Poilievre's Acts Of Political Emergency

Who Is Pierre Poilievre?

“But I wouldn't buy/Sell, borrow or trade/Anything I have/To be like one of them”

The first time I wrote about the Convoy – in an article for this site entitled Convoys, Cranks, And When You’re On The Losing End – Neil Young’s The Losing End (When You’re On) was my motif. That piece was a reflection of understanding why the convoy existed – the fundamental dismay that many feel at the pace of social liberalization of the last decades showed itself in a reactionary way, and led people who aren’t nutters to join a movement full of them. The story of the Convoy is not one that I misunderstand – hell, it’s probably my biggest advantage to the average Laurentian elite columnist, because I understand it’s not about COVID or vaccines, it’s about a general unease with modernity.

All of this has been brought back to the front of mind by the inquiry which started last week into the decision of Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the Convoy’s occupation. My stance on the legality is clear: the Feds waited for as long as possible for the province and the city to handle it, and when they didn’t, they pulled the trigger – and revoked it as quickly as possible. I do not believe this is an extraordinary use of the powers, nor do I think the Liberals did anything wrong.

But what’s more important to me is not the legality – I am, after all, not a lawyer, merely a pundit with a penchant for shithousery – but the politics. Because, at the end of the day, I don’t think people have reckoned with the trouble that this inquiry, and the broader questions of unease with modernity, are going to cause Pierre Poilievre.

…

The lyrics at the top of this piece, for any Canadians who don’t want to admit to the patriotic treason of not recognizing Neil Young, is from Motion Pictures (For Carrie). It’s been a motif of mine for a while now, as I’ve struggled in many ways, to come to accept that there is no better alternative version of myself out there. It’s a reminder that we have to go all in on who we are, and attempting to be like others won’t work.

The problem is, Pierre Poilievre has gone all in on a political strategy he is ill-suited for, because he doesn’t actually believe what he is saying. Poilievre’s Convoy performance – meeting with them as they arrived to places close to Ottawa, but never meeting them on Wellington – is but the perfect example of his inauthenticity. He wanted to be able to go to his right flank and say he was with them 1000%, but also avoid getting Michael Cooper’d – having his photo taken with a Nazi or Confederate flag behind him.

Poilievre played a blinder in terms of his ability to win the Conservative Leadership – he did enough to end Leslyn Lewis as a credible force without losing the votes of people who viewed COVID restrictions as a price worth paying. He was able to do so because by the time the Tory membership voted, the specifics of the Convoy were an abstraction, and he could default to the ideas of freedom and just slide over any distinctions.

Why did Jack Layton finally break through in 2011? It wasn’t a change in NDP policy – the Sherbrooke Declaration had been party policy for the two prior elections. It was because Jack finally was himself in that campaign. It’s speculation, but in retrospect, that campaign being Jack’s last chance makes a lot of sense, because that NDP campaign felt more authentic than anything else Jack had done in the decade prior.

Why did Trudeau win in 2015? Because Mulcair ran a campaign on a fake, inauthentic version of himself, trying to be something he wasn’t – he wasn’t Mr. Smiley And Nice, and yet that fake smile he plastered on himself in that first Macleans debate was his attempt to, in effect, dupe the electorate. It didn’t work, because the Mulcair many, myself included, was the hard nosed Opposition Leader who took almost all of the NDP’s questions in 2013 about Nigel Wright and Senate expenses. The prosecutorial Mulcair was the one the voters he needed wanted, but the NDP tried to make him something he isn’t.

I don’t actually think Poilievre is an Convoyist, or someone with much affinity for the views of those people. Poilievre has always come across, as someone who knows people who know him and can literally see his riding from my house, as someone at ease with modern conservatism and modern society. Talk to any of his constituents in Carleton, and the picture they paint of him – attentive, reasonable, moderate – is entirely at odds with his public persona.

“Who is the real Pierre Poilievre?” is a really fair question – is he the firebrand, Convoy supporting, “populist” who voted to re-open the abortion debate in 2012, or is he the moderate, self-described pro-choice candidate he always pitches himself to Carleton as? I don’t know, but I do know that Paul Wells has by his own admission always rated Poilievre more highly than most, and that Poilievre has been a source of Wells’ going back to Right Side Up in 2006.

What does any of this mean? It means Poilievre is as tactical a politician in Ottawa as one can be. Poilievre is willing to take any position he has to to win – coming out against vaccine mandates because of a Patrick Brown press release, calling David Akin a Liberal hack after praising Akin in the past, flip-flopping on abortion, whatever.

There is no centrality of Poilievre in any of this, which makes it hard for the Conservatives. The Doug Ford comparisons are mostly shit, but there is something to the idea that people, even if they think Ford is a bumbling baffoon, has a general sense that his heart is in the right place. Even if many on the left thought it a stunt, helping cars get out of that snowstorm is the kind of thing that makes people think they know that Ford is, at heart, good.

Poilievre’s ruthless refusal to articulate Poilievre-ism, or any central ideology or guiding principles except banalities like freedom, are much more like Boris Johnson than Doug Ford. Johnson stood for nothing and therefore ran into crisis the second the thing he was elected to do was done. The thing is, it can work, and even potentially work really well. But when it fails, there’s nothing else there.

The upside case of Poilievre-ism is, in effect, Ford’s coalition in Ontario + the West and the parts of Atlantic Canada that look like Timmins and Kenora. It’s victory in the suburbs because of an absence of better options and a split vote, and then the ascendent parts of the Conservative coalition – the places with the most NDP or Liberal voters who hold what I would call retrograde or wrong views on women and gays.

In effect, that’s what Boris did – they won Sedgefield and held Wandsworth – but the problem is, now the Tories are likely going to lose both at the next election (and were even before Lis Truss’ general existence). If Poilievre doesn’t articulate who he is and what he actually stands for soon, he opens himself to the same duality – being the candidate for everyone or being the candidate for nobody.

The problem is, he can’t do anything to change this. Every vote he takes between now and the election will be fodder for the Liberals – be it on reducing inflation, subsidies for those who need it, or guns or abortion, there will be tests along the way. If he lines up behind the Liberals at every juncture, a lot of his right flank are going to break out the “Liberal, Tory, Same Old Story” line, and end up back behind Bernier. But every time he deviates to placate his base, he will give the Liberals ammunition to tell the suburban voters who won them the last two elections that Poilievre doesn’t share their values.

If he splits the middle, he’ll be a flip flopper, unable to stand for anything. Articulate, in words and actions, any coherent form of Conservatism, and he’s going to piss off voters he needs to win the next election. It’s why he took the tack he did with the Convoy – he needs to thread a needle so tightly that he can walk the line at all sides.

It just won’t be able to hold for three years. Will anyone care about the incel tags or the Convoy by 2025? Almost assuredly not (at least outside of Centretown of Ottawa with the Convoy), but these incidents paint a picture – and it’s of an opposition leader trying to be everything to everybody.

Sometimes it works. Most of the time, it doesn’t. But if Poilievre wants to try and win the next election, he would do well to dismiss the temptation to buy, sell, borrow or trade everything he has at the drop of a hat.