Is this a PM in waiting?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/12/2024 (307 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pierre Poilievre appears destined to be Canada’s Prime Minister. It’s time he starting behaving in a manner worthy of that office.

Last week, the Conservative Party leader was touring a bakery in Aurora, Ontario when he was asked about a proposal by many Ontario local governments that calls for a portion of the GST from new home sales to be transferred by the federal government to municipalities.

Poilievre recently proposed cutting the GST on new house sales for homes sold for less than $1 million. He argues that the cut would save home buyers money, lower home prices and incentivize higher levels of home construction.

Given the fact that Poilievre is apparently willing to have the federal government walk away from all that GST revenue, it should surprise nobody that many mayors would see all that foregone money as an opportunity to help solve their budget challenges. After all, their thinking goes, if Poilievre doesn’t want the money, they can put it to good use.

It’s no surprise that they would have that idea. What is surprising, however, is the response Poilievre gave when asked about the proposal. He said this: “Municipal governments, don’t ever let them bullshit you, are bursting with cash, and they’re wasting it all … That’s why we don’t have enough infrastructure. Cut the bureaucracy, get their hands out of people’s pockets.”

He added that “Trudeau will give more and more to incompetent, greedy, money-hungry municipal politicians.”

It isn’t mayors who are BS-ing people on the issue of municipal spending. It’s Poilievre, and we all know it. There isn’t a single local government in the country that is “bursting with cash.”

Here in Brandon, we are facing years of large property tax increases to cover our costs, combined with a doubling of our water and sewer rates. Our infrastructure deficit — reflecting the deteriorating condition of our curbs, sidewalks and sewers — exceeds $200 million, and the figure keeps going up.

In Winnipeg, property owners are facing the prospect of the highest municipal property tax increase in 34 years. That’s because the city does not currently generate enough revenue to properly fund core services such as road repairs and emergency services, let alone address its multibillion-dollar infrastructure deficit. The city is left to do more with less, stretching resources to meet the needs of a larger population,” says Winnipeg mayor Scott Gillingham.

Does Poilievre think Gillingham is lying or exaggerating the seriousness of the situation in Winnipeg? Does he regard Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett as a “greedy, money-hungry” politician? Does he seriously think that Winnipeg’s and Brandon’s audited financial statements — which reveal the many fiscal challenges facing the two cities — are deliberately false?

Does he think there’s a vault of cash below Brandon city hall, or is he the BS-er in this story? You decide.

Poilievre’s reckless comments regarding municipal funding are bad, but his response to threats by USD president-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods entering the U.S. are even more ridiculous.

Earlier this week, he took Trump’s side on the issue, telling reporters that “The prime minister has broken our immigration system, broken our banks, broken our border. We need to fix those things and put Canada first.” During question period on Wednesday, he said that “this weak prime minister has lost control of everything. He’s lost control of the borders, lost control of immigration.”

Do you think rhetoric like that causes Trump to back away from his threat which, if implemented, will gut our economy and cost many Canadians their jobs? Or, do you think it tells Trump that we are a divided nation and that his threats are creating the instability in Canada that he craves?

If the polls are correct — and there’s no reason to believe they aren’t — Poilievre’s Conservatives are on track to win a record majority of seats in the upcoming federal election, which must be held by October of next year. Given that likelihood, it’s time for the Tory leader to ditch his “attack dog” act and start behaving like a “prime minister in waiting.”

His party may be high in the polls, but those same polls also show that a majority of Canadians still do not have a favourable impression of him. That is almost entirely due to the unnecessarily aggressive way he behaves and the needlessly nasty things he often says.

That has to stop. Canadians crave a leader who understands their challenges and will put their interests first. Most of all, they want a prime minister who acts like a grown-up; a leader who understands that you seldom solve problems with insults.

Can Poilievre be that guy? You decide.

» Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon.