Bay, Atikokan, Rainy River, and Fort Frances.

“This may be news to you,” Powlowski said with a wry smile during a recent interview, “but the Liberals aren’t exactly riding the crest of popularity at the moment. So I think he thinks everything’s possible.”

Indeed. A Global News analysis of the current state of …