Canadian Politics Today

Ford, for all his many faults, isn't a unlikeable, charisma-free whackjob pandering to the dumbest people alive like Pollivere, so I have no idea how you can map the Ontario results onto the federal one. Just kidding, I do: you're an idiot.

First, no you don't (how many memes have you posted about JT's hair/clothes?), and second, Pollivere's "policies" (that is: repeating the words "freedom" and "gatekeepers" over and over again) are dogshit too.

The truth is Pollivre is an empty husk who has somehow managed to make Trudeau look like an intellectual and policy heavyweight.

You think QP, a performance where politicians read scripted questions prepared by staffers, is indicative of intellectual prowess? Good lord you’re an easy mark.

I don't see any "Trudeau supporters" other than Waldo

Mr. Poilievre is not properly understood as an ideological phenomenon. There is no such thing as Poilievrism. Nothing in his long career in politics, or in this campaign, suggests anything in the way of a coherent philosophy of government. Neither is that the basis of his appeal.

He made his name, after all, as Stephen Harper’s most eager attack dog, the backbencher willing to say and do whatever his master ordered, no matter how nasty. His most notable achievement, in his brief time as a junior cabinet minister, was the sinisterly misnamed Fair Elections Act. Guided by no apparent principle but a desire to tilt the electoral odds in the Tories’ favour, it caused a massive political firestorm and had to be substantially redrafted.

His campaign for leader has been singularly lacking in concrete policy proposals, beyond a vague promise to “give you back control of your life” – which turns out to mean abolishing COVID-19 vaccine mandates and little else – and hostility to various unnamed “gatekeepers.” Oh, and he’d “fire” the Bank of Canada governor, though that is not actually something a prime minister has the power to do.

What has Mr. Poilievre spent the current campaign talking about? The benefits of crypto currencies as a way of “opting out” of inflation; the heroism of the convoyards who took over downtown Ottawa earlier this year; accusations that the government is “spying on you everywhere” (a consultant’s report used anonymized cellphone data to track population movements); the evils of the World Economic Forum.

What, specifically, has he promised to do in government? He’d make federal infrastructure grants to cities conditional on approving new housing development. He’d withhold a part of federal research grants from universities that did not do enough to protect free speech on campus. He’d repeal Bill C-11, Liberal legislation that would regulate online streaming services like broadcasters. He’d invoke the notwithstanding clause to restore consecutive sentences for mass murderers. That’s about it.

Whether or not Mr. Poilievre is personally an extremist, his campaign is aimed squarely at attracting support from extremists. His followers do not support him because of what he is for, or what he would do in government. They only know what, and who, he is against, and – perhaps even more important – who is against him.

It would not matter to them if, on taking power, he pursued policies that were diametrically opposed to those few he has proposed as a candidate – any more than they were upset by Mr. Harper’s policy reversals. It isn’t about policy, for them or for him. It’s about attitude. It’s about taking the fight to the enemy.

Could he pivot, then, after the leadership race? In a sense, yes, and in a sense, no. I can imagine him adopting virtually any policy as leader if he thought it expedient. But that’s not really a pivot: That would require some initial position to pivot from. On the other hand, it’s harder to pivot from the sorts of associations he has made along the way. How do you “pivot” from hanging out with hostage-takers and amping conspiracy theorists?

Poor judgment, moral recklessness, bottomless opportunism: These aren’t policy positions, something you can moderate or explain away or wriggle out of. They’re attributes. They stick. That is increasingly the dividing line in American politics – not left versus right, but character and judgment versus their opposites. The party that is about to elect Mr. Poilievre – the party that, with the help of hundreds of thousands of new recruits, he has done much to create – looks likely to entrench the same cleavage in Canada.

This may be, in the end, where he would take the Conservative Party: not far right, but far out.