I love it when I can garner seriously good news from right-wing publications like the Western Standard.
In Thursday’s edition, one of their more prominent articles indicated that Pierre Poilievre’s CPC was actually DOWN 12 points (to the Liberals) in the latest polls. Please don’t get me “wrong” here; I am STILL not a Trudeau “fan”, but with Poilievre’s continuing attempts to portray the PM as being the reincarnate of all that is Canadian “evil”, his Reform-inspired membership continues to fail learning from the historical lesson they should have absorbed in 2015, that being “Don’t start treating Justin as though he’s a loser and idiot – even though you think he is.”
Both Stephen Harper AND Tom Mulcair made that mistake in 2015. In the first leadership debate, CP reporter Murray Brewster noted that “in terms of performance…Trudeau [came across] as scrappy, eloquent and well-briefed.” Harper’s campaign was already going downhill faster than Canadian Alpine skier Cassidy Gray, but for the NDP’s Tom Mulcair so close to becoming our first NDP Prime Minister, this minute embracing of Harper-style sleaze campaigning was just too much for his fragile supporting base to withstand.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre comes off as both a failed “apprentice” of Donald Trump’s and the Stephen Harper clone he truly is. In 2014 he drafted “The Fair Elections Act”, a bill so controversial and anti-democratic that Harper finally intervened in its legislative journey to radically amend its contents. Today, Poilievre’s “one size fits all” message is annoying – and boringly clear: blame Justin, embrace the anti-tax, anti-judicial reform, anti-progress and pro-corporate business practice that are the “go-to” offerings of a party obviously bereft of ideas.
Poilievre’s unflattering comparisons to Donald Trump’s man-child antics appear most frequently whenever mainstream reporters dare to ask him questions of which the public needs answers, and his unwillingness to offer alternative solutions to such items as climate change — where the Liberals are weak in defending their imposition of a carbon tax on petroleum usage — are leaving us all totally confused. Why, for instance, are we now calling the once-acknowledged “Climate Action Incentive Payment” a “Canada Carbon Rebate”? Are we being rebated the excess of what we’ve been charged for the usage of carbon-based fuel products while industry is finally being forced to reconsider its overdependence upon oil as an energy “solution”, or are we being bribed to accept back our own expenditures in a mediocre attempt by government to tackle a carbon gas pollution crisis that has created our global warming and climate change crisis? Come to think of it, what has the last three years of this tax imposition done to bring our nation’s emission rates down to zero?
As for the reaction of voters to this global crisis, we have to stop listening to second-rate hustlers trying to keep the petroleum industry from going into a death spiral, and perhaps on a Saskatchewan note, stop electing SARM officials offering questionable resolutions about what constitutes a “pollutant”, much less leaving out under what context such a definition can be applied. “Axe the tax” isn’t a solution; it’s just another way of expressing the reality that Conservatives are only prepared to support an industry that, like Boeing, long ago forgot its commitment to protect its end users from the potential harm their products might bring with them.
Our world-wide major problem has but one cure: produce something called “clean energy”. This essentially means that more monies must be invested in the arenas of fusion, while in the interim producing fission-based (nuclear) solutions that either leave less waste OR recycle the radioactive materials also littering the planet so as to curb the misgivings of a large public segment leery of the increased usage of uranium product and a ready source of such pollution. As for other types of energy potential, be they wind, solar or tidal, even though their potential to intermediately fulfil our energy needs continue to be challenged by Big Oil lobbyists, we have no choice but to enlist them in the services of resolving this potential planetary disaster.
As for the “other” areas consuming Poilievre’s attention; American-based criminal expansion is creating the explosion of automobile theft world-wide, aided by the industry’s willingness to add “perk” gimmicks at inflated costs instead of improving the vehicle’s security apparatus. As for our judicial system’s many failures (of which a “catch and release” bail system is a minor blip), reform continues to be denied simply because Conservatives see only “punishment” incentives (i.e.: longer and mandatory sentences), and neither Liberals nor Conservatives being unwilling to provide necessary counselling or skill-training programs that have been proven to reduce recidivistic rates.
Ironically, Poilievre’s campaigning style is seriously weakened when Trudeau, as in his 2015 rejuvenation, fights back with policy responses that the public is only too anxious to listen to, even if not fully fleshed out in their application. For instance, the recent governmental release of billions of dollars to reduce housing shortages, particularly in the larger urban centres has now become a battleground for Premiers Moe, Ford and Smith, who instead of reaching for huge snow shovels to help deposit such monies into municipal coffers are now wasting our time and a potential resolution to this issue by lamenting the fact that the feds are usurping their “constitutional obligations” and ignoring their offices, while now being forced to listen to city planners offering solutions such as “15 minute cities” or the NIMBY bleating of wealthy suburbanites worried that a 20 storey affordable housing option might eventually appear within the sight of their Toronto-Bayview/Don Mills or Montreal-Outremont back yards.
In the meantime, Poilievre’s prickly personality continues to grate on the public nerve, even as he attempts to increase the size of his flock by courting the potential vote of Carbon Convoy leadership thugs airing sexually suggestive commentary about his wife, or threatening “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” CBC comedians Chris Wilson (playing Poilievre) or Mark Critch (playing Donald Trump) with job loss for their hilarious put-down of the two similarly styled politicians in their most recent sketch.
Obviously, Poilievre doesn’t have Jean Chretien’s sense of humor or love of such free publicity. And really, why should this man-child be worried about such portrayal? After all, it’s not as though Wilson could ever be mistaken for Poilievre, should they just happen to be in the same neighbourhood at the same time, is it?
Wait a minute; didn’t that already happen – in Halifax?
