The Master

 

Restore Canada's Reputation Worldwide

 

---Elect Pierre Poilievre.

The Tories in Quebec City

 

The Conservative convention has just concluded in Quebec City. I can’t recall when a party convention, absent a leadership contest, ever garnered so much attention. It feels historic. Chantal Hebert, no friend to the right, noted recently on CBC that the last time a governing party was as low as Trudeau in the polls was during the Mulroney era. 

The next election, Mulroney’s Tories won two seats.

The tone was no longer the pusillanimous apologetic tone of Erin O’Toole or Andrew Scheer. There was a large banner behind the rostrum reading simply “Freedom.” Speakers returned more than once to the theme of recovering pride in Canadian heritage: “our history must be celebrated, not apologized for nor cancelled.” “We should be proud of the flag on our soldiers’ uniforms. This is the flag that should be flying from government buildings.” “Those leaders who build Canada should be celebrated, not toppled.”

In French: <<new immigrants must understand that Canada’s history is now their history. They must adopt our traditions. We must not listen to those who, like Mr. Trudeau, say that Canada has no basic culture.>>

And Poilievre himself: “English Canadians can learn this from Quebec—and I’m saying this deliberately in English-- Quebeckers do not apologize for their culture, their language, or their history.”

Poilievre and other speakers made many references to Quebec, and Quebec politics. This made sense since the convention was held in Quebec. But then too, why did the party decide to hold their convention in Quebec? It seems that Poilievre and his team are making a point of seeking Quebec support, their weakest region. This suggests confidence and a hope of running up the score.

There was also recognition of the Freedom Convoy: “If Canadians feel strongly about something, the prime minister should listen; not attack and insult them…. If thousands of Canadians feel strongly enough about something to get in their vehicles and drive all the way to Ottawa, the prime minster should pay attention.” And this got a standing ovation.

Poilievre showed his rhetorical brilliance, leading off with a story. Fine rhetorical touch, referring to the garage as “Herb’s Garage.” Make it personal; refer to an “everyday Canadian,” one of the “common people.” And one who has lost his business. He cleverly insinuated that his wife, whose first language is Spanish, was a Francophone (“What’s Ana, a smart and beautiful Quebecois, doing with this Anglophone wearing glasses?”). His praise of his wife, and her speech on his behalf, pointed cruelly to Trudeau’s marital troubles. He skillfully used alliterative phrases like “powerful paychecks,” “affordable food.” Inflation was “a silent thief, quietly picking the pockets of the poor…”

It was all devastatingly effective, and Poilievre kept getting interrupted by chants of “Bring it Home!”

We haven’t seen this kind of enthusiasm in Canadian politics since the days of Pierre Trudeau. And it is a very good thing for a country to see this kind of hope and excitement for the future.

The Promise of Poilievre

 

Last fall, when Pierre Poilievre won the Tory leadership, all the talking heads were saying his stewardship of the party was doomed. He had, after all, ru to the right in the leadership contest. Now how could he move to the centre to win an election?

I found this assumption that deceit was simply the way to do business disgusting. The first time I heard this idea, that you ran as an ideologue to win the nomination, then moved to the centre, was from Richard Nixon. I realized then that he was a crook. It is the reason I can no longer bear to look at a picture of Erin O’Toole without a sense of physical revulsion.

Besides the gross immorality, it is bad practical advice. If you make your programme indistinguishable from that of the party in power, why vote for you instead of the party in power? If they like what the other guys are doing, they will vote for them. If they don’t like it, why vote for you and just get more of the same? And then there is the inevitable suspicion, and accusation, that you have a “hidden agenda.” You are asking the people to buy a pig in a poke. For the leadership, you did not govern on the platform you ran on. Why would it be different if you came to power? How can anyone trust you?

Leadership is not about finding a parade, and rushing to the head of it. It is not about parsing the polls.  If it were, one leader would be just as good as another; anyone can do that. Only a narcissist would think that way: all that matters to him is that he is in power.

Leadership is about communicating, and convincing people. This Poilievre seems exceptionally good at. And he has already, according to several polls, opened up an eight-point lead over the present government. Proving my point: but for a bad stumble over Christine Anderson, he has not yet betrayed his principles doing it.

