The more they see him, the less they like him

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/06/2023 (1042 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I don’t know Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre, but he strikes me as a man with a chip on his shoulder. Maybe several chips.

I have no idea what happened to him earlier in his younger years, but it appears that he has devoted his adult life to defiantly proving all of his detractors and naysayers wrong. Despite lacking the appearance, education and pedigree of many of Canada’s previous national leaders, Poilievre projects a driven, naked ambition to be prime minister.

It’s an ambition that too often comes across as slippery, snide and sometimes cruel.

Andrew MacDougall, Stephen Harper’s former director of communications, said this about Poilievre in the National Post last week: “According to the old laws of politics, when an opponent is beating himself, you step out of the way and watch him go to town. Why, then, does Pierre Poilievre watch Justin Trudeau repeatedly self-harm, then choose to dump his own mess on the floor?”

He added: “Welcome to the new, digital laws of politics, which says that boring questions about substantive issues don’t travel or draw engagement online. What sells online is salacious rumour delivered with a side of snark, or full-frontal attack delivered full-force. In the online world, traffic trumps truth.”

McDougall wasn’t alone in his criticism of Poilievre. In a column entitled “Pierre Poilievre is wasting his chance to become prime minister,” Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert wrote a few days ago that “It is increasingly difficult to divorce the Liberals’ resilience from the repeated failures of the latest Conservative leader.”

She added that “If the numbers in voting intentions are not decisively moving the way of the Conservatives, it may well be because Poilievre is giving Liberal sympathizers a rationale to stick with Trudeau for yet another election.”

Hebert’s perspective is consistent with the results of a large poll released last week by the Leger polling company. It found that the Liberals now lead the Conservatives by a 33-31 margin — that’s after months of the Tories having a solid and growing lead.

Could it be that a growing number of Canadians are tiring of Poilievre, his anger, his creepy meanness, and his disdain for facts? That’s what the Leger poll suggests, and so do the results of a recent poll conducted by Abacus Data.

Abacus found that 61 per cent of respondents believed “a Conservative government will cut all public funding to the English-language CBC,” and that 55 per cent believed “a Conservative government will end the national dental care program established by the Liberals.”

The poll also found that the same percentage believed “a Conservative government will make it harder for women to have an abortion,” and that 51 per cent agreed that “a Conservative government will end the national childcare program established by the Liberals.”

If you’re wondering how the Liberals could be back in the lead among voters (according to Leger) and basically tied with the Tories for seat projections, the answer is found in the Abacus findings.

The majority of Canadians believe a Poilievre-led Conservative government would be a threat to the CBC’s future, to abortion rights and to national dental and childcare programs that overwhelmingly benefit poor families and seniors.

Those are cornerstone components of Liberal Party policy, and Poilievre is making it clear to voters that the only way to protect those cornerstones is to keep electing Liberal governments.

If you add widespread voter concern over the Tories’ policy on guns, their support of the convoy crowd, their cosy relationship with anti-vaxxers, and their Pavlovian mimicry of the Trump agenda, it’s easy to understand why Poilievre’s tactics are killing his party’s election chances.

Despite spending almost his entire adult life in politics, he still hasn’t figured out that convincing a group of voters to despise Justin Trudeau won’t result in a Conservative electoral victory if he creates a larger group of voters that loathes and/or distrusts him. He still doesn’t understand that his brand of constantly caustic negativity drives voters away.

It’s a lesson Stephen Harper never learned; it’s an even bigger problem for Poilievre.

This would be the point where other columnists might write that Poilievre still has time to soften his approach and earn the support of hesitant and skeptical voters before the next election. I’m not so sure about that.

The two keys to success in politics are having voters know who you are and what you stand for. Sadly, they can also be the two keys to failure. Just ask Max Bernier.

Poilievre has been around politics long enough for Canadians to know exactly who he is and what he stands for. For many, that impression isn’t good, and it isn’t going to change.

With the next federal election as much as two years away, there is plenty of time for Poilievre to alienate even more voters. In fact, the Liberals’ re-election hopes depend on it.

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