Poilievre's Shack Of Seclusion
On ShackGate, Belleville, And Anger
Let’s lay something on the table – the house that Pierre Poilievre referred to a shack certainly does not look particularly well kept from the outside, and had I driven by it I’d probably have thought something similar. And let’s also point out that what he intended to say – that people like the woman in Niagara he was talking have been forced to live in housing worse than what they deserve because of sky house housing – has an audience. But that’s the kind of thing that you don’t say aloud, it’s the kind of thing you agree with once it’s been said.
The controversy’s kicked off for one reason – it’s the middle of fucking July, and therefore people need to fill column inches, web clicks, and office hours half-assing their jobs with stuff like this. It’s hard to find this story particularly interesting for what it is – Poilievre being a little socially awkward isn’t really news, but Stephen Harper was too and it never ended up mattering at the ballot box.
That said, I do think it reminds us of one of the most interesting dynamics of the next election – Poilievre is trying to win a coalition of people who view pedigree and credentials with disdain while being a product of the exact legacy elitism the voters he needs hate. Put another way, he’s a peace time consigliere trying to lead at war time.
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Look no further to the events in Belleville this week, or to any of the events during the 2021 campaign, or the Convoy, or anything else, and you find a level of anger that has little parallel in recent Canadian history towards the incumbent. Mulroney was disliked by more, and Quebec in the 90s was certainly more hostile towards each other, but even then, Chretien wasn’t a hate figure in the way Justin Trudeau is now. (This is not a value judgement on whether the anger is justified – the existence of it is what matters).
The hatred for Trudeau is not just from what we might call traditional corners – it’s not just died in the wool Reform voters who will never vote for anything other than the CPC in this iteration, it’s from an array of some traditional Liberals in Atlantic Canada and Northern Ontario, Dippers in Northern Ontario and BC’s interior, Island, and northwest coast, and your traditional sources.
It’s a movement of people who have been radicalized for various reasons – the importation of American culture wars, the general fact that the right has been losing the war for hearts and mind in recent decades, and COVID, which was a deeply traumatic event for a lot of people. We’ve never reckoned with the damage done, and even if you think draconian measures were required, there was a price for it. And it’s a movement that Poilievre has gone to great lengths to endure himself to.
It's an angry movement because for a lot of people, the world makes less sense now than it ever has before. For someone like me, someone born later and also as someone who is a member of a protected class, I am comfortable with the idea that things will change and that we have to be ready to meet that change. For a lot of people who came into the world at a time when there was a much more locked in social status quo, the divergence from it is more jarring, and it knocks them off kilter.
Poilievre has positioned himself as the leader of this movement, a movement that has overinflated the responsibility that the Prime Minister has on this country and therefore has pinned all their grievances, real or imagined, on him. It’s a movement that’s diffuse on specific grievances but united on their contempt for the one man, elevating Trudeau from the Prime Ministership in a country with strong separation of powers to a British Prime Minister of the pre-devolution days, when the isles of Shetland and Orkney were governed the same as Torbay.
Poilievre has sought this movement, and he has internalized some of their sensibilities, clearly. To him, everything is evidence of a broken country, because to him, there cannot be a plausible reason to think the status quo is good. And so, he looks at a small, outwardly ill-maintained house in Niagara and views it as evidence of failure, because to him, and to the base he is appealing to, everything is. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The problem is, Poilievre cannot pull that off in a general election, because not everyone does think this country is broken and a good chunk of those who do believe that because we don’t have universal Pharmacare and visioncare yet, and we don’t have subsidized high speed rail from Toronto to Montreal, not because Trudeau imposes vaccine mandates on planes. What he assumed was evidence of failure in Niagara was met with shock and not agreement because not everyone thinks like his base.
To win, he needs to either pull back on the broken Canada rhetoric and acknowledge that things can be better but that doesn’t mean it’s all terrible now – a position that will be much more comfortable for him – or he can continue to pretend to be someone he’s not, which is a firebreather fighter. He’s not one – he’s much more comfortable in a room of Laurentian Elites than in a bar in Kootenay, because he understands how to exist in that first world.
What we saw in Niagara was the problem Poilievre will have if he tries to be a war time consigliere, the leader of a movement that has decided Justin Trudeau is guilty not just of some bad policy choices, but of treason to this country and in some cases straight up lies that he’s somehow a pedophile or some shit. (Obviously, he’s not, a sentiment I cannot believe I have to write). And if Poilievre tries to appeal to them all the time, he will end up with a lot more moments where he comes off as out of touch to the Canadian majority which neither loves Trudeau nor views him as Satan’s Canadian offspring. Pivot back, and Bernier will continue to provide a home.
Poilievre’s shack remark was ill advised but will not be remembered. The lesson of what it shows, the brain rot that pandering to the angry and the absolutist mob he’s courted has done, will loom over the rest of his leadership. He has tried to harness the anger to his political benefit, but in doing so he’s made himself believe that everyone else views the world through the broken and angry view of his supporters. Niagara was the first tine he’s been reminded of that face to face in a while, and he’ll have to find a way to harness that energy without harnessing their narrow perception of this country – a task he’s shown no ability to do up to now. He has time to change things, but if someone shows no interest in it, at some point it’s the definition of insanity to wait for the never coming pivot.
The shack comment should be remembered, but not for the term shack. It should be remembered for Poilievre giving the address in a public forum of a random Canadian to make his point. The lady living in this modest house did not ask for this attention, but Poilievre does not care about her if he thinks it is helpful to his cause. Collateral damage.
However, there was a much bigger piece of collateral damage this week: John Baird. Forcing him to attack CBC for accurately reporting what he said when he introduced Trudeau is telling in more than one way. It shows that Poilievre feels that he needs to humiliate anybody who appears to graceful to the other party. I have no doubt that the call came from Jenni Byrne and that she threatened to release some of the dirt on Baird if he would not humiliate himself and declare unwavering support to the leader.
It is also telling as it shows that a pivot to a less angry Poilievre is not in the cards. He is going to ride the everything is broken theme all the way to the election.
The shack struck a nerve for me, because that is a very common style of house in the Niagara built in the 40s and 50s. My in-laws lived in one for decades. Properly maintained and with a bit of updating to the plumbing and electrical, they would make fine places to live right now.