Clearly, Pierre Poilievre is making a calculated decision here in who and what he associates himself with.
H/t Theo Moudakis
Reflections, Observations, and Analyses Pertaining to the Canadian Political Scene
Clearly, Pierre Poilievre is making a calculated decision here in who and what he associates himself with.
It would seem that the leading contender for the helm of the federal Conservatives, Pierre Poilievre, brings neither credit nor credibility to his party.
H/t de AdderBruce Arthur writes about the divisive tactics of this strange man, tactics that seem in many ways reminiscent of the nonsense that goes on in the U.S., where Joe Biden is blamed for inflation, ignoring the fact that it is a worldwide problem caused by a variety of external factors.
The Bank of Canada is a target thanks to the rise of inflation, which is largely due to the war in Ukraine and oil prices, house prices, China and COVID, and maybe some profiteering. People notice pocketbook economics.
In response to this thorny global financial challenge, Poilievre blames domestic spending and Bank bond-buying to support government deficit spending — he has always been against the pandemic financial supports to Canadians — and pitches … Bitcoin?
That would be the same Bitcoin that is down 50 per cent since November.
His attacks on the Bank of Canada are similarly reckless. He wants the Bank to focus on keeping inflation as low as possible, while knowingly pushing lines of attack that could undermine its ability to do so. Expectations of inflation affect wage expectations, which affect prices, and if the market doesn’t think the Bank of Canada is serious about bringing down inflation, inflation doesn’t slow.
Maybe Poilievre truly doesn’t understand that. More likely, he just doesn’t care.
And his seemingly nonsensical advocacy for crytocurrencies has a sinister implication.
Jessica Marin Davis is the president of Insight Threat Intelligence, a former senior strategist in Canadian intelligence, and the author of a book on international terrorist financing. She points out that of the money sent to the Ottawa convoy, the vast majority of the million or so via crowdfunding sites was frozen, leaving approximately $30,000. But over $830,000 came in via cryptocurrency.
Davis says, “it's super useful for money laundering, and it's super useful for other forms of illicit financing, and it's somewhat useful for terrorist financing. And I would say it's somewhat useful for other forms, like financing criminal mischief, as we saw in the convoy.”
Really, the simplest throughline to Poilievre’s bit is that if your goal is to hammer freedom to an audience that found wearing masks was an imposition, that vaccines were a conspiracy rather than a collective victory, and that are angry or confused by what’s happening with the world, then Bitcoin is just another aspirational buzzword that signifies the world doesn’t have to work the way you’re told it does. Poilievre has been pumping conspiratorial theories about gatekeepers for much of the pandemic; He’s still doing it. He’ll say just about anything, and that opens the door to all kinds of conspiracies, all kinds of anger, all kinds of extremism.
Such is the sad state of politics today, powered by people who gleefully exploit and exacerbate societal divisions to feed their own power-seeking venality.
Definitely not the Canada I grew up in, and not the Canada I want to exist after I am gone.
P.S. For a primer on the real nature and risks of crytocurrencies, click here.
I am not one of those who chortles when political parties fall into embarrassments or controversy; such events only serve as fodder for opposing parties eagerly driven to earn more political street cred. Those antics do not benefit democracy.
I speak first as an Ontario voter, despondent at the meagre fare on offer June 2, our election day: Doug Ford's Conservatives, the Liberals, and the NDP, or, as I like to call the leaders of the latter two, Tweedledum and Tweedle-dee.
So the quality of leadership does matter regardless of political affiliation. And that especially includes the federal Conservatives, whose leadership choice in the fall puts under pressure whatever is left of its soul. Not to mention the pressure it puts on our own democracy.
Being of a certain vintage, I remember well Progressive Conservative leaders such as Robert Stanfield and Joe Clark, both profoundly decent men who would today be labelled as Red Tories., Indeed, and I am not ashamed to admit it, I voted Conservative when these two men led the party. It was a time when viable political alternatives existed, alternatives that always serve as a much-needed check on whatever party leads the government.
Unfortunately today, and here I state the obvious, rabid polarization has robbed us of measured choices, the result being that democracy is deeply wounded.
A letter-writer reflects on what the choice of Pierre Poilievre to lead the Conservative Party of Canada would mean for both the party and the country. Neither is an appealing scenario:
I hope that prospective voters in the upcoming Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership read the Justin Ling column on the convoy background, but it is probably in the wrong newspaper for them to see it.
A significant number are apparently preparing to vote for Pierre Poilievre, glad-handing supporter of the Convoy of Anger as possible Prime Minister. Of course, he is already running for Prime Minister, believing that the interim step of leading his party is a foregone conclusion.
