Poilievre’s platform offers scant details on foreign policy positions

OTTAWA—The problem for Conservative leadership candidate front-runner Pierre Poilievre—once he takes over the party after the race results are in and gets set to run for the prime minister’s job—will be to balance the payback expected by the far-right populists who got him there, against the policies of pragmatism expected by the rest of us. Chances are he will give priority to the populists first. As the saying goes, you have to pay the piper. On foreign policy, Poilievre is offering scant details. His campaign website lists only three possible items: make Canada the “freest nation on earth,” slap sanctions against Iran, and ban oil imports from “polluting dictatorships.” The first one is easy. In 2015 during the federal election, Poilievre cited something called the Legatum Prosperity Index to declare that under his boss, former prime minister Stephen Harper, Canada had become “the freest country in the world.” It didn’t help. Harper lost that election to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. Climbing up these indices, which use an oddball mix of free-market libertarian metrics, is actually not that hard. All Poilievre will have to do as prime minister is cut a few business regulations, chop some programs and, viola, just like in 2015, we should become a lot freer, if not the freest country. Sanctions against Iran may prove to be a bit difficult, but only if the Biden administration in the United States manages to negotiate the Iran nuclear deal. If the U.S. doesn't, then Poilievre can fill his boots with sanctions. As for “polluting dictatorships,” it is unclear who Poilievre is referencing. According to the Canada Energy Regulator, our biggest energy suppliers after the U.S. are Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Norway. The latter two bring no political cache for the far-right, which leaves Saudi Arabia and its increasingly cruel Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. No doubt Poilievre knows that even sneezing anywhere near Saudi Arabia is a non-starter: the U.S. won’t let it happen. That being the case, banning oil imports is probably nothing more than a wink and nod to the voters in the oil fields of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Aside from these three items, there is a good chance that a Poilievre government will amp up the psychology of fear and fright. Far-right populists tend to find comfort in knowing that danger is lurking everywhere, with international bad boys scheming to wipe out our way of life. However, with Russian President Vladimir Putin already appropriated by the Trudeau cabinet, Poilievre will have no option but to target our existential angst towards China, or as the Conservatives like to call it, “Communist China.” The groundwork for an anti-China narrative is already being laid. Without providing any conclusive evidence, former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole keeps blaming his 2019 electoral loss not on his own lack of appeal within the Chinese-Canadian community, but on political interference by the Chinese government. Then there is Michael Chong, the Conservative critic for foreign affairs. He wants us to believe that “Beijing’s communist leadership presents a threat to Canada’s national interest and national security.” We can assume that Poilievre will play up the anti-China sentiments by arguing to invigorate the ailing Five Eyes spy network as a security check in the South China Sea; and threatening, on occasion, to decouple Canada’s supply chains. The latter will be in rhetoric only because, at last count, China was still our second biggest trading partner and, in all probability, will remain that way for a while longer. The far-right will want its other ideological passions pandered to, as well. Military spending, for example, will need to be really ramped up. Poilievre could do it by ripping a page from Harper’s playbook and use the argument of impending threats to our sovereignty in the Arctic as an excuse. Similarly, like Harper, Poilievre could make international development aid conditional on anti-abortion guarantees, which will keep the Catholic and Christian wings of his party happy, and allow the social conservatives to celebrate the undoing of Trudeau’s feminist foreign policy agenda. All speculation aside, it would be foolish to underestimate Poilievre. He has a sharp intellect and knows the game of politics inside out. He’s been in it his entire adult life. He may yet ditch populist partisanship altogether. It would have outlived its usefulness anyway, once he becomes the leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition in September. That’s when he will be compelled to court the rest of us. That is, if he doesn’t want to end up languishing as yet another Conservative prime minister wannabe. Bhagwant Sandhu is a retired director general with the federal government. He is a community organizer with a keen interest in Canadian foreign policy issues. The Hill Times

Poilievre’s platform offers scant details on foreign policy positions

Pierre Poilievre's campaign website lists only three possible items: make Canada the 'freest nation on earth,' slap sanctions against Iran, and ban oil imports from 'polluting dictatorships.'

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Poilievre’s platform offers scant details on foreign policy positions

Pierre Poilievre's campaign website lists only three possible items: make Canada the 'freest nation on earth,' slap sanctions against Iran, and ban oil imports from 'polluting dictatorships.'

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