Selection of PM candidates is poor

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This article was published 18/10/2024 (561 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We know what the polls say.

The latest aggregate polling numbers from the CBC News Poll Tracker website run by Eric Grenier shows that Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre has a commanding lead at around 42.6 per cent of decided voters in this country.

Accordingly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party is tracking a distant second at 23.1 per cent, followed up by New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh at 18.3 per cent. In terms of the voting public outside Quebec, the remaining parties are pretty much non-entities. Even Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party is behind the languishing Green Party of Canada and it’s leader, Elizabeth May.

And if the federal election were held tomorrow, there’s little doubt we would have a change in government, with the slogan-loving, media-bashing Poilievre likely our next prime minister.

This is hardly a surprise.

Justin Trudeau has become a rather hefty albatross around the neck of his own party, dragging them down in the polls and in the eyes of Canadians from sea to sea. While certainly not all public criticism of the Liberal prime minister has been accurate or fair, there is more than enough dead weight on the man to know that he is well past his best before date — from scandals and ethics complaints, and obviously poor personal decisions that made him look foolish and/or racist, to some overtly heavy deficit spending by his government that, for all his finance minister’s promises and denials, has not been reined in.

In the past, faced with such a poor political record it would not have been difficult to point to Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and suggest that it was time for a change. As former U.S. president Herbert Hoover once remarked, “Honour is not the exclusive property of any political party.” And there have been — and still are — good men and women of conscience who have decided to serve in public office in the best way they know how.

Indeed, many more Canadians in recent months are looking beyond the obvious flaws of the Conservative leader and considering him as a viable alternative — some would say a far superior alternative — to Trudeau. The polls are proof enough of that.

But as a voter, it’s worth considering that there are ongoing questions about the suitability of Pierre Poilievre to hold Canada’s highest public office. As has been said before on this page, since becoming Conservative leader Poilievre has made a series of false statements and factual distortions to fuel his assertion that everything in Canada is broken and that it’s all Justin Trudeau’s fault.

He has shown an arrogant and cruel streak in his treatment of both media and of legitimate questions posed by national reporters who are attempting to do their jobs and hold politicians accountable for their actions.

Yet the most recent allegations against the Conservative leader — this time by none other than Trudeau himself — are far more concerning if true.

As The Canadian Press reported this week, Poilievre has refused to get the security clearance necessary to be briefed on a list of people in his own party who Trudeau says are involved in or vulnerable to foreign interference. Trudeau made the assertion during a federal commission of inquiry on Wednesday.

“I have the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and-or candidates in the Conservative Party of Canada who are engaged (in) or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference,” Trudeau said during his sworn testimony. “The decision by the leader of the Conservative party to not get those classified briefings means that nobody in his party — not him, nobody in a position of power — knows the names of these individuals and can take appropriate action.”

Following Trudeau’s testimony, Poilievre released a statement calling on the prime minister to publicly release the names, and said Trudeau was “lying.”

These are both very loaded assertions, ones that leaves Canadians in a bit of a quandary.

We are not likely to see this list Trudeau is referring to unless the RCMP begin charging people in the Conservative caucus, leaving Trudeau’s statement a truly nebulous affair that offers little to improve his political fortunes, and may well further sink them. Just yesterday, four more more cabinet ministers in Trudeau’s government announced they will not seek re-election. That is hardly a vote of confidence in his leadership.

At the same time, we’re also left questioning the integrity of a Conservative leader who doesn’t like answering questions, is long on slogans and short on actual policy and solutions, and who may well have something to hide, given he won’t simply get the necessary security clearance to begin the process of defending his party.

And no, looking toward Jagmeet Singh as a viable option just seems silly, given how he has poorly handled his party’s affairs over the course of his leadership. He is certainly no Jack Layton.

With an election a year away — or far sooner — what’s a voter to do?