If Poilievre comes to power, the same rhetorical skill, the ability to bring people along with him, could make him an exceptionally good prime minister as well. This ability to communicate and inspire was the core skill possessed by Reagan, by Churchill, by Zelensky, by Thatcher; by Ralph Klein in Alberta. Although few seem to realize it, by Donald Trump, a brilliant comic performer. By Martin Luther King; by Lincoln.

It seems less common on the left. JFK had it. Pierre Trudeau did. On the left, it is called “charisma.”

To be fair, Diefenbaker too had the knack, and Bill Clinton, and Boris Johnson. None of whom I would consider exceptional leaders. Which demonstrates that it is not enough. There are other elements to a great leader; empty rhetoric is still just empty rhetoric.

Canada may be exceptionally lucky, as if protected by God, to have Poilievre emerge at this moment, when our society and perhaps our civilization seems to be falling into chaos and despair. If it can be pulled back together at all, that is a job for a master rhetorician.

No guarantees; but there is cause for hope. There is cause for hope if, two years from now, Poilievre is in charge in Canada, and Trump in the USA. That might be enough to turn things around.

Pulling the Foot Out

 

Pierre Poilievre has made a serious mistake, in condemning Christine Anderson. He now risks losing enough voters to Maxime Bernier to take away his chance of beating Trudeau. Even if this does not happen, we know from past experience that moving to the middle does not get you any more votes. It gives people no reason to vote for you. Ask Erin O’Toole. Ask Andrew Scheer. Ask Tom Mulcair. Ask Mitt Romney. Ask John McCain. It is a losing strategy.

What Poilievre should have said is something like this:

“Christine Anderson is a democratically elected representative of the German people. Not to entertain and to respect her shows contempt for the German people, our good friends and allies. It does not mean we agree with all her views. Cooperating with those with whom we sometimes disagree, on matters of agreement, is the lifeblood of democracy. It is the lifeblood of civil society. Much of the ill-will and suffering in Canada today is caused by a Prime Minister who refuses to even speak with those with whom he disagrees, who simply calls them names and slanders them, as ‘racists or ‘misogynists’ or ‘antisemites’ and the like. 

This man who danced around in blackface with his tongue out and a banana stuffed down his trousers.

We Conservatives do not want that kind of Canada, nor that kind of world. We respect people, the people of Germany and the people of Canada, and we welcome those who come here from abroad.”

Poilievre has now stupidly missed his chance. I guess he thought he could duck the issue by having the statement sent out by someone in his office, and just to one reporter, Brian Lilley. Lamely playing right into Trudeau’s accusation that the Conservatives hide their true feelings behind claims they “just didn’t know.” That backfired, because everyone noticed it anyway, it painted Trudeau in the right and the Tories in the wrong, and it made him look like a coward.

Now that he has not immediately dissociated himself from it, he will not be able to convince anyone he is sincere in doing so, that it was some advisor going rogue. He will just look more cowardly, less principled, and callous as well. He will also be throwing Brian Lilley under the bus. He cannot afford to alienate the few members of the media not already trying to destroy him. He will not look like a leader.

I suspect his failure to either acknowledge the statement by his operative, or dissociate himself from it, reflects indecision. He and his office do not know what to do. Yet this too now makes him look weak and cowardly. He cannot stay silent now, and he cannot dissociate himself from the controversy. He put his foot in it.

He has t take full responsibility, and apologize. People will respect him the more for it. It worked for JFK after the Bay of Pigs. It is something I firmly believe as a teacher: if you do not know the answer, you immediately own up to it. If you gave the students the wrong information, you immediately own up to it. Indeed, if you are a good human being, and you realize you have done something wrong, you immediately own up to it. That is what real leadership looks like.

He should issue something like the following statement:

"I regret deeply my lack of respect last week, expressed through a member of my office, but with my knowledge and consent, for Christine Anderson, a duly elected fellow parliamentarian and representative of our friends, the German people. I cannot endorse all her views. That is not the point. We are all individuals, and have the inalienable right to our views, and to express them freely. We do not have to always agree with each other to support and love one another, to work together to build a better Canada and a better world—a lesson I wish our present Prime Minister would learn. I must humbly remember it too. I apologize to Ms. Anderson, a fellow democrat and believer in human freedom, and to the German people, for my lapse in judgement. And I pledge to try to do better."

