What are Canadians really buying into with Poilievre?

OTTAWA—Like the citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom, many European nations, and Argentina, among others, Canadians are apparently well into a populist journey energized by anger, frustration, and distrust of the establishment and government. If the polls are to be at all believed, the public here is turning decisively to the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre as their chosen alternative. Over the past two years, Poilievre has joyously capitalized on the rhetorical viciousness that has oozed out of the internet to become a staple of public life. And he’s skilfully employed social media to package his view that Canada is broken, rile up resentment against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and proffer the impression that he cares about the little guy. What’s odd, though, is the willing suspension of disbelief the Conservative leader is extracting from the public. Poilievre has reduced the immensely complicated business of government to a few dozen words in several simplistic slogans that sound almost like a parody of a political con artist. His platform to date pretty much comes down to: “Axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime.” As for “Axe the Tax,” his declaration of war against the Liberal carbon tax is almost entirely based on misinformation, primarily neglecting to ever mention that most Canadians get more back in the carbon rebate than it costs them in expenditures, and would be worse off if the Conservatives succeed in scrapping carbon pricing. There’s also the not-exactly-minor problem of not having an alternative plan to fight global warming. “Build the homes” is an exercise in oversimplified hokum. Poilievre’s idea of financially penalizing cities that don’t build houses fast enough gives the false impression that the housing shortage that has taken shape over 25 years is something the federal government can easily fix. It’s a provincial and municipal issue with very deep roots in local government bureaucracy, investment interests, and NIMBYism. Even if Poilievre’s approach had some effect, everyone knows that the housing shortage is too big to be significantly reduced in the near future. And—as with pharmacare—it’s mostly a provincial matter, and the premiers are likely as not to ignore the federal government’s attempted intervention. “Fix the budget” is another laughable oversimplification. No Conservative government in memory has succeeded in taming the federal budget deficit on a sustainable basis. Doing so would mean much deeper cuts to social programs than Stephen Harper’s right-wing government was willing to pursue. The uproar would be overwhelming. People, including Conservatives, are still complaining about the cuts in programs that then-finance minister Paul Martin enacted to reduce the federal budget shortfall in the 1990s. The same goes for Poilievre’s beguiling promise of workers bringing home “more powerful paycheques.” This portends hefty income tax cuts, which would likely require substantial reductions in federal spending at a time when Canadians are as a rule calling out for more help from Ottawa across the board. “Stop the crime” gives the impression that there is some handy means of reducing illegal activity—that putting more people in jail will improve the situation. This kind of “tough-on-crime” approach has been consistently proven to be a mistaken—likely counterproductive—strategy. By cherry-picking and massaging complex reports, Poilievre is misleading Canadians about the state of crime in Canada in a shameless attempt to exploit public safety fears. There’s also a strong culture war element in the Conservative leader’s crime message, since he’s in favour of eliminating supervised injection sites near schools or in places that “endanger the public.” Deriding what Poilievre calls “drug dens” as the work of “radical bureaucrats” and “woke” politicians, he wants to shut them down in favour of some vague notion of reforming addicts through government attention. The problems related to injection sites are a staple in Poilievre’s dystopian portrayal of life in Canada. Of course, his approach blithely ignores the likely resulting deaths of many Canadians. Some 40,000 people have died from toxic drugs since 2016. Outside of his customary slogans, Poilievre is also playing a tricky game on immigration. While regularly praising immigrants, he has also said he would reduce the number of people being let into Canada from abroad based on an anodyne formula involving annual housing starts. But the anti-immigration crowd will get the message they’re looking for underneath that neutral-sounding claim. Beyond that, the Conservative leader’s appeal to workers flies in the face of everything he and the governments he has been part of have done. This includes undermining unions, and furthering arrangements that favour rewards for capital over labour—the development engineered by right-wing and neo-liberal leaders that is behind the hollowing out of the middle class over the past half century. Voters may yet have a closer look at what Poilievre has on offer, but so far, a few misleading slogans appears to be all that’s needed in the midst of a frenzy for change. Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times. The Hill Times

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What are Canadians really buying into with Poilievre?

Over the past two years, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has joyously capitalized on the rhetorical viciousness that has oozed out of the internet to become a staple of public life.

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