Pierre Poilievre knows he has a Donald Trump problem. After spending the last two-plus years imitating Trump’s approach to politics and winning plaudits from the people in his orbit, his proximity to the U.S. president and his anti-Canada policies has suddenly become an obstacle to his once-inevitable election victory. As it turns out, the reaping isn’t nearly as much fun as the sowing.
A recent Angus Reid poll laid Poilievre’s political predicament bare, and not just because it had the Liberals five points ahead of his Conservatives. When asked who was best equipped to handle the trade war between the United States and Canada, respondents favoured Carney by a staggering 25 points (55-30). On meeting Trump’s threats of annexation and Canada becoming the 51st state, they gave Carney a 22 point edge. And when it comes to who they trust to protect Canada’s economy, Carney was 20 points ahead.
Poilievre’s apparent solution here isn’t a fiery speech calling out Trump’s unprovoked aggression or the announcement of new policies that go beyond simplistic sloganeering. Instead, it’s taking Trump — a known and notorious liar — at his word. “Last night,” he said on social media, “President Donald Trump endorsed Mark Carney. Why? Because, as Trump said, he’s ‘easier’ to deal with, and knows that I will be a tough negotiator and always put Canada First. Carney is weak and would cave to Trump’s demands, just like he did when he moved his company headquarters from Canada to New York City.”
Trump never demanded that Brookfield — the company in question, which was very much not “his” (Carney’s) in any meaningful sense — move its headquarters to New York. The company did that because it’s a condition of being listed on the S&P 500, which would increase Brookfield’s access to capital and improve its global competitiveness. As Brookfield noted in its statement at the time, the move — which was announced before Trump was elected — wouldn’t result in any changes to the operations of the business and its employees. But in his desperate need to portray Carney as weaker on Trump, Poilievre is grasping at every available straw.
It’s not hard to imagine Poilievre’s team — and specifically CPC MP Jamil Jivani, who has touted his long standing friendship with Vice President JD Vance — calling in a favour here. The notoriously transactional president, who has made his disdain for the Liberal government clear many times, would probably love nothing more than to help defeat it in the next election. It costs Trump nothing to throw out a statement like the one he made to Laura Ingraham, especially when it creates potential leverage with a future Conservative government. Foreign interference, anyone?
But it’s going to take more than a throwaway comment in a Fox News interview to convince Canadians that Poilievre is prepared to stand up to Trump. In all his deeply predictable talk about the importance of building new oil and gas pipelines, for example, he hasn’t disavowed the Keystone XL project, which would increase our economic dependence on the United States. He hasn’t called the president out on his obvious misunderstanding of the trade relationship with Canada, one that he falsely describes as America “subsidizing” us by buying our products. And he continues to use a slogan — Canada First — that is a clear and unmistakable echo of Trump’s own political branding.
It’s no secret why the reflexively combative Poilievre is so visibly pulling his punches when it comes to Donald Trump. He knows that any meaningful and sustained criticism of Trump’s policies will open the door to a resurgence in support for Maxime Bernier’s PPC. That’s something he and his team have tried to guard against ever since he became Conservative Party leader in 2022, and it’s why he spends so much time in spaces and places that are home to the so-called “Maple MAGA” crowd. It’s why he brought coffees and donuts to the convoy that occupied Ottawa and later marched in solidarity with anti-vaccine protestors. It’s why he does long interviews with Jordan Peterson and outlets like True North rather than the mainstream media. It’s why he’s been doing a lot of things over the last two years.
Until Trump’s election, this strategy of smothering the potential PPC vote was working. Now, it may come back to haunt Poilievre. He somehow has to convince most Canadians who are concerned about their jobs and even territorial sovereignty that he will stand up to a president who is conspicuously popular among many of his supporters, and with whom he shares an obvious fondness for populist political rhetoric and weaponized nostalgia. At the same time, he has to convince the Trump-supporting voters who make up almost half of his party’s base not to defect to the more openly pro-Trump PPC. And so, the more he pushes in one direction, the more ground he loses in the other.
You can expect the Carney Liberals to ruthlessly exploit this vulnerability. That might have been at least part of the calculus behind his decision to invite Volodymyr Zelesnkyy to the G7 Summit later this year, given the way that issue animates the more tinfoil-laden parts of Poilievre’s political universe. There will be other similar issues dropped into his lap that deliberately apply pressure to an obvious fracture in his party — one he essentially spent the last two years inviting. He might still win the election, but the political bed Poilievre made for himself here isn’t looking nearly as comfortable as it once did.
Comments
Poilievre’s problem is that Carney is rightly seen as the adult in the room. I don’t expect that perception to change. That, plus the Liberal attack ads with video of Poilievre cozying up to convoy nitwits, and others showing Conservatives wearing MAGA hats will polish him off.
And it s more than time for the likes of pp and his trump loving supporters to be named and shamed. I won t live to see the once respected PC party recover its worth but the sooner the garbage the harpercons created is exposed and called out, the better. While I respect and supported PM Trudeau, that was definitely one of his weaknesses. It doesn t look like PM Carney will be repeating it. Thank the gods!
I'm not a fan of mainstream economics; I'm a left wing radical and my opinion is that mainstream economics is the way it is largely because the wealthy need an intellectual construct that makes excuses for them getting richer at everyone else's expense. Endow enough university "chairs" and you end up with a bunch of scholars saying what you want said.
But even for me, it's obvious that Poilievre knows nothing about economics (or about much of anything, really), just embraces the most horrifying caricatures of the right wing economic position, whereas Carney knows mainstream economics in a great deal of depth, enough to understand the quieter parts they don't teach the undergrads, that allow a bit more nuance than default neoliberalism. And he's not just seen the sausage being made, he has spent a good deal of time running the sausage factory--he knows the practical side. To the extent that it's possible with a theory base that's pretty deficient, Carney knows what he's talking about, whereas Poilievre knows three-word slogans.
