On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation to avoid a defection of his Liberal lawmakers amid a disastrous election year. Parliament is now suspended until March and Trudeau will sit until the Liberals elect a new leader. But while the country enters a short period of limbo, one thing is certain.
The man who drew comparisons to Donald Trump will become Canada’s Prime Minister.
Pierre Poilievre, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, is on course to win the expected election this Spring and end the Trudeau era. The Conservatives are up by more than 20 points in the polls, amid deep anger over the cost of living crisis and other issues that have recently rocked voters across the West.
Read more: How Canada Fell Out of Love with Trudeau
If Poilievre wins his expected majority in Parliament, he will be in charge of the party. Canadian Prime Ministers are powerful – or notorious – in such situations.
No Canadian Prime Minister is completely sovereign—they face modest obstacles from their caucus, the courts, opposition in the House of Commons, the Senate, interest groups, and the Canadian people themselves—but in doing so they cannot escape a serious charge. more between elections. Westminster’s “whip system” is unique in its power and means Poilievre will have at least four years where his troops are firmly behind him—just as Trudeau once did. He will enjoy that power as long as he remains popular—as Trudeau once did.
Poilievre is a political shooter who says what he says and says what he believes to be true. He is a lifelong conservative, a true believer, and has deep insight into the making and shaping of the Reagan era. He committed to the 1980s tough-on-crime system, the kind that has been proven to fail time and time again. There is no doubt that he is a free market force and is completely committed to anti-government—cutting spending, taxes, and letting capitalism do its thing, convinced by the Gipper’s dictum that government is not the solution, it’s the problem. In that sense, Canadians can expect Poilievre to reduce taxes, regulations, and, perhaps, communication programs. He has yet to commit to keeping popular Trudeau-era public programs, including free dental care and the fledgling drug prescription.
Poilievre, 45, has been an elected politician throughout his career. But he has carefully cultivated an external narrative. He has the character of a boxer. There is an echo of the far right in his war cry. He attacks journalists, distorts facts in the service of highbrow rhetoric, and flirts with fanatics. He’s not shy about wading into the growing culture wars, including pushing back against trade rights. He has something of the internet’s best YouTuber about him, a kind of confident and contented assurance, which is as confusing as it is appropriate for the times.
But there is more to Poilievre than that.
Since becoming leader of the Conservative Party, he has focused on issues of affordability that are of concern to upper-class voters, favoring the working class in this process. It’s a strategy that’s been woefully successful at a time when the country is entering a protracted cost-of-living crisis driven by the lingering effects of the pandemic, high—though falling—interest rates, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and Trudeau’s carbon tax.
With a pocketbook-first agenda and aggressive personality, Poilievre has managed to be the man for now. But Poilievre’s hard-line style will mean that Canada – a country with a reputation for “good” people and good politics – could grow to look like the toxic party that the Donald Trump era has increasingly seen in the US.
For now, however, Poilievre’s admonition to focus on economic issues is bearing fruit. He was smart enough to show where the voters tend to be, talking to them in a way that makes sense, showing the anger and frustration that many people feel as they struggle to get food and rent or mortgage, as they worry that their jobs will be left behind. secure and adequate, or as they wait months to see a doctor, if they can find one. He is an angry man, but it is time to be angry.
That anger is Poilievre’s supporter today, but tomorrow it could be his enemy—and the source of his downfall. If he wins and fails to hold on to the things Canadians care about most, he may soon find himself sharing Trudeau’s fate, as so many of his predecessors have.
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