To be perfectly honest, I’m still confused, not because the two leadership debates didn’t get me to thinking about politics and the “why” of why I think and therefore vote the way that I do, but more along the lines of “Is that all that you have to say?”, or possibly even “On the basis of what you’ve just disclosed to Canadian voters in these debates, do you really think that there was enough ‘substance’ in your dialogue that would allow me to trust you to confront the mental midget professing to be the Supreme Leader of the Free World and defend my right to still be called a ‘Canadian citizen’ at the end of the next Parliamentary session?”
Let me answer both questions for you. First, I haven’t come close to hearing enough about each party’s policies that should by now have been defined to reflect how its leader can better lead Canadians, simply because there are too many subjects that have been left off the current abbreviated “priority” listing, while secondly, although Canadians have been driven to believe that whomever is about to become the next Prime Minister of Canada, that person should be the individual leading us into the economic war that is about to be fought with the MAGA cultists that support President Donald Trump, I’m not certain that this presumption can be substantiated by the performance of any one of the four who have participated in these debates.
At the moment the closest comparison I could come up with was to compare the two odds-favoured “heavies” to become PM to the leadership of Great Britain just prior to the outbreak of WW2 in Europe, with Pierre Poilievre being cast as Neville Chamberlain and Mark Carney as Winston Churchill.
This leaves the remaining two party leaders, the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh and the Bloc Quebecois’ Yves-Francois Blanchet with a serious choice to make, namely, once the election is over should they just shake hands with the winner and walk away from the eventual fray, or stick around and hope that this individual would be prepared to assign him in some “advisory capacity” to the “war cabinet” the leader would have to draft and advise him on how to stickhandle his way out of avoid possible economic traps that the United States “negotiators” will bring to the table to argue their case for the annexation of Canada in any future trade talks.
I’ve chosen Poilievre for the Chamberlain part for one very simple reason. As the Toronto Star’s Linda McQuaig has recently noted, “Poilievre is no fan of Trump’s tariffs or plans to annex Canada”; however, he IS “a devoted fan of the main Trump agenda” and “quest to deliver more tax cuts and power to the ultra-wealthy.” Equally damning in placing Poilievre in the role of capitulator to Trump’s agenda, McQuaig writes, “What he does know about…is how to dismantle government programs and disarm government regulatory powers”; furthermore, he is “closely aligned with Canada’s high-tech industry (in particular, Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke and Bay Street tech financier John Ruffolo)” that is “aggressively pushing… for huge government spending cuts, deep tax cuts for investors and business, and a rollback in government powers to regulate business” – which is what Elon Musk is doing for Donald Trump.
Mark Carney, on the other hand, has his own baggage to drag him down (particularly in his former role as Chairman while employed at Brookfield), but as Ottawa Deputy Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star Alex Ballingall notes, “Carney’s corporate and banking pedigree is an asset in itself,…since it highlights his experience and economic credentials at a time of anxiety and anger over U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and disrespect for Canada’s sovereignty,” from which we must assume that the Liberals are really saying is this: “Let the man perform his wizardry on the economic front, and like Churchill, once he’s achieved success at performing that task, let the Canadian public then decide through another election process whether he also has to capacity to resolve what remains of Canada’s current problems – including the ones that never got mentioned in the 2025 party platforms.”
It then remains to be seen as what politicians will stick around to become serious contributors of Carney’s eventual “war cabinet”. Despite the prospect of his becoming just another meat flavour of a political party known for devouring its “losers”, Poilievre will stick around to sit in the second chair that Ontario premier Doug Ford believes he owns, a constant reminder to Canada’s most bloated political ego that when performing on the international stage, it’s still the corporate office in Ottawa that will affix its signature to any future trade agreements, as opposed to its branch managers whose only thoughts are of the precious few it must dutifully protect, in Ford’s case that being case the auto sector.
As for Blanchet and Singh, they already have indicated that they are “in for the long haul”, and for very personal reasons. With Blanchet, sitting behind the Quebec flag while wearing the uniform of a Canadian delegation is simply coming to the aid of a friend; there is no need for conscription to the cause. As for Singh, having endured the taunts and barbs of Poilievre and the alt-Right media empire for having “supported” the now emaciated corpse of Justin Trudeau while gifting Canada with a multiplicity of new social programs added in support of Medicare, his personal scars reflect the wounds of a warrior coming to the defense of his nation in a time of crisis, with no thought of desertion keeping him from enjoining in the battle.
As for the quislings who ran for cover and favour in Mar-a-Logo, their repatriation to the Canadian identity is not worth considering. For Danielle Smith and Scott Moe, their demotion and subsequent humiliation is well and truly due, and equally just.
