Is Pierre Pollievre done?
A Work in Progress
Work in Progress
He’s sure been quiet lately. The Conservatives have been quiet. Very quiet. The mainstream media has been full of Liberal Prime Minister Carney and his battles with Trump – which is really working for the Carney Liberals. As a matter of fact, mainstream media is full of Carney news. Leadership has its privileges. I sense a federal election sooner rather than later. The Liberals are riding high. The Conservatives not so much. Why not? Elbows up everybody!
The federal Liberal Party has ruled Canada for 56 of the last 81 years (since the end of the Second World War). That’s 70 percent of the time. They consider themselves Canada’s natural governing party. Why? Because they have what they call a “big tent” approach to governing, they are centrists, avoiding the extremes of the political spectrum, skirting ideology in favour of embracing what they say is a middle of the road pragmatic approach to governing. It’s working for them.
Their opposition is the right-wing Conservatives and the left wing NDP. No one to challenge them for the middle, which historically is where Canadians feel most comfortable politically.
The Liberals are free from ideology, or if I may be less charitable, their only ideology is power. That’s why they win so often. Take recent events. Justin Trudeau became Liberal Prime Minister when he beat Tory Stephen Harper. He went on to beat two other Tory leaders. Over his term Trudeau went from being beloved for his “sunny ways” to being wildly unpopular. A natural trajectory for most prime ministers.
One would think that situation would have been perfect for Polievre and the Conservatives to sweep back into power. One would have been wrong.
The Liberals, in a deft move, sensed that voters were swinging right and so they presented them with Mark Carney, a Harvard educated economist and former banker. He has been, for all intents and purposes, a Tory Prime Minister. Except he leads the Liberal party.
The Liberals worked hard to ensure we forgot about Trudeau and championed Carney as the defender of Canada, preserving us all from the marauding America scourge. David Carney facing Goliath Trump. Everyone loves an underdog. Everyone hates a demon. It’s a perfect political situation. How much of that is fact and how much of that is political posturing? I will leave that up to you.
Different leader perhaps, but behind the scenes the same people are in charge. That’s the gig. The Liberals care about staying in power. They will give you what they think you want to ensure they keep holding the reins. They are very good at it. It doesn’t make them evil. It makes them competent.
That is Poilievre’s challenge. That’s what he is up against. He faces a largely hostile media. He’s lost eight MPs since the 2025 election. He and his party have been branded as a far-right threat to “Canadian” values. The Liberals would love to tie him to Trump.
Is the media doing Poilievre any favours? Every political party or candidate I have ever worked for has thought the media was biased against them, that journalists were out to get them, that they weren’t being given a fair shake in the press.
I have never worked for the Liberal party.
I have voted Progressive Conservative, I have voted New Democratic, I have voted Radical Marijuana Party, I have voted Rhinoceros. I have spoiled my ballot.
I have never voted Liberal.
This is just politics, but a surprising number of people believe it. The truth is Poilievre is a challenge to Liberal power. The Liberals don’t like that.
They don’t want you to like it either.
Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com