Pierre Poilievre’s resume should tell you all you need to know

HALIFAX—Pierre Poilievre has caught the eye of Washington Post contributing columnist David Moscrop, and it isn’t pretty. “The problems Canada and the world face are far too great to leave to a right-wing, doctrinaire, stuffed-shirt of a politician of such little distinction, capacity, or imagination,” he recently wrote. In case you missed his drift, Moscrop added that Poilievre was a “phony loudmouth” who, as a life-long politician since his twenties, qualified as “establishment all the way down.” For all his railing against gatekeeper elites, as a member of the Harper cabinet, he was one of them. Former prime minister Stephen Harper, pictured, has endorsed his former cabinet minister Pierre Poilievre for leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Screenshot courtesy of Stephen Harper's Facebook and Twitter In this country, The Globe and Mail did not refer to Poilievre by name in a long piece by its editorial board, but it warned that a “highly contagious” political virus is flooding over the border from the United States. Poilievre is the perfect carrier of that virus, based on what he has shown so far in the leadership contest, and more importantly, in his political career. Like Stephen Harper and Donald Trump, Poilievre hasn’t got much use for the media. The trouble with preaching to the converted full-time is that you start to see questions of any kind as somehow illegitimate, the way dictators come to see journalists as enemies of the people. Poilievre’s crude treatment of Global News journalist Rachel Gilmore looked an awful lot like Donald Trump trashing reporters from CNN, something he regularly did in his effort to avoid accountability, and to turn the American people against a free press. Gilmore’s questions were perfectly normal, but simply for asking them, Poilievre referred to her as a “so-called” reporter. That bit of nastiness earned him a rebuke from the president of the Canadian Association of Journalists. If he does that now, while running for his party’s top job, what will he do if he gets it? When a gang of thugs in 18-wheelers took over the nation’s capital for three weeks, Poilievre took selfies with them and blamed the whole thing on Justin Trudeau. He also marched with anti-vaccine conspiracist James Topp, just as leader of the People's Party of Canada Maxime Bernier did. Can you picture either of those two calling the shots during a pandemic? Poilievre’s political opportunism was stunning—and scary. During the leadership race itself, Poilievre launched personal attacks against his centrist rivals Jean Charest and Patrick Brown (while he was still around), two men who could potentially tap into the two richest voter markets in the country: Quebec and Ontario. Again, it was reminiscent of how Trump went after his opponents when running for his party’s presidential nomination. Senator Ted Cruz became “Lyin’ Ted," and Senator Marco Rubio was “Little Marco.” Poilievre accused Brown of being a serial liar, and Charest of being a fake Conservative who made a bundle consulting for the Chinese. So much for the days when politics was the civil mediation of differences of opinion and policy, no matter how substantial. And what kind of a candidate looking for the top job walks away from an official party debate, preferring to pay a $50,000 fine, rather than give party members a last chance to assess the leadership aspirants? Shades of 2015, when then-PM Harper refused to participate in debates put on by a consortium of Canada’s broadcasters. Come to think of it, Donald Trump skipped the second national debate in the 2020 presidential election. See a pattern here? But the best gauge for assessing how Poilievre would behave in power is to look at how he acted when he had it. Apart from his tiresome role as a partisan hit-man under then-prime minister Stephen Harper, Poilievre almost never got close to real authority, other than during his stint as parliamentary secretary to the minister of transport. But there was one big exception. In 2014, Poilievre was handed the cabinet-level job of reforming Canada’s election law, a particularly important task after the debacle of the robocalls affair back in 2011. Instead of strengthening the electoral process, the risibly named Fair Elections Act did the opposite. Poilievre wanted to do away with the practice of vouching, which allowed a person without proper identification to vote, if someone who knew them, and held the proper ID, vouched for them. While it was obvious that Elections Canada needed new powers to investigate electoral infractions, Poilievre did not give the Commissioner of Elections the authority to compel witness testimony. It was that lack of subpoena powers that prevented Elections Canada from getting to the bottom of the robocalls scandal. Poilievre also denied Election Canada’s request to require political parties to provide receipts and other documentation about their spending. Without those records, it was impossible for Elections Canada to ensure compliance with spending limits. Poilievre’s bill proposed to do away with the enforcement arm of the office of the chief electoral officer, and move it over to the director of public prosecutions. What did that mean? Simply this: If another robocalls fiasco were detected by the commissioner, it would no longer be reported to the public or Parliament. It would then be easier—not harder—to cheat. And the most remarkable thing of all? Poilievre did not bother to consult with Elections Canada on Bill C-23. With all the bread crumbs from robocalls leading back to the Conservative Information Management System, that was more than a little strange. Bill C-23 was a train-wreck as a piece of proposed legislation. Making matters worse, it was rolled out by a rookie cabinet minister out of his depth. It was so bad that even members of the Conservative caucus didn’t like it. After a huge public outcry, including a letter of protest from 150 political scientists, Poilievre was forced to do a major public climb-down on the legislation. Mercifully, some of the more egregious parts of the bill were amended before it became law. Just before the 2019 election, the Trudeau Liberals essentially gutted Poilievre’s folly. It’s hard to find a party leader, let alone a prime minister, in a resume like that. Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hill Times CLARIFICATION, Aug. 22, 2022: An initial version of this column stated that the Fair Elections Act proposed to do away with the enforcement arm of the office of Elections Canada. It is more accurate to say it proposed to do away with the enforcement arm of the chief electoral officer. The story has been updated.