Some CPC MPs are so blinded by hatred of Trudeau that they will support any movement that attaches his name and a profanity to a sign, even if some of the so-called leaders have advocated violence, spouted conspiracy nonsense, and carried with them a ridiculous MOU.
There are two possible outcomes from Poilievre becoming CPC leader. Perhaps the most likely is more years of a Liberal government that always promises more than it delivers. The more dire consequence would be a cabinet full of convoy supporters.
David Steele, Regina, Sask.
Those who are eager for the implosion of the Conservatives, or any other major party for that matter, need to consider the implications fully before so lustily cheering on political demise.
I need ammunition, not a ride - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
With those six words, the Ukrainian President has put leadership under the microscope. His is the kind of courageous example that most people would long for in their politicians, but have likely long ago dismissed as a fond notion best confined to fantasy.
Juxtapose someone of great moral courage with a cruel dictator heedless of human life; one will inspire, and one will repel. And in the process you might just stir the world to at least a semblance of unity.
While everyone's attention is rightly rivetted by the terrible tragedy underway in Ukraine, one can also be heartened by the collective action much of the world is taking against the monstrous and calloused choices being made by Vladimir Putin. While not perfect by any means, the sanctions are the expression of strong condemnation of the war crimes underway.
All of which has led to me thinking about the potential of leadership to unite a country. I would say that, especially in the early days of the pandemic, Justin Trudeau provided such leadership, appearing daily outside his cottage for updates, quarantining when necessary, and letting his hair and beard grow somewhat unruly, something many of us could relate to in those times. By these measures, he conveyed a message of shared pain and sacrifice. While obviously of an entirely different magnitude than that shown by Zelensky, it was what we needed at the time.
Then I think about the man who "wants to be your next prime minister," Pierre Poilievre. As described in The Breach, he is an ideologue who wants to replace social programs with a “tiny survival stipend”. It is a small part of his model of leadership that will inspire the mean-spirited and repel the fair-minded.
Althia Raj offers some thoughts on the options open for the Conservative Party as they ponder who should next lead them. Will they continue down the road to Trumpism or attempt to appeal to a wider part of the electorate?
The only declared candidate, Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre, is a polarizing figure with a “take no prisoners” attitude. He recently called Europe’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shockingly “weak,” embraced the so-called “Freedom Convoy,” and called COVID-19 public health measures a purposeful attempt by governments “to try and take away our freedom and give themselves more power.”
In the past, Poilievre has attacked the media, made derogatory comments about Indigenous peoples, left the door open to a niqab ban in the public service, and broken the election law. Elected at age 25, the career MP is a forceful opposition critic who has railed against elites, placed the blame for rising inflation and house prices at the feet of the Liberals, and promised more energy projects. His campaign launch through a social media video on Feb. 5 garnered more than seven million views on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. At least 26 Conservative caucus members have endorsed him.
While the vote-getting allure of the demagogue is tempting to many, others aren't so sure, seriously considering other potential candidate like Jean Charest and Patrick Brown, both moderates and from the progressive wing of the party.
None of these choices inspire in the way that Zelensky does, but Poilivre's no-holds-barred strategy, which includes courting supporters of The People's Party, does offer some increasingly clear choices:
In choosing a leader, the Conservatives must ask themselves what their winning formula will be —do they want to take votes from Bernier’s far-right party or from Justin Trudeau’s Liberals?
Those who read this blog with any regularity will know that I am a strong advocate of newspaper readership. Despite their flaws, mainstream media have something to offer that simply gleaning news from the internet lacks: reports and perspectives on a wide array of issues. Unlike the echo chamber that the pick-and-choose Web has become, they provide something sorely lacking in many people's perspectives: wide context with which to evaluate the world, and our place in it. Local, national and international reports and views have the potential to take us out of our limited bubble, rather than reinforce it as happens with those who attend the university of the internet.
With that is mind, I am taking the unusual step of reproducing a large portion of a column today, written by Althia Raj, as she addresses some of the fundamental and farcical hypocrisy evident in the Conservative Party of Canada and. to a lesser extent as asserted by Raj (although I don't really agree with her on this point), by Justin Trudeau that has emerged in the truckers' kidnapping of Ottawa:
Shockingly, the demonstrators have received the nearly incomprehensible blessing of Conservative MPs. Writing in the Toronto Sun Friday, Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge) said it an “honour and a joy” to walk among the protesters; she expressed pride that the trucking convoy was sparking mimics in other countries, and called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to dialogue with the protesters — whose organizers have called for the overthrow of his democratically elected government.
