The Conservative Party is distancing itself from supporters who are questioning the veracity of federal election polls as leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday he will accept the results on April 28 no matter the outcome.

Supporters of Mr. Poilievre’s campaign were seen at a rally in Brampton, Ont., on Wednesday evening, wearing shirts and holding signs that both bore the slogan, “Do you believe the polls?”

Many attending the Conservative Leader’s rallies have questioned whether the polls – which once showed a more than 20-point Conservative lead over the Liberals – are to be believed, now that Mark Carney’s party has pulled ahead. However, the polls also show a tightening race in recent days between the two parties.

Many attendees of Mr. Poilievre’s rally in Edmonton earlier this week said they don’t believe the recent polls, with some suggesting they are skewed to favour the Liberals or Mr. Carney, and that they don’t accurately reflect what’s happening on the ground. The group associated with the shirts at the Brampton rally runs a recently launched Instagram account that questions whether polls are telling the truth in the campaign.

“The signs and shirts are not party or campaign products,” said Sam Lilly, a spokesperson for the Conservative Party.

Speaking to reporters at a housing announcement in Milton, Ont., on Thursday, Mr. Poilievre was asked if he believes the polls and if he will accept the results of the election no matter the outcome.

“Yes,” Mr. Poilievre said about accepting the outcome.

“And that decision will be based on whether, after a lost Liberal decade of rising crime and costs and a falling economy under America’s thumb, we can trust, we can afford a fourth Liberal term, or whether we want change with a new Conservative government that will axe taxes, build homes, stop crime, unleash our resources so we can bring home our jobs and stand up to Washington from a position of strength.”

Mr. Poilievre did not comment on the poll numbers.

The Conservative Party on Thursday announced a plan that it said would incentivize municipalities to cut development charges to build more homes and make them cheaper for homebuyers. Mr. Poilievre said that for every dollar of relief a municipality offered on development charges, a Conservative government would match that amount up to $25,000 a home, for a maximum of $50,000 in savings.

Conservative strategist Kory Teneycke, who managed Progressive Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s third majority re-election campaign earlier this year, has criticized the Poilievre team for not pivoting earlier in the campaign to focus on the economic threat of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Mr. Teneycke said in a podcast released Thursday that the party is losing the election and has committed “campaign malpractice” at the highest level.

He said on the Curse of Politics podcast that the Poilievre campaign would be “studied for decades” as a “disaster in terms of having lost a massive lead in ways that are so obvious.”

Mr. Carney, too, was asked Thursday if he believes the polls and commits to recognizing the election results.

“Of course,” Mr. Carney said, after making a public-safety announcement in Brampton. “This is Canada.”

The Liberal Leader said there are “certain parties that just import all their slogans and their policies from America, but let’s not import that nonsense into Canada.”

“We will have, and we are in the midst of, a fair and open and free election in Canada,” he said.

He added that there is a high level of engagement across the country about the campaign.

“This is exactly what we need, because this is the most consequential election of our lifetime, and the only poll that matters is the poll that has started with advance polling, but the poll that happens on election day – the votes of Canadians.”