Pierre Poilievre is having a day, or at least a few weeks. The aggressive populist Conservative MP for Carleton is not a cuddly, avuncular type; he is spiky and combative, and has earned a reputation as a Conservative attack dog for less able Tory leaders like Andrew Scheer and Erin O'Toole. If you've ever watched him in action, you'll know why; if you haven't, you could do worse than to watch Polievre's aggressive questioning of the Prime Minister over the WE Charity controversy a couple of years ago to get a flavour of the man.
But now, Poilievre is standing to become Conservative leader in his own right, and is widely considered to be the front-runner among a rather lacklustre group of candidates. Can such an unpleasant dude really become Tory leader? And, perhaps more to the point, could he ever become Prime Minister? Well, "yes" to the first question, and a much more qualified "maybe" to the second. But he's certainly not a guy to write off or underestimate.
It's hard, though, to get a good read on just how popular Polievre actually is. If the Canadian Conservatives have really abandoned the political centre and all pretence at being a so-called Big Tent party, and are willing to embrace a move to the populist right, then maybe Poilievre IS the man of the moment. What with COVID, climate change, and several other issues, many people are getting fed up with being told what to do, however necessary that might be. Poilievre could well be the man to tell people that you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, and you don't have to pay for things you don't want to pay for (remember his support for the tracker's convoy). That always plays well to a certain irresponsible segment of the population, and some people will love to hear that they don't need to pay the carbon tax or wear a mask or get vaccinated.
He has certainly been attracting large crowds, although that is a very inaccurate metric to follow. Some people are just interested to see the new guy in action. He certainly has the knack of "exciting the excitable", as Andrew Coyne puts it, even if those excitable types are just a small but relatively noisy sub-section of society.
You can see why the Tories might be a bit desperate for a plausible winner after the last two false starts. But remember that Erin O'Toole won the leadership contest by campaigning as a "True Blue" Conservative, before rapidly back-pedalling towards the centre during the actual election, on the grounds that too right-wing a candidate would not be able to hold the right-of-centre vote together. Poilievre would almost certainly have no such qualms, and would plough ahead in his own furrow regardless of polls, research and common sense. He is not a man to listen to advice, nor is he "nice" enough to look for consensus. He is unapologetic and brash; he is the proverbial "angry young man", and he uses inflammatory buzzwords like "gatekeepers", "elites" and "woke" (in its now standard pejorative context) in every other sentence.
So, if the Canadian right feels it is ready for a full-blown populist in the mould of Donald Trump, Victor Orban, Jair Bolsonaro, et al, he could be their man. God forbid he should ever actually come to power, though. He could do an awful lot more damage than provincial populists like Doug Ford and Jason Kenney.
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