Yesterday, Pierre Poilievre was elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada – and for the first time since he become Prime Minister in 2015 and Stephen Harper stepped down as leader of the Conservatives, Justin Trudeau has a truly formidable political opponent. The 43 year-old populist firebrand, who supported the freedom convoy and opposed vaccine mandates, is a political wunderkind, having first been elected to the Canadian Parliament in 2004, aged 25. Since then he has been re-elected at every subsequent election.
The liberal Canadian media likes to describe him as a “conspiracy theorist”, largely because he accused Trudeau of wanting to impose a ‘Great Reset’ on Canada in 2020. In August 29th of this year, he held a leadership rally in which he said “I will ban all my ministers from getting involved in the World Economic Forum”. Just in case that wasn’t clear enough, he added: “If any of my ministers want to go to that big, fancy conference of billionaires with the World Economic Forum in Davos… they better make it a one-way ticket because they won’t be back in the Cabinet.”
You can watch a video of that campaign rally here.
Politico has compiled 43 things you need to know about Justin Trudeau’s new rival that you can find here. For those who can’t be bothered to read it, here’s what you need to know:
What emerges from a look back at Poilievre’s more than 25 years in politics is a portrait of a man who has been remarkably consistent – pugilistic, articulate, anti-elitist, aggressively partisan and fiercely dedicated to individual freedom and small government.
My kind of politician.
Maclean’s, Canada’s well-known general interest monthly, published a good-ish profile of Poilievre (pronounced “paul-ee-EV”) in March. If you can get past the liberal bias, it contains some valuable insights, such as the following:
Talking to this would-be prime minister at length instead of watching him on the political stage is compelling and disorienting at the same time. Poilievre’s answers are slow and deliberative, and there’s a depth of insight that’s uncommon on Parliament Hill. You get the sense of a human being in there who really believes many of the ideas he advances. He’s funny, occasionally self-deprecating. He is, in short, impressive and likable.
But if you even brush up against the electrified buzzer of a partisan issue, a trapdoor opens in the floor, plunging you into Skippyland. Here, the intelligence becomes a switchblade, the complexity of thought a dust storm in which you can’t find the point you were sure you had.
Worth reading in full.
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About time these globalist WEF puppets had some proper opposition.
I follow a few Canadian bloggers and they are all quite cynical about this guy, suggesting that he will quickly go soft once in office. This is not based on knowledge of Poilievre specifically, but on general experience, having seen it happen many times before. Hopefully this time it will be different. The idea that one must abandon the policies that got one elected is quite bizarre but seems to be almost de rigueur among conservative politicians.
I have hope that Poilievre will not bend. Even during the leadership campaign, the media started their hatchet job, hoping to get the Trudeau-lite Jean Charest instead (and thereby ensuring the Tories couldn’t win). He hasn’t moderated his message at all to appease the media.
It’s also way to deflate enthusiasm and support, by reminding everyone that politicians rarely keep promises.
The anti Davos pledge is pretty unambiguous though. Not th easiest thing to row back on.
Just seen a youtube video of him and he seems genuinely interested in people and is committed to them. He has a part of his rallies where he offers to shake hands with everyone who attends and listen to them – he’s sometimes there until 1 or 2 in the morning. I’m no fan of professional politicians but I like this guy.
Conservatives are like the t-rex in the UK, long extinct.
If the movie ‘Jurassic Park’ taught us anything it is that, with enough desire, things that are extinct can sometimes be re-generated. Never say ‘never’. Its a powerful lesson.
Him for PM in Canada, Ron de Santis as President of USA – a girl can dream can’t she? Just – wow. Two very uplifting stories from DS today -this and the university fined 36 million dollars. There could be hope… Perhaps I am dreaming…
Rocket Ron would be a big improvement state side.
The USA and Canada are throwing up some encouraging people, the mid terms in the USA will be interesting, on the face of it at least there is some genuine opposition, Ron Desantis, Tudor Dixon, Harriet Hageman, Blake Master etc. Unfortunately no such people in the UK, the energy bail out proposed by Elizabeth Truss in the UK, with an unlimited commitment by the Government, is effectively a communitarian socialist re-set of the UK financial system, when she is coming up with policies like that, who needs a Labour Party?
Having got into the position with our fantasy based energy policy, I’m afraid that options to do anything other than pad the energy bail-out are a bit limited and considerably less appealing. The key thing is whether we are fixing the energy policy at the same time, i.e. have we learned something and are we going to try and avoid it in future. It seems a little half hearted so far, but the direction of travel has changed imo.
The tories threw away their best chance of reinventing themselves as actual conservatives with a twist. They could have picked Kemi, and in fact if it had gone straight to the members it would quite likely have gone her way. If anything is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, it’s missing the opportunity to see Keir Starmer trying to mansplain diversity and fairness to a black woman. Not that I’m trying to reduce Kemi to her identity, but she has all the qualities of a good leader, the right positions on virtually all the issues, and the added bonus of being the perfect antidote to Labour’s weaponization of identity politics.
If the next time Canadians go to the polls Pierre does not win a landslide, then we will know we are all truly f***ed.
Just what the doctor ordered. More like him please. The WEF should never have been given so much importance. If Poilievre is not the person that these Canadian bloggers (in Brett_McS’s comment below) say he is and is the real deal then I couldn’t be happier. A man who supported the Freedom Convoy and was against the jab mandates must have something going for him.
Let’s hope we get Poilievre in Canada and de Santis in the States.
All we’d then need is a libertarian-conservative in the UK.
Thinking…
Thinking…
Nah. Drawn a blank.
The Allies obliterated the “Eagles Nest” at Obersalzberg in 1945 and Trump might deploy a few F-16’s to do the same to Davos.
I was in Denmark at the weekend and on a tour bus got talking to a Canadian couple. They said they were worried because this chap was ‘to the right of Trump’. Mind you, they thought Liz Truss was the new Maggie Thatcher (in my dreams) and seemed rather astonished when I replied that that would work for me.
Right, left, right…does it really matter? There’s always people who are going to offer their opinions like that. He doesn’t seem at all like Trump and to know that he is against the Davos school of political thought (WEF) speaks volumes. I’ve looked at him speaking and he seems like the real deal but then he’s a politician and what do I know!
I’d never heard of him before I spoke to them and then joined the dots with this article (I’m good at joining dots).
That just shows the level of media propaganda in Canada. All CBC and the Globe have to do is tell blinkered middle class Canadians that someone is a bit like Trump, and they believe it.
Poilievre is absolutely nothing like Trump. He just happens to believe in the market and individual success and accountability (neither of which I think Trump ever really believed in). He’s also the child of a 16-year-old single mother, who was subsequently adopted by two teachers, and his wife is a first generation immigrant from Venezuela.