Memo To Canadian Liberals: How To Fight Poilievre

The Best Ways To Respond

To Various Senior Liberals,

With the official confirmation from Patrick Brown that he is running for re-election in Brampton, I think it’s safe to say that you will get to run against Pierre Poilievre in the next election, whenever that is, and it’s time to think through what that campaign should look like. Obviously we’re still years away in all likelihood, but it’s never too early to think through the map, his path, and the attacks that will actually work at the next election.

Given we don’t have the new riding lines yet, the details aren’t wildly important, but what we do know is that the areas where the CPC will be looking to make gains are pretty clear – Vancouver Island and the mainland from Powell River to Skeena, Northern Ontario, Atlantic Canada, and rural central and northern Quebec. These are all places where culturally conservative views are more prevalent, where the combined votes of the Liberals and NDP have declined in recent times, and where at the Ontario election this year, the Tories made credible gains.

We can put aside the Quebec part of this, given that a Conservative surge would almost uniformly cost the Bloc seats (and because I’ll actually believe a proper surge there when it happens), but it’s true to say that the Liberals (and NDP) have seats at theoretical danger in those other three areas, in large part because of the chance that Skippy’s anti-establishment, fuck the elites messaging could have some resonance. And so, to make sure that the parties of the left have the best chance to not just beat him but beat him badly, the campaign against him matters a lot. And I think a lot of the advice that’s floating in the ether is, frankly, dogshit. So, let’s work through this together.

Stop With The Hyperbolic Shit

It is clear that whatever the truth of the statement that Ontarians did not believe the argument that Doug Ford was going to privatize health care at the last election, and they did not buy into the hyperbolic nature of a lot of the attacks against him. Now, it’s easier to laugh at that stuff when you’re an incumbent, which Poilievre won’t be, but even in 2006, the secret agenda stuff failed (as it did in 2004 until Cheryl Gallant started talking), and the most memorable ad from that campaign is the famous Soldiers In The Streets ad, which was a flashing neon sign saying “we’re behind and just making shit up now!”

Avoid the hyperbole about Skippy being in bed with Nazis or fucking calling him a far right politician. He’s not one, and nobody who isn’t already voting for you and frankly already donating to you will believe you when you say it.

Play Up The Career Politician Thing

When Pierre Poilievre was first elected to the House of Commons, I was in Grade 1.

I am 25 now.

One of the things that is lost in all of the establishment versus outsider stuff is that most of the truly effective outsider, insurgent politicians have had little or no time in government before winning. Boris Johnson is the one exception to that, but a) most of his time in public life was as Mayor of London, which meant he only popped up into the news in small doses, and b) he got to run against Jeremy Corbyn, which makes his victory in 2019 far from valuable as a predictive exercise.

Donald Trump had never held elected office, Marine Le Pen only got a seat in Parliament in 2017, and Nigel Farage, despite a long career as an MEP, never served as a Tory at any stage. Even populists of the centre – Macron, Blair, Cleggmania (to whatever extent that really ended up happening) – were benefitted from being able to distinguish themselves from the failures of their side of politics, being untarnished by the past.

Hell, we know this is true because of Justin Trudeau – him not being a Chretien-Liberal or a Martin-Liberal was his sales pitch for party unity when he won in 2013, and it was effective, because you couldn’t pin AdScam or cuts to health transfers or whatever on him in the way that the Conservatives would have done had John Manley or whoever been the leader (or in the same way they would have used the 1990s Ontario with Bob Rae).

Poilievre was a cabinet minister in the Harper Government that did a lot of unpopular things around weakening labour protections and standing up for big corporations. Poilievre voted for all of it, and was in the cabinet that failed these communities. If he’s such a strong, independent thinker and fighter, why did he blindly vote for and serve a government that failed? In the same way that “He didn’t come back for you” told a story about Ignatieff in 6 words, “Poilievre’s been a politician since he was 25” tells one in 8 words – and it’s one that “fuck the elites” voters won’t like.

Take Advantage Of Poilievre’s Lack Of Discipline

What have been the three biggest own goals from the Poilievre campaign so far this year? The Vaccine Mandate PMB he introduced because he missed a vote in the House and Patrick Brown called him out, and then the press releases on firing the Governor of the Bank Of Canada and attacking Rachel Gilmore’s reporting on Poilievre’s ties to far-right activists.

The reason they’re own goals is that they’re wild overreactions to provocations, and it’s clear that he can’t take a pitch and keep on his message. He can get easily distracted, and end up taking positions to win the newscycle which will hurt him in a general election. It was pretty clear, as Paul Wells wrote after Poilievre’s big event in front of the Bank Of Canada museum, that Poilievre didn’t at the time have it in him to break one of Canadian politics’ cardinal rules by actually going after the independence of the Bank Governor. Then David Dodge went on Question Period and by that night Poilievre was willing to burn that down. Skippy missed a vote because his wifi connection was shit? Welp, let’s ban all vaccine mandates, to show how anti-mandate I am!

Poilievre is a perfect candidate for Twitter, because he is a product of it in so many ways. He loves the instant gratification of a well done video for the site, despite the fact that his 5 minute long camping video was only watched to the end by reporters, political tragics, and conservative hardcores. He also suffers from Twitter’s greatest societal failure, which is that it makes an hour feel like a month. We’re all addicted to the speed of it all, and Poilievre is as much a product of it as anyone. He can be got with story of the day nonsense, and he can be baited into overreacting in ways that hurt him down the line.

Stop Letting Him Drive The Narrative

I have no idea how smart Poilievre actually is, but his campaign is not exactly intellectual high art at this point. He has vague nothingness on housing that has a chance to be a coherent policy belief, but other than that, what firm ideas has he expressed? Fire the BOC Governor, Bitcoin as a way to opt-out of inflation, and that he’ll get pipelines moving in all directions are all fine soundbites, but there’s no next step to any of them. Who will take the poisoned chalice of being the Bank Governor who has to answer to political pressure? What do you do when Bitcoin’s literally down over 50%? How do you get a pipeline to the West Coast if BC doesn’t want it or one to New Brunswick if Quebec says bite me?

He is responding to a vacuum in the news cycle right now because the Government has given them one. Stop it. Get Trudeau in public, at events, announcing things. Use the bully pulpit of incumbency to drive the national conversation on the issues we care about – telco policy, clean energy, child care, whatever else. Have Trudeau go to a child care centre that has added capacity because of his funding deals. Go to a dental clinic that is going to be able to take poor patients because of your investments. Go announce the opening of a new EV charging centre (or whatever the fuck they’re called). For a government that’s described as apathetic and tired, there’s actually a lot happening. Start selling.

…

Obviously in the months and years ahead, we’ll have much more time to correspond on the specific seats to target and whatnot, but for now, this is my contribution to the great debate about how to beat the populist right and Pierre in specific. Hopefully this finds you well, and I hope your summers are going well.

Sincerely,

Evan Scrimshaw