TORONTO — Canada’s recently hapless Conservatives, losers of three straight federal elections that exposed divisions between their populist and more moderate factions, are poised on Saturday to elect a 43-year-old firebrand with a scorched-earth style and social media savvy as their new leader to take on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
All indications are that Pierre Poilievre has the contest it in the bag.
The Conservative Party has changed because Canada has changed. Pierre Poilievre would be a divisive leader because Canadians have become more divided. He is the result, not the cause, of our growing alienation from each other.
Progressives and conservatives are increasingly unwilling to bridge divides. Each views the other as illegitimate. Justin Trudeau has proved to be a deeply polarizing Liberal Prime Minister – not just opposed, but loathed, by many on the right.
It’s finally here.
The Conservative Party of Canada will announce its next leader in Ottawa tonight, after candidates and supporters spent the past seven months on its third leadership contest in six years.
As candidates wait at the finish line, party members have their eyes not only on who will win, but also on the margin of victory.
What was billed as a “battle for the soul of the Conservative Party” is looking increasingly like a rout.
Party faithful are set to gather in Ottawa Saturday to hear from the next Conservative leader – the party’s fourth in seven years. Heading into the leadership contest, Pierre Poilievre was viewed as the prohibitive front-runner.
The conventional wisdom that Poilievre cannot win a national election is wearing thin
As the Conservative leadership campaign approaches what now seems certain to be Pierre Poilievre’s coronation, progressives are unnerved by the huge crowds of all ages he is attracting across the country, which point to an expanding Conservative base. Predictably, the Laurentian elite and their media loyalists have dissolved into full-blown derangement syndrome, while providing cover for Liberal missteps. Intriguingly, they are less protective of an increasingly unpopular prime minister.
Back in 2016 when she was running for the U.S. presidency, Hillary Clinton made a shocking — and unwise — comment about “deplorables” who were among Donald Trump’s supporters.
In what she called a “basket of deplorables,” Clinton cited some Trump backers as “racists, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic.”
Clinton insisted she was speaking about only a small percentage of Trump’s followers, but the damage to her campaign was done, with analysts denouncing the comment and Trump fans soon proudly sporting hats and T-shirts labelling themselves as deplorable.
More than half of Conservative voters in Canada want Pierre Poilievre to lead the CPC party, suggests a new Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News.
“All the momentum in this leadership race is really with Pierre Poilievre,” Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos public affairs, told Global News.
Who writes these headlines?
Pierre Poilievre’s appeal to young voters, something of a novelty for Canadian Conservative politicians, raises questions about both his popularity and the ability of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) to capitalize on the trend over the long term.
Why has Poilievre, unlike his recent predecessors, been successful at gaining support among younger voters, and what impact could this have on the CPC’s electoral coalition?
Pierre Poilievre‘s first words in the House of Commons were a sure sign of things to come.
It was October 2004, and though at 25 years old he was one of the youngest faces in the room, he had been preparing for this moment.
As a teen, he had read economist Milton Friedman’s 1962 book “Capitalism and Freedom.” At 15, he had joined the board for his member of Parliament in Calgary, Preston Manning. By 20, he had penned an essay about being prime minister.
Can Pierre Poilievre contain the populist beast he has unleashed?
The polarizing Conservative leadership front-runner “caught a tiger by the tail and he may not be able to control what he has created.”
Having just watched the first episode of the hyped-up “Rings of Power” streaming series, it got me thinking about the upcoming Sept. 10 coronation of Pierre Poilievre and the path the new leader of the federal Conservative party will choose as the ring-bearer of the Official Opposition.
Like the dwarves who dug too deep for riches in the mines of Moria, Poilievre has plumbed the depths of social media for conspiracy theories and grievance rhetoric, coming up with campaign gold by embracing the freedom convoy and anti-vaxxers. It has earned him a ton cash for party coffers and a record number of new memberships.
The question now is whether Poilievre can contain the populist beast he has unleashed by channelling his inner Stephen Harper, or whether he’d rather hop on its back, ring firmly embedded, and burn the place down.
OTTAWA — It’s just after 9 a.m. on a Friday morning at Wilfrid’s Restaurant in the Chateau Laurier and guests are helping themselves to a breakfast buffet when Jean Charest takes his seat in the corner of the room.
This iconic hotel down the street from Parliament Hill, the scene of so many political tete-a-tetes and soirees, is about as cliche a meeting place as you can get in official Ottawa. It’s somehow entirely appropriate.
Frankly I’m more interested in what’s on offer at the breakfast buffet.
It’s something of a rite of passage for a prominent conservative politician to pledge to defund the CBC. You just have to do it, whether your heart is truly in it or not.
OTTAWA—There is a clear, but narrow, path to victory.
That’s what Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives were told in the winter of 2020 by consultants hired to help plan for an eventual general election.
That path was laid out over 100-plus pages of analysis and behavioural modelling, a portion of which was recently obtained by the Star.
Tax code matters are one of the more convoluted and least enthralling aspects of governance. Many politicians either generally avoid the topic or simplify it to the extreme: you either cut taxes or raise them.
Whether leaders assume a lack of interest on voters’ behalf, think they’re too dumb to grasp the details, or are in fact too dense to do so themselves, the effect is the same. Canadians miss out on lively debate and fresh ideas about a topic that greatly impacts their –– and the country’s –– economic health.
Trudeau is fucking over the poor to please the Corporate welfare class – Canada developing path to permanent residency for 500,000 undocumented workers
Barring a miracle, Pierre Poilievre will easily win the federal Conservative leadership race when the party announces the voting results on Sept. 10.
He’ll have won largely by reinforcing his image as a political attack dog, exploiting voters’ fears and anger, fuelling citizen rage, and tacitly emboldening the extremists in his party and the anarchists in our society with cynical promises to restore their “freedoms.”
It’s a strategy straight out of the successful — and sleazy — campaign playbook of Donald Trump.