If Poilievre is a good man, and a leader, he will say something like this.

But I don’t expect him to.

Timber

 

I saw a reasonably balanced account of the Ottawa July 1 protesters on CBC. They ended, fairly enough, by noting that, although the parade of ‘freedom fighters” looked large, they really represented only a small proportion of Canadians.

This seems to be true enough, according to the polls, according to the last federal election, according to the recent Ontario election. Even the spring surge in CPC membership does not prove anything. It makes the Conservatives the largest party in Canadian history, but its membership is still a tiny proportion of the general population, perhaps 2%.

However, I recall a university class back in 1974, which hosted a guest speaker from the PLO. I pointed out after her talk that polls showed the great majority of Palestinian Arabs actually supported Israel. 

“Wait ten years,” she said. She was right.

It takes time for any very new message to percolate through the population. 

The priority now is to get the message out. The leftist elite knows this, because they are doing everything they can to prevent the message from getting out. 

I retain a visceral dislike of Erin O’Toole, because he took the opposite path, declaring the conservative message wrong and promising no change. It was a betrayal; all the more so since he ran for the leadership as a “true blue” conservative. Had the party faithful wanted to run centre-left, they would have done better with Peter MacKay. O’Toole sold them and the Canadian people out for personal ambition.

Pierre Poilievre, by contrast, is a brilliant communicator; and he knows how to use social media. This allows him to bypass the media control and speak directly to the people. He has long reminded me of John Diefenbaker with his inquisitorial fire in question period. His latest video reminds me of Ronald Reagan.

He speaks in clear and simple terms of things we all know in our hearts.

We need is to get the message out, and Canada will quickly tip to the side of freedom. Poilievre looks like our best chance yet to get that message out.

Pierre Poilievre Making Sense

 

The Conservative Groundswell

 

The Pierre Poilievre campaign claims they have signed up over 300,000 new members to the Conservative Party through their website. The Patrick Brown campaign claims 150,000 more. The Poilievre figure alone more than doubles the number of members of the Conservative Party--without yet taking into account those signed up by the other campaigns, or who signed up directly, as I did, at the CPC website to participate in their leadership race.

Something important is happening in Canadian politics.

Rather than being impressed or acknowledging the historic nature of this groundswell, a panel of politicos hosted by the CBC warned that Pierre Poilievre was "playing with fire,” appealing to people who would not go along with a move to the centre for the next federal election.

Assuming Poilievre had to move to the centre for the general election.

No concern that it was dishonest to run on one platform for the leadership, and switch up for the general election. No concern that this large number of committed people supporting Poilievre deserved to be represented. The general public was, to these politicians, cattle, to be deceived and controlled. And this was spoken openly, and not hidden.

To be fair, you might argue that they are only being realistic; that to get the most votes, you need to straddle the ideological middle. However, this assumption, although it seems logical, is not borne out by the facts. Mike Harris in Ontario, Rob Ford in Toronto, Ralph Klein in Alberta, Francois Legault in Quebec, all proved highly successful in elections while maintaining a hard right position, at least rhetorically. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Stephen Harper, Donald Trump all were successful with a hard right stance. Erin O’Toole, Mitt Romney, John McCain all fell short lunging for the centre. 

It is a losing proposition for an opposition party to try to take the centre ground. What is considered the centre ground is largely defined by the party in power. If the electorate likes their policies, they are going to stick with the government. If they do not like their policies, they are still not going to see any reason to vote in a new party that promises the same policies

This is equally true for the left or the right. In the recent Ontario election, the Liberals and NDP agreed with the ruling Tories on everything. Result: win for the Tories. In 2015, Tom Mulcair’s NDP made a lunge for power by moving to the centre. Result: win for the Liberals, who ran uncharacteristically further to the left.

I assume political operatives know their business. They realize then that the idea that the Tories must move to the centre is electoral bunk. Rather, they are demanding it as an obligation to fellow members of the ruling class that everyone take the approved stand on all the issues, and not allow the common hoi polloi a say.

This is what “the centre” really means. It really means “the party line.” Only in such a situation can at leasthalf the electorate be declared “far right,” and "populism" be called "far right." That necessarily implies that “the centre” is actually well to the left on the spectrum of actual popular opinion.