Major obstacles between Poilievre and taking up residence in the Prime Minister’s Office

HALIFAX—As everyone knows, former prime minister Stephen Harper is the head of the International Democratic Union, an outfit dedicated to the election of right-wing governments around the world. It appears he has inherited a growth industry. Sweden’s hard-right just bested more moderate right-wing parties in the country’s elections, garnering 20.6 per cent of the vote. The Sweden Democrats are an anti-immigrant party with some Nazi ideology. The right-wing bloc itself won a slim majority in Sweden. So the far-right Sweden Democrats will now have an influence on the country’s new government. Once on the fringe, the party is now mainstream with its emphasis on Swedish nationalism that sees immigration as the root of many problems. Just like Donald Trump did in the United States. The far right has also grown in Italy, France, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Austria, and actually won government in Hungary. So when, as chair of the IDU, Stephen Harper congratulated Viktor Orban on the occasion of his most recent electoral victory, it matters. Orban is clearly a demagogue, not a democrat. Among other measures, Orban and his Fidesz Party have implemented an anti-LGBTQ law, seriously reduced press freedom, and increased the party’s hold over the country’s institutions. In the process, he didn’t so much change the Constitution as disable it. According to the European Parliament, Hungary is no longer a full democracy, rather “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy." Hard-right leader Georgia Meloni will be the next prime minister of Italy. Her thundering speeches criticize gay rights, European bureaucrats, and, of course, illegal immigrants. She has called for a naval blockade of migrants. Her base is made up of highly nationalistic “patriots” and she is a big supporter of traditional family values and lower taxes. Meloni has also expressed support for Benito Mussolini in the past. The party motto is “God, family, fatherland.” How far right is the first female PM of Italy? You be the judge. She has spoken twice at CPAC in the United States, an ultra-conservative organization. Meloni hosted Stephen K. Bannon at her annual political conference in 2018. Silvio Berlusconi is one of her two coalition partners. Berlusconi has formerly expressed support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meloni and her coalition partners have the majority in both houses of parliament. In the past, she has supported other right-wing populists, including Victor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen of France. And like all hard-right politicians, she views progressive billionaire George Soros as the devil incarnate. Could Canada be next to join the string of countries where democracy is being traded for a thinly veiled brand of authoritarian rule posing as “populist” democracy? After all, if Sweden, the bastion of social democracy and fairness, can make a sharp right turn, why not the Great White North? There are some troubling signs here that should not be ignored. A recent House of Commons committee report found that ideological violent extremism is increasing in Canada, accelerated by the pandemic. Various hate groups and anti-government groups are coming together on social media. Gender-based violence is attracting people to the far right where there is rage, fear, and a snake pit of other grievances. A lot of the hate has been directed at politicians, journalists, transgender people and women. Think of what happened to cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland. More people are ready to go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories on social media, rarely demanding proof of the bizarre theories they find there. CBC News reporter Elizabeth Thompson recently revealed that Canadians who donated to the Ottawa "Freedom Convoy" protest, for example, also donated over $460,000 to the Conservative leadership campaign. More than 70 per cent of the political donations made by people who were also convoy donors went to Pierre Poilievre. As everyone knows, Poilievre, of the law-and-order party, backed the mob which held downtown Ottawa hostage for three weeks. It appears the Conservative Party has made the assessment that there is now room to grow the party to the right in Canada. Social media and micro-targeting have the party’s heart beating fast. The last two unsuccessful Conservative leaders tried moving the party to the centre to win. That calculus missed the asteroid and sent the party into deep space. Since then, global forces have aligned. COVID and inflation have battered the population. People are frightened and feel that their way of life is threatened by the cost of basic necessities like housing, food, and energy. Poilievre is telling people what has gone wrong in simple terms: big government has taken away their personal and economic freedom. He is positioning himself as the patron saint of the frustrated, the furious, and the fed-up. Poilievre uses social media as fervently as he avoids the press, communicating directly to his base in order to bypass what he calls the elite, Liberal legacy media. That has the handy benefit of avoiding embarrassing questions like the ones David Akin of Global News wanted him to answer. With the rise in support for the NDP at the expense of the Liberals, the progressives could split just enough to allow the Conservatives to regain power after seven years in the wilderness. But there are major obstacles between Poilievre and taking up residence in the Prime Minister’s Office. It is doubtful that the new Conservative leader can bitch and trash-talk his way into the top job. In the end, Canadians don’t want leadership that tells them what’s wrong with their lives. They already know that. They want someone who can do something about their problems. Poilievre has been mostly silent on that score. When he has ventured into talking about his agenda, it has amounted to a puerile recital of intemperate Trumpisms that won’t fix anything—firing the head of the Bank of Canada, embracing crypto-currency, or banning his minsters from attending international economic meetings that he seems to think are a Batman plot to take over the world. And unlike Sweden, Italy, or the United States, Canada does not have an immigration bugaboo to turn into political capital. In fact, it might be immigrants in the 905 belt, with traditional values, who will have the decisive say in who wins the next election. What Canada does have is Justin Trudeau. And Poilievre and Company are trying to turn him into a divisive and elite figure who is easy to blame for everything—and easy to hate. That’s why everything he does becomes grounds for a public roasting, from going on vacation, taking part in a sing-song, or flying to the Queen’s funeral. What did Poilievre want the PM to do, hitchhike? If the political landscape rises above just trashing Trudeau at every available opportunity, the CPC is going to have to come to terms with some of the strong parts of the government’s record, and some of its own unpalatable past. Given Poilievre’s dislike of vaccine mandates during a pandemic, what would he have done when COVID was ravishing the land? Given his past opinion of Indigenous peoples, what would he have done when mass graves were discovered connected to the monstrous residential schools system? What would he have done about underprivileged kids who couldn’t afford to get their teeth fixed? And given his love of capitalism in the raw, and the fossil-fuel industry, what would he have done about CO2 emissions that are endangering the planet? To be sure, part of politics is taking the other guy down a peg or two. But it is the least important part. It is not about who you can knock down, but who you can help up. For all his faults, real and imagined, Trudeau doesn’t need lectures from Poilievre on that score. Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hill Times

Major obstacles between Poilievre and taking up residence in the Prime Minister’s Office

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Major obstacles between Poilievre and taking up residence in the Prime Minister’s Office

In the end, Canadians don’t want leadership that tells them what’s wrong with their lives. They already know that. They want someone who can do something about their problems. Poilievre has been mostly silent on that score.

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