Ted Morton: Pierre Poilievre is the great uniter in Canadian politics
Ted Morton #TedMorton
As soon as Pierre Poilievre won the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, the usual pundits began rattling off the reasons why he cannot beat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the next federal election. They are wrong. As last week’s Nanos poll revealed, Poilievre has already pulled ahead of Trudeau — and his support is just going to keep growing.
Why? Because Poilievre bridges almost all the chronic divisions in Canadian federal elections. Not just in what he says — talk is cheap, after all — but in how he’s lived his life.
To start, he bridges the divide between Central and Western Canada. As an MP, he has represented ridings in the Ottawa area for more than a decade. But he grew up in Calgary. In his university days, he was active in Reform party and then Canadian Alliance politics. He is as comfortable walking around Calgary as he is in Ottawa.
Poilievre also bridges the French-English divide. He was adopted by, and raised in, a French-speaking family, and speaks fluent French himself. But he was educated in English and counts it has his first language. His two children attend a French-immersion daycare, but at home they speak as much Spanish as English. Welcome to 21st-century Canada!
Poilievre bridges the Quebec-Alberta cleavage. He knows that neither province likes being told what to do by Ottawa. In his victory speech on the night he won the CPC leadership, he spoke — in French — directly to Quebec nationalists. He promised to liberate Quebecers from the centralized and woke government in Ottawa, and to restore their hope and their ability to preserve their unique language and culture.
But his message — that federalism itself is a form of freedom; that strong, autonomous provinces foster true Canadian diversity — resonates just as well on the Prairies as in Quebec. Combine this with his commitments to unshackle oil and gas development and help make Canada “the breadbasket of the world,” and it’s easy to see why the MP from Ontario will sweep Western Canada.
Just as significantly, Poilievre bridges the gap between the old and the young. His traditional, small-c conservative values resonate with many baby boomers like me. But his fiery rhetoric plays well with gen Xers and millennials, as well. He’s not afraid to tackle Canadian icons like the CBC. They like his irreverence. They also see in him a fellow millennial whose family has faced the same challenges of affordable housing and childcare as they do. In his victory speech, he spoke repeatedly about these issues and committed to doing something about them.
Last but not least, Poilievre — and his charismatic wife, Anaida — bridge the gap between native-born Canadians and immigrants. Anaida Poilievre’s family immigrated to Canada from Venezuela in 1995, when she was only eight years old. She grew up in a working-class Montreal neighbourhood. Both she and her brothers speak Spanish, French and English. All have gone on to successful careers.
Poilievre joked in his victory speech that at his extended family’s Sunday evening barbecues, he is often clueless because he is the only one not speaking Spanish. The Poilievres embody the multicultural family of 21st-century Canada. This will resonate with the swing voters in the 905 ridings around Toronto.
And not just new Canadians, but all Canadians, would like a prime minister with a sense of humour. Someone who is not afraid to poke fun at himself in public. Someone who is proud but not arrogant. Indeed, I would venture that most people who watched his victory speech would feel comfortable inviting Pierre and Anaida Poilievre over for a barbecue. When was the last time we had a prime minister you felt that way about?
Finally, Poilievre will win because Canadians are tired, very tired, of being told how unjust and terrible Canada is. Trudeau, his woke ministers and Canada’s left-wing media bombard us daily with their narratives of what a racist, sexist, homophobic, colonialist mess we are — and that the Liberal government in Ottawa is here to save us from ourselves.
Canada’s history is not perfect. But neither is any other country’s. Look around the world and you will see much, much worse examples of racism, religious persecution, sexism and homophobia. In today’s world, by almost any standard, Canada ranks as high or higher than any other country as the best place to live, work and raise a family.
That’s why immigrants from around the world have been pouring into Canada for the past four decades. They are coming here because their family and friends who are already here have told them how much better life in Canada is: more and better jobs, safer neighbourhoods, better schools and opportunities for their children. In short, “peace, order and good government,” something that is increasingly rare in today’s world.
Pierre and Anaida Poilievre embody this message of hope, opportunity and optimism. Listen to his victory speech, where he thanks his parents, “two school teachers who adopted me from a teenage mother. They taught me that it didn’t matter where I came from but where I was going. That it didn’t matter who I knew but what I could do. That is the hope I want my kids to inherit.”
When was the last time Canadians had the opportunity to vote for a prime minister like this?
National Post
F.L. (Ted) Morton is professor emeritus and an executive fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. He is also a former minister of energy and minister of finance in the Government of Alberta.