Pierre Poilievre is a 21st century populist who thinks his moment has arrived
CBC
During an interview in July — sometime after it became clear that he was more than likely to win the leadership race — Pierre Poilievre buried any notion that he would change his ways once he became leader of the Conservative Party.
"People know what to expect from me," he said. "There is no grand pivot. I am who I am."
Poilievre has never been a shrinking violet. He first ran for office when he was 24 years old and he was a central character in some of the biggest political battles of the Stephen Harper era.
But he has declared himself even more loudly over the past seven months. Notwithstanding any adjustments he makes to his message now that the Conservative leadership race is over (his speech on Saturday night before national television cameras was notably more genteel than he showed himself to be previously), he has been crystal clear about how he is willing to approach politics.
He is a talented politician, an ideologically motivated conservative and an aggressive populist. Canada has had populists before — from William Aberhart to John Diefenbaker to Rob Ford. But Poilievre's ascent to the leadership of the Conservative Party marks the arrival of 21st century populism in Canada — the Internet-fuelled, resentment-driven wave that already has flooded American and British politics.
In a different time and place, Conservatives might have been expected to turn to Jean Charest. But after being out of politics for nearly a decade, the former Quebec premier was rusty and slow.
Charest's campaign was also aimed at the wrong part of the Conservative Party's brain. His candidacy represented the most rational and conventional argument — that the party needed to make a broader appeal to those outside its partisan tent in order to win power again.
But Poilievre captured the Conservative id. After three consecutive losses to Justin Trudeau, after Erin O'Toole's clumsy attempts to moderate some of the party's positions and expand the party's tent, Poilievre offered Conservatives an emotionally satisfying cri du coeur ("freedom!") and an unabashed, combative leader to get behind.
Poilievre's stated goal is to make Canada the "freest" country in the world (a title currently held by either Singapore or Switzerland, depending on who's counting) and "give Canadians back control of their lives." His message is that "gatekeepers" are denying Canadians the prosperity, freedom and security that should be theirs.
He is most clear about what and whom he is against.
He embraced the self-styled "freedom convoy" protest and he opposes vaccine mandates and mask mandates. He would repeal the carbon tax and the clean fuel standard, and would change federal regulations to make it easier to approve oil and gas projects and pipelines.
He would reverse the Liberal government's attempts to regulate major Internet platforms, which he says is akin to censorship. He would defund the CBC.
He has vowed to fire the governor of the Bank of Canada — Poilievre blames the governor for the high inflation afflicting countries around the world. He insists that sharply reducing government spending would solve the problem of inflation in Canada.
He promoted cryptocurrencies as a way to "take control of money from bankers and politicians" and "opt out of inflation" (though he seems to have put less emphasis on bitcoin and the like since the crypto market crashed this summer).