Last week, interim leader Candice Bergen (Portage-Lisgar), who has cheered the convoy since the beginning, saying their demands for freedom and respect were not too much to ask, also called on Trudeau to extend an olive branch to the protesters. Carleton MP and declared Conservative leadership contestant Pierre Poilievre also made a point of posing for pictures with the protesters, as have Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand-Norfolk) and several Saskatchewan MPs.
The Tory caucus is not united. But for every Pierre Paul-Hus, a Quebec MP and former lieutenant-colonel, who called for the streets be cleared and the occupation “controlled by radicals and anarchist groups” stopped, or a Shelby Kramp-Neuman (Hastings—Lennox and Addington), who tweeted that the increasing amount of bad-faith actors were not a legitimate protest, there is a Lianne Rood (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex) or Dean Allison (Niagara West) who “strongly disagree,” and see in Ottawa a peaceful assembly. Social media is full of Conservative MPs, such as Greg McLean (Calgary Centre) who decry “unbalanced media coverage,” choosing to focus on the protest’s “winter carnival” feeling rather than its lawlessness.
Who among us believes that if the truck convoy occupiers were anti-pipeline advocates, bringing a joyful message of hope for a greener and cleaner future while urinating on the streets, and blocking these MPs’ constituents from going about their daily lives or sleeping at night, there wouldn’t be a very different message from the Tory caucus?
Back in 2020, during the Indigenous-led railway blockades, Poilievre seemed to be standing on principle when he said, on CBC News Network: “You have the right to swing your fist, but that freedom stops at the tip of another person’s nose. And right now, these blockaders are taking away the freedom of other people to move their goods and themselves where they want to go, and that is wrong.”
Now, we see the double standard.
Most concerning in all this is the noticeable lack of voices decrying the use of foreign money supporting this occupation — a fact the police chief mentioned Wednesday and was later confirmed by attorneys general in Florida, West Virginia and Louisiana.
In 2012, the Conservatives were hell-bent on stopping the foreign funding of charities. Joe Oliver, then natural resources minister, suggested American interests were funding “radicals” who were preventing Canada’s natural resources projects from going ahead.
As more than $10 million was amassed on the GoFundMe platform, and at least $1 million more collected through other avenues, where is the Conservative outrage about outside funding for the convoy? Whether or not you think some of those protesting are just fed-up Canadians — and many are — there is no denying some also share a desire to destabilize the state.
While Ottawa residents deplore the vacuum of policing, there is also a vacuum of leadership.
Trudeau, by referring to the anti-vax as a “small fringe minority” with “unacceptable views,” likely emboldened a movement and encouraged the vaccine-hesitant to join a community that felt aggrieved and misunderstood by the majority. He should be called upon to explain why he sent ministers to dialogue with pipeline protesters but won’t do the same for those on the Hill. Thus far, the prime minister has said strikingly little about the occupation on his office doorstep.
Similarly, Ontario Premier Doug Ford needs to explain just what he’s ready to do to bring order to Ottawa. Saying the city’s police force just needs to ask for help has proven to be insufficient.
All of this is good to know and good to keep in mind, as long as large numbers of people don't get distracted too much by the next viral internet meme or conspiracy theory.
Lenny, in essence, picks up calls and answers them with pre-recorded audio clips from a doddering Australian man, sometimes keeping telemarketers on the phone for over 20 minutes.You don't have to listen to the entire clip to make your day. Enjoy:
The clips include non-sequiturs, complaints that he can’t hear the caller, and extended reflections about one of his daughter’s academic achievements. At one point he even chases away ducks.
The Conservatives have provided a national background Muzak of sloganeering and propaganda that aims to lull Canadians into a false sense that everything will be okay if you just vote for them.The contempt for Canadians is egregious:
They’re using your money to buy your vote.
... this government has spent $750 million blanketing you in Tory blue.How little the Harper regime regards the taxpayer is made even more graphic by a video that government toadie Pierre Poilievre produced at taxpayer expense:
It has advertised programs before they existed. It has appropriated “Strong. Proud. Free” as an advertising slogan, but its genesis is considered a state secret and cannot be revealed for 20 years because Conservatives have deemed the matter one of cabinet confidence.
It is spending $13.5 million to advertise its budget — not to inform, but to promote.
It uses your money for its own partisan videos, endangering Canadian soldiers in the process of burnishing the Stephen Harper image.
David McGuinty says there are 9,800 Economic Action Plan billboards in this country, costing $29 million.
“At its core, this kind of advertising undermines the rules of fair play in our democratic system,’’ he says.
“Canadians believe the government thinks they’re stupid.’’
Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre commissioned a team of public servants for overtime work on a Sunday to film him glad-handing constituents in promotion of the Conservative government’s benefits for families.I have to warn you that the following video, made at a children’s clothing consignment event at a local hockey arena in Poilievre's riding, should only be watched by those who are strongly constituted:
The ensuing taxpayer-funded video – and other recent ones like it – are prompting concern that the Conservatives have taken a new step in the use of public funds to produce “vanity videos.”
If a democratic system thrives on participation from a civil society free to express itself without state intervention, then Canadian democracy could use some help these days.The statistics paint a damning picture:
Citizens who band together into groups that push politicians to engage a problem should, in theory, be a vital aspect of democratic decision-making. Yet the Harper administration, in its infinite political wisdom, has devoted millions of taxpayer dollars via Canada Revenue Agency, formerly Revenue Canada, to, in effect, target groups that are critical of federal policies.
The CRA launched a series of 60 audits in 2012, and, tellingly, the targeted organizations all seem to espouse views that don't fit so well with the Harper agenda.And this pattern holds true for the CRA's latest target:
These 'political-activity audits' have primarily targeted environmental groups, human rights organizations, and labour-backed think tanks like the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Meanwhile, more conservative-minded groups like the Manning Foundation or the Fraser Institute have not faced such aggression from the CRA. Many of them have also, like their leftist counterparts, participated in 'political activities.'
[T]he latest charity to be targeted in a significant way is the United Steelworkers' Humanity Fund, a labour-backed organization that has supported food banks and disaster relief initiatives for over 30 years.The intended purposes of such audits, of course, are to provoke both fear and self-censorship:
It has donated about two per cent of its annual revenue to the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA), an umbrella organization that advocates for more accountability in the Canadian mining sector, among other things.
This support for the CNCA, an organization that hasn't shied away from its political purposes, is apparently what the CRA is zeroing in on. The fund has often butted heads with the Harper administration over labour issues, and wants more oversight of Canadian mining practices abroad, which, according to its president Ken Neumann, is primarily why the CRA began auditing the group's finances last year.
Such audits can certainly disrupt an organization's day-to-day operations significantly, but this kind of trouble isn't the main reason why these intrusions are bad for Canadian democracy in the long run. Targeted organizations that are forced to go through the lengthy auditing process can, whether the government intends it or not, become examples of what not to say or do in the Harper era.
One can hardly blame other charities if they decide to interpret the current inquisitorial atmosphere as being politically motivated. This means that if they want to keep their charitable status, practicing a degree of self-censorship may end up being totally rational. This is an anti-democratic development almost by definition, and it hardly matters whether a particular agenda is behind it all, though the available evidence suggests that Revenue Canada's choices aren't exactly politically neutral.Will such practices, profoundly inimical to democracy, be noted by average Canadians, or will their vision be blinded by budget baubles designed to cultivate the selfish part of their natures?
A man who refuses to drink the corporate Kool Aid, Doyle maintains an independence that I suspect few are accorded at the Globe. In that spirit, his offers his Top Ten Most Irritating TV-Related Canadians for this year. I reproduce a few that may be of special interest to followers of politics:Regarding the last illustrious name on the list, obviously much more could be said. But I guess there are even things that the redoubtable Mr. Doyle knows he cannot say.
Ezra LevantIf I may make a personal aside here, Mansbridge should also not be doing the devil's work.
A truly, truly outstanding year. His supremacy in irritating-ness is unmatched, a fact that must make him proud. His demented ranting about young Mr. Trudeau. An Ontario court ruling that he was guilty of libel and that he demonstrated a “reckless disregard for the truth.” And his bizarre attack on an Ontario school-board memo he alleged was some sort of anti-Canadian, pro-Muslim conspiracy. Still he smiles.
Pastor Mansbridge
Mansbridge should not have accepted money from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers for a speech. It was just a dumb thing to do. Inept and, as such, hugely irritating.
The people behind “A message from the Government of Canada”Pierre Poilievre
Specifically, the ad titled Drug Prevention – Marijuana Use, in which over deeply ominous music, it was announced, “Did you know that marijuana is on average 300 to 400 per cent stronger than it was 30 years ago? And that smoking marijuana can seriously harm a teen’s developing brain?” Actually the science is limited and, actually, the commercial is political, not medical. Irritating to think we are taken as fools.
Anyone with the ridiculous job title minister of democratic reform, which sounds like something dreamed up in a satire of North Korea, should be a bit abashed. Poilievre spent the year as a finger-pointing, accusatory bully. Every time he appeared on TV he was outrageously choleric, instantly a ridiculous figure.
Our Glorious Leader (OGL)
The PM, the pianist and singer, whatever you want to call him, or Our Glorious Leader, announced himself to be in “a different headspace” in a year-end TV interview. We knew that.