Was Pierre Poilievre's ejection staged?

The Canadian chattering classes - which I guess includes me, surprisingly enough - are all a-twitter over yesterday's ejection of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre from the House of Commons after his name-calling of Prime Minister Trudeau and his unrepentant mockery of the Speaker of the House Greg Fergus.

"Wacko" is not exactly the most offensive epithet that has ever been used in the House of Commons, but the rules are clear. It is one thing to call a policy "wacko", and entirely another to call a person "wacko". When politicians resort to kindergarten name-calling during an official sitting of the House, it's time to clamp down and re-establish some modicum of order and civility.

Most of the responses I have heard or read since express incredulity and despair that the level of civility in the House of Commons has sunk so low. It's not just this particular incident, but the whole tenor of political discourse has deteriorated, possibly irretrievably, since Poilievre achieved a position of power. He may not be the only one responsible for all the fractiousness, but his extreme partisanship and divisiveness, and his - there's no other word for it - nastiness, seems to have infected the whole of parliament.

Whether you think the Speaker acted in an uneven and partisan fashion (the partisan Conservative viewpoint), or that Poilievre had it coming to him (pretty much everyone else), it seems undeniable that this level of polarization and divisiveness is unprecedented. Question Time in particular is "broken" (to use one of Poilievre's favourite words). It was never particularly edifying, but now it is downright embarrassing.

However, what I hadn't understood until earlier today, after it was pointed out in a radio talk show, is that there is a good chance that this whole thing - the nasty exchange, the ejection, the recriminations that followed - may have been pre-planned and deliberately engineered by Poilievre and his spin doctors. 

Granted, this may still be in the realm of speculation, and maybe I shouldn't be engaging in it, but apparently a Conservative Party fundraiser email was sent out within minutes ("within seconds", according to some) of the ejection. It was heavy on its use of the word "wacko". The Liberals too sent out a fundraising mailout, but that was much later that evening.

Now, maybe the Tory fundraising machine is really that efficient and fast, or maybe this was pre-planned to coincide with the shenanigans in the House of Commons. It's a good indication of the depths of cynicism the Conservatives have sunk to under Poilievre that so many people believe that the whole thing may well have been deliberately staged specifically for the fundraising mailout.