Pierre Poilievre: Canada's Next Failed Opposition Leader

On The CPC's Great Hope

With the official announcement of his candidacy for the leadership of the Conservative Party Of Canada, the MP for the shit kinda close to my house – also known as Pierre “Skippy” Poilievre – has started the next election’s fight.

Unfortunately for him, he’s done so without a chance of winning the next election.

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Because of my proximity to Skippy, I actually know a decent number of people who know him – I went to university with someone in his orbit, and I know a ton of people who have been his constituents for a long time. I have always genuinely heard good things about him, that he’s a sensible and reasonable man in private, that his constituent services are always exemplary, and I know from living next door to his seat that that man will show up to everything – every opening, every community event, every everything. He is, truly, genuinely, an ideal local MP – a true champion for his local residents, for his part of the city.

I say all of this to say I have a good handle on the presumptive next Tory leader, and in all reality I don’t hate him – or, at the very least, I can understand his position. I get why the only non-Liberal left in the National Capital Region is a good candidate, and I get why someone in a seat that probably should be more Liberal than it is is a good candidate. I get it all. What I don’t get is why people think the character Skippy plays in public will be electable.

The ”Justinflation” asshat persona Skippy plays for the cameras – the “aw shucks, it must be Justin’s fault we have inflation” character he plays nowadays is idiocy on stilts given the fact that Canada has lower inflation than both the UK and the US, but there’s no way he actually believes this is an intelligent complaint. He’s doing it because he has no other answer for how to win an election, because Skippy is going to have to face the same fucking dilemma Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole had to face, which is that the Tory Party cannot win an election while their membership is batshit.

If Skippy tries to keep his right wing stances he is currently taking into a general election he will get destroyed. If you try and claim that Justin Trudeau is singularly responsible for the ills of this country, if you claim that our greatest threat is a lack of freedom despite the fact Conservative fucking Premiers are imposing lockdowns, if you have no answer on climate or housing, you’ll lose and lose badly.

If you pivot to the centre, which is what Scheer and (more so) O’Toole did after losing, the PPC will eat your fucking lunch, without actually convincing any large number of Liberals to vote for you because of your supposed moderation. Again, it’s Scrimshaw’s Paradox – no prospective Conservative leader that can win the membership can win a general election. And the Skippy that would be a prospective general election threat – the moderate and reasonable person he is when he does events in his suburban riding – would get laughed out of the room in a Tory leadership race, so the answer’s simple.

There’s a softball league in Kanata that’s been a large part of my youth, because my mother played in it for two decades, and a lot of the women in the league live in Poilievre’s riding. Given that I’ve gone to these games for my entire life, I know a lot of the people in the league, because they grew up seeing me around. They’re reasonable, personable, thoroughly nice people in many ways, and plenty of them are Skippy voters, and I get why. The picture they paint of him is entirely at odds with his national persona – they see him as an attentive, reasonable, local member who cares for their wellbeing and who will take every opportunity to promote Stittsville to the country at large. And that persona is entirely at odds with who he will have to be nationally.

My problem with all of this isn’t Skippy, or those who think he could be a credible candidate – I have a $100 bet for charity with the TooCloseToCall guy on the result of the next election if it’s Skippy which I’m very happy to have – but it’s the fact that the Tory Party has no fucking idea who they are and what they want. You want a staunchly conservative leader? You can have it, but they’re not gonna win, and the Tory Party membership aren’t going to nominate a real moderate in the Chong/Raitt mold, so we end up in the same situation as always, with a membership and a general electorate looking for two different things.

Is the fact that Skippy’s leadership announcement was cringey beyond belief worth knowing? Sure, as is the fact that he’s an Ottawa MP who cares not at all about the fact that his city’s citizens cannot fucking sleep at night, but it’s all irrelevant. Is Skippy going to finally be the Conservative leader who wins over Mississauga and Brampton again? Fuck no he won’t be, and without that, the Tories can’t win the next election.

I guess I wish the lad luck, but as I think about whether Skippy can win, I just laugh. Of course he can’t, because he will either stick with the harsh right wing path he is currently on even after winning the leadership, or he’ll execute the same pivot that neither O’Toole or Scheer could pull off. Either way, Pierre Poilievre won’t be Prime Minister, and everyone who thinks he can be will eventually blame their belief he can on a rush of blood to the head.