In addressing the rally that Edmonton Police estimated had 9,000 people in attendance, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper got right to the point as to why he was there. Constantly smiling, yet without that smirk most voters had gotten tired of seeing by 2015, the message was simple – it was time for him to come out of his political hibernation and endorse Pierre Poilievre to be the next Prime Minister of Canada.
The praise came almost instantly. “My friends,” he began, “I am in a unique position in this federal election. I am the only person who can say that both of the men running to be Prime Minister once worked for me, and in that regard my choice without hesitation, without equivocation, without a shadow of a doubt is Pierre Poilievre.”
Readers of this column are going to have to go over Harper’s introductory statement many times, I am certain, before realizing just what a colossal sack of hokum it truly is. What he just admitted telling the world is that he placed Mark Carney in charge at the Bank of Canada to “help him” guide an economy he’d dragged into recession out of this malaise; however, he was keeping his faithful and obedient minister, Mr. Poilievre, in Cabinet so that only HE – Poilievre, that is – could eventually write the one piece of legislation that Harper felt would finally provide Canadians with legislation worthy of their claim to being members of a true democracy, that being the “Fair Elections Act”.
In the end, Harper was forced to tear the Act to shreds. The Act would have had a disproportionate impact on Indigenous residents because reserves aren’t traditionally mapped out by streets having their houses numbered in order. That fact pushed me into helping bands across Saskatchewan and Manitoba provide residents with appropriate ID listing their physical address to avoid such disenfranchisement – a threat that STILL exists in Saskatchewan if your driver’s license or SGI ID lists only a postal box number as an “address”.
At least Carney helped Harper’s government dig its way out of their self-created fiscal malaise…
Our problem today, however, is that Poilievre has not purged himself of this desire to go for the jugular all of the time, and his fervent desire to become our next PM has left us in the middle of an election that should never have been called, simply because the average Canadian voter still hasn’t the faintest idea as to how to respond to the leader of a once best-friend neighbour who has put our nation under siege. Donald Trump, an obviously dysfunctional megalomaniac and now President of the United States, is the absolute epitome of what feminists describe as “toxic masculinity”, expressed in tones of “bigness” and comparisons of “manhood” that gun owners visually display in order minimize their own inadequacies.
Poilievre acknowledging the “size” of the crowd in Edmonton missed the metaphorical point, best expressed by another friend involved in a discussion on “manhood” – “They’re all the same size at the North Pole, son…” What Poilievre had before him were 10,000 Canadian citizens looking for leadership and reasoned response to the Trumpian nightmare; what they got instead was for BOTH Harper and Poilievre failing to offer any calming of their fears, pretending that by now attacking Mark Carney this would assure their audience that the CPC leadership was still capable of displaying the same resolve as would a pit bull protecting its children from unwanted harm.
Poilievre’s “problem” has always been that Preston Manning and Stephen Harper’s tutelage have turned him into a Trumpian clone in all but looks, an obvious flaw that most Canadians find seriously disturbing. In order to overcome this deficiency he has attempted to create an alternative universe for Canadian voters, wherein our true enemy is not really the president threatening our annexation, but rather forces precipitated upon us by a corrupt Liberal government being artificially propped up by an anemic third party with no chance of ever becoming “the” government, and led by a “woke” fake feminist whose last name, Trudeau, need only be mentioned in rural regions to get the crowd ready for a political lynching.
Mark Carney, fortunately or not, is no Trudeau, thus requiring Poilievre to create a “Bride of Chucky” expansion of their universe, wherein Carney is nothing more than a pustule that having festered on the carcass of our now strategically departed ex-PM to morph into a new life form.
Poilievre’s already disillusioned forces may indeed wish to rejoin the battle for Parliamentary supremacy by confronting this post-Trudeau apparition and arrive victorious in battle on April 28th, but they’re going to continue to take severe troop losses on the same battlefields that six months ago were theirs for the taking, and doing so even though armed with the same weaponry – tax breaks and other economic quirks devised by their back room advisors – in order to win that very war.
Most Canadians believe that the only successful strategy in fighting this election should have been to define who we are as a nation, thereby enabling us to rise above the ridicule and contempt directed upon it by our once neighbourhood best friend.
Jagmeet Singh and Yves-Francois Blanchet have known this from the onset. We do not thrive when dysfunctionality, hatred and rage dominate our thoughts and actions. Poilievre and Carney have yet to learn that simple lesson.
