The guy who likes to pick fights strikes again

HALIFAX—So the guy who likes to pick fights has struck again. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is now slagging the president of the CBC. What is Catherine Tait’s sin? According to Poilievre, Tait has unleashed a “partisan attack” against him. In other words, she has criticized him. What Tait said was all the more offensive to Poilievre because it is true. The Conservative leader has, after all, shown a distinct bias against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. As part of his populist iconoclasm, Poilievre has promised to get rid of the public broadcaster. All Tait did was remind readers of The Globe and Mail that Poilievre’s sloganeering is not designed to raise public consciousness, just money. In the current dust-up, Poilievre has travelled from the contrived to the absurd. Stephen Harper’s handpicked choice for party leader ludicrously declared that Tait’s comments about him “prove” his contention that the CBC is the “mouthpiece” of Justin Trudeau. That is Marjory Taylor Greene logic. It is also a mammoth slander of the over 7,000 people who work at the corporation, including a stable of fine journalists. Does he really think all those journalists could fit in Trudeau’s pocket? Now Poilievre is once again soliciting money from the public to help him “go around” the CBC. Everyone should pay attention to those words. The Conservative Party is fond of perpetuating the myth that the media is against them, and more than that, that it carries a brief for the Liberals. The party often describes its aversion to the media as an attempt to get its message out to Canadians without the “filter” of journalists. That is hogwash. Their real issue is not getting their message out unfiltered. It is getting their message out unquestioned. Poilievre’s disingenuous attack on Tait is reminiscent of his public scolding of pesky journalists at press conferences, his call for the head of the governor of the Bank of Canada, and his endless swift-boating of the prime minister. Very little of it is fact-based. But like the ranting of MAGA Republicans in the United States, his words are designed to stir up emotions and a sense of aggrievement, which ends by undermining public trust in key institutions—and, of course, the government. That’s why the United States' GOP “Freedom” Caucus wants to gut the U.S. Department of Justice, do away with the Internal Revenue Service, impeach President Joe Biden's cabinet ministers, and refuse to raise the debt ceiling. They are out to upend politics as Americans knew them before Donald Trump. And if that means screaming “liar” at the president of the United States during the State of the Union address, so be it. Poilievre’s penchant for manipulating emotions rather than appealing to reason has been front and centre in his communications approach from the day he took the helm of the party. Take his dubious videos, where he attempts to dramatize the nation’s problems with himself as reporter. Who can forget Poilievre’s rant against drug addiction, shot against the backdrop of poor wretches in Vancouver’s East Side? Despite evidence to the contrary, Poilievre attacked the Safe Supply drug program that has saved the lives of addicts, and which has received significant support from Health Canada. That video features a montage showing people living in tents, slumped over sleeping bags, the ground around them covered with needles. The Conservative leader accuses Trudeau and the NDP of flooding the streets with taxpayer-supplied drugs. After using the victims of drug addiction as props, he offered his counter-solution to Vancouver’s safe supply program: tightening up the border, arresting drug dealers and forcing addicts into recovery programs. Here's what Dr. Mark Tyndall, a professor of public health and infectious diseases, had to say about Poilievre’s approach: “The three things he wanted to do are really like Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs … criminalizing people with the most trauma in society.” And then there was Poilievre the traveller, huffing and puffing through an anti-Trudeau rant at the airport. The CPC leader called the PM a racist, accused him of dividing and distracting Canadians to conceal his allegedly awful record, and blamed him for the recent chaos at the country’s airports. He ended the video by saying he had to catch a plane, and guess what? It was late. The Angus Reid Institute came up with a different picture of who was responsible for the travel chaos over the holidays. The non-profit organization published data that showed that 70 per cent of respondents blamed the weather for the travel debacle, 68 per cent blamed airports and rail companies, and just 33 per cent blamed the federal government. Poilievre has been especially lucky at airports, running into random people who just happen to have grievances against the government. Gary Mason of The Globe and Mail, tongue planted firmly in cheek, recently mentioned two of them. First there was “Mustafa” whom Poilievre encountered at the Ottawa Airport. The man, who just happened to come from Calgary, was in Ottawa trying to get a passport. He had been waiting for 10 months to get one. Why the long trip East? Because his bride-to-be and a wedding party were waiting for him in Cuba. “And this was all Trudeau’s fault,” Mason wrote. “Many have cast doubt on Mustafa’s existence,” Mason wrote. And then Mason noted that Poilievre gave a speech in which he described meeting a senior citizen at the local grocery store. The man – a cook – had tears in his eyes because he couldn’t afford to buy the foodstuffs for his own table that he prepared at work for others. Again, “all because of Liberal policies.” Mason concluded his piece like this: “I don’t know about you, but I’d love to talk to this cook. And Mustafa too.” Gary, don’t tell me you don’t trust Pierre. Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hill Times