It is so embarrassingly obvious that the donald was saying the opposite of what he was saying that it was hard to look at him. Are his supporters that blind that they let him get away with that and that they actually believed any of his promises?
The one thing the 'world' knows is that his signature on 'any' kind of agreement means nothing. No one can trust him not to change his mind within minutes/hours/days/weeks etc.
Too bad CBC's Power & Politics doesn't have you on as a regular guest because what/who they are providing right now, in some cases, are just too extreme right wing. Even though CBC and all mainstream media have been told they are not welcome on his campaign trail they are plastering his face and words everywhere. When they are talking to the Libs, pp in a lil' box constantly sneering his words. When they are talking to the Con/Reform no lil' box showing Carney talking.
What is going on with our public broadcaster? Has it been hijacked by Starlink or something. Oh yes is Starlink involved much in Canada and can they somehow effect our federal election because we know that Trump slipped up somewhere and said 'you'll never have to vote again'.
What is going on with the public broadcaster?
This is a long standing question, since the harperium. It needs to be answered. I m hopeful for the overhaul of the CBC although I d like to see terms of reference and oversight. Lest we drop right back into the mostly same ideation and lack of real journalism.
I would be surprised this bit of verbal diarrhea out of Trump on Fox News was likely a planned occurrance. However, it did not quiet work out as Poilievre expected from the unhinded Trump and backfired.
Poilievre cozying up the convoy nitwits with their Americian flags, spewing Amercican law and those in his own party wearing MAGA hats has come back to haunt him. Poilievre is Trumper, there is no question about it given his past and slogans right out a Trump playbook. How dumbs does Poilievre think Canadians are, we ar enot brainwashed like the MAGA clowns.
Add Poilievre abuse of using 3rd parties to destroy Justine Trudeau even further shows he is untrustworth to stand on his own two feet. Poilievre even prentends he is not connected to any of them, but strange they all convery the same grabage word for word that Poilievre spews.
But just the fact that Poilievre has ZERO real-world experience at anything, is enough to say he is not the right man for the job to tackle the Trump problem or even run the country.
MAGA = Make the Ass Go Away
It is beyond belief that it took the US re-election of an unhinged, malicious, misogynistic, racist, narcissistic, sociopathic, serial-lying felon as President who spews the same alt-right rhetoric, propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, climate change denialism and anti-science nonsense that Pierre Poilievre does, to bring some Canadians to the realization that electing Poilievre and the CPC might not be the best for Canada and Canadians.
While I suspect that some of the increased support for the Liberals is due to Justin Trudeau finally resigning as Prime Minister (a year too late in my opinion), it’s also obvious that the election of Mark Carney as Liberal leader and now Prime Minister has definitely initiated a substantial swing in voter support away from the CPC and to the Liberals.
I only hope that PM Mark Carney is strong enough to withstand the ugly verbal abuse, misinformation and disinformation that the alt-right minions in the CPC and Poilievre are going to heap on him. I also hope that he doesn’t cave in to the demands from the O&G industry to cover the country with pipelines. While in the short term it may be advantageous to build a pipeline to the Energy East pipeline to the east coast (we already have too many pipelines to the west coast IMO) it will only be beneficial if there are refineries in eastern Canada capable of refining the heavy oil (bitumen) that this pipeline would carry.
However, one of the other major issues here is that the rest of the world is rapidly transitioning to renewable energy sources and electric vehicles. The pace of that transition will only quicken as the emerging technologies and innovations in the renewable energy sector become available. Canadians paying for pipelines, or even subsidizing their construction, so that O&G companies largely owned by American billionaires (who support Trump) can make even more obscene amounts of profit is the epitome of stupidity in my view. It also keeps us more dependent on the US which
is not what Canadians desire or deserve.
Then there is the existential threat of runaway climate change to consider. The O&G industry has been working for many decades to undermine the energy transition and has actively encouraged and financially supported the disinformation campaign against the extreme dangers of climate change. If Canadians don’t want to leave their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with a frighteningly dystopian future, then they had better get off the fossil fuel agenda and embrace the energy transition. Listening to Trumpists like Danielle Smith, Pierre Poilievre and Max Bernier is definitely not where we want to go.
New peer-reviewed scientific research has pegged the “social cost of CO2” at $185 per metric tonne. In the last two years, human-caused CO2 emissions spewed into the atmosphere skyrocketed to over 26 billion tonnes per year. In addition to that frightening statistic, scientists tell us that CO2 emissions are actually twice that figure as half of the carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the oceans (making them more and more acidic) and other carbon sinks. According to climate scientist Dr. James Hansen there is already more than one trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that would need to be removed to bring the current CO2 level of 425 ppm back down to 350 ppm or less. At the rate we’re going the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase from its current level to over 500 ppm in just the next TWO decades AND ad an additional one trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
The world is on what the CNO’s Barry Saxifrage aptly termed “a highway to hell and high water.” So what is it to be Canada? A headlong descent into runaway climate change and all that will unleash on the planet to support greedy billionaires, OR a measured, intelligent and equitable transition to a low carbon future? I know where I stand.
There is a excellent video on energymedia’s youtube channel explaining how improving the existing electrical inter-ties between AB & BC, plus adding a new one extending to Edmonton across upper BC would result in greater energy transfer than TMX! Albertans would have their electrical costs chopped to less than half, industry would see Alberta & BC as ideal locations to invest in. Both provincial governments would therefore increase their yax base. Everybody in Alberta happy, except TransAlta corp, who are presently coining it like crazy by sticking it to Alberta ratepayers.
The election can't come soon enough. Don't give PP time to find a way to wriggle out of this.