Conservative Party

OTTAWA — Accusations of liberal media bias usually come in two distinct flavours.

There are boisterous complaints about “Justin journos” sucking up to the government, purveying “fake news” and peddling lies for partisan and ideological purposes.

OTTAWA — It used to be that whenever news broke on Parliament Hill, politicians would run to the news reporters to get a quote in the newspaper or on TV.

Not anymore. In the era of TikTok and YouTube, they pick up their phones and start livestreaming.

Call it the Poilievre effect.

OTTAWA — If Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s documentary about housing in Canada released earlier this month seemed like an eccentric attempt at political communications, the party has now upped the ante with a multi-part series on the prospect of a debt crisis in Canada.

Pierre Poilievre, “Newsmaker of the Year,” is crushing it in polls. The Liberals call him our Trump. So this may surprise you:

Someone I know in the U.K. says traditional Conservatives there who fear going the MAGA way, see Poilievre as a role model. The surprise isn’t that they watch Canadian politics; it’s that they admire Poilievre’s moderation and centrism. He takes them back to the era of Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan, before Thatcher went all Reagan and radical, leading them to botch Brexit and fall into their current bottomless leadership catastrophe.

OTTAWA—How does Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pronounce his last name? What does he think about the recent UN vote on the Israel-Hamas war? Would he cut immigration?

As Poilievre marked the end of his first full year as Opposition Leader, he did rounds of year-end media interviews, though has thus far declined the Star’s request to chat.

But we listened to 10 interviews with journalists across the country, and while they were replete with his regular stock answers on housing, carbon pricing and personal attacks on the Liberals and New Democrats, they did shed some new light on who Poilievre is and what he’d like to do if he was prime minister.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he maintains a commitment to “parental rights” in schools, while making a play for disaffected NDP voters and laying out a different approach for limiting emissions, in an exclusive National Post video interview with columnist Rex Murphy.

This past week, two developments attracted the nation’s attention.

Pierre Poilievre released a 15-minute video on Canada’s “housing hell” that has, at the time of writing, garnered 4.8 million views. And the CBC announced they would be cutting 10 per cent of its workforce.

What does a politician’s message on Canada’s housing crisis have to do with mass layoffs at our public broadcaster?

Everything.

OTTAWA — If there is a common feature of the populist eruptions around the world this year it may be the belief that everyone in charge is just not up to the job.

Elites, experts, sacred institutions and, yes, even gatekeepers have been widely maligned.

And there are as many flavours of populism as there are countries. In Holland, long-time anti-immigrant campaigner Geert Wilders won the most seats in the recent general election, but may struggle to form a governing coalition.

Poilievre’s Housing doc.

Housing hell: How we got here and how we get out. pic.twitter.com/vVLsXMVM35

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) December 2, 2023

Pierre Poilievre has already dubbed the next trek to the polls as “the carbon tax election.” In reality, though, it is more likely to be “the Pierre Poilievre election” — a referendum on the Canadian public’s comfort level with the leader of the official Opposition.

On Wednesday, Pierre Poilievre stood in the House of Commons, noted “media reports about a terrorist attack at the border in Niagara (Falls),” and asked if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had any information he could share. The prime minster did not, to no one’s surprise, the incident having only just occurred.

Later in the afternoon, American officials said they were pretty sure the fiery one-car crash had just been a bizarre accident. And back we all went to finding serious solutions for Canada’s many serious problems.

Media fails Canadians by giving a free pass to Pierre Poilievre

If recent opinion polls are right, Pierre Poilievre will be Canada’s next prime minister, easily defeating Justin Trudeau and the Liberals in an election that could come less than a year from now.

Those same polls also indicate Poilievre and his Conservatives will likely form a majority government, which would see him in office for four years with the power to alter Canada in dramatic ways.

But what do you really know about what Poilievre would do as prime minister beyond killing the federal carbon tax? Do you know anything about how he would fix the housing crisis or tackle inflation, health care, interest rates, the environment, regional alienation?

The polls continue to worsen for Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party. Recent numbers and projections from Abacus Data indicate that their last electoral stronghold in Quebec may be beginning to weaken, which could turn what is already looking like a very challenging electoral environment for the prime minister into a disaster.

The Liberals have faced such routs before. In 1930, 1958, 1984 and 2011 the Liberal party was on the receiving end of an electoral shellacking the likes of which political parties don’t always survive. Remarkably, the Grits returned to power with aplomb in each circumstance.

Pierre Poilievre is not a big fan of the media — which is maybe surprising, given all of the positive coverage and poll results for the Conservative leader this fall.

Turn to any sort of political media over the past few weeks, and the good news for Poilievre leaps out in the headlines. There have been countless stories about whether Justin Trudeau is (or should be) stepping down; weekly reports of the Conservatives widening the polling gap with the Liberals, and a flurry of pieces about Liberal worries going from a whisper to a roar.