Whither the People's Party of Canada?

As reported here last Sunday, the self-styled Conservative Party of Canada, having failed under two "moderate" leaders -- Andrew Scheep and Erin O'Tool -- to distinguish itself from the ruling Liberals, has now chosen a new and (they hope) better leader, Pierre Poilievre.

The lickspittle media long ago labelled M Poilievre as a "right wing populist" and "the Canuck version of to Donald Trump". Hardly. Populist he may be, but, as I told you way back in April in "The problem with Poilievre", he is no social conservative, let alone a turn-back-the-clock right-winger. He reminds me not so much of The Donald as of a nasty, bilingual version of Ronald Reagan.

Earlier this week, the new Tory leader [Canadians have stopped using that word. Ed.] announced his new leadership team on Tuesday. Left on the outside looking in was Leslyn Lewis, MP, seen here at the Freedom Rally in Ottawa last February.

Dr Lewis, who has a perfect rating on issues pertaining to life and family. Despite presenting a strong pro-life, pro-faith message, she finished third in the CPC leadership race. 

But there's no room in Pierre Poilievre's coterie for such as she. The press release included an image of "My inflation-busting leadership team", standing together in front of those same Parliament buildings.

One of PP's team is Melissa Lantsman, a proud lesbian Member of Parliament. Another is Ontario MP Eric Duncan, an openly homosexual man, who was appointed to party-caucus liaison,

Another notable absent from the team was former party leader Erin O'Tool, who was ousted quickly after he took a squishy stance on February's Freedom Convoy. M Poilievre's choice of MPs with anti-life and pro-LGBT voting records are not surprising, considering he himself has been given a failing grade by Campaign Life Coalition due to his pro-abortion voting record.

Where will the Conservative Party's more traditionalist and libertarian members, like Andrew Scheer, go now? Will they sit on the back bench, behind PP (on the left, wearing the pink tie) or will they join Canada's only truly conservative party, the People's Party of Canada, led by Maxime Bernier, on the right. (Geddit?)

The choice will be difficult, if not impossible, even for Dr Lewis, for the simple reason that the PPC seems destined for the ashheap of Canadian political history. They have been languishing at 4-5 per cent in public opinion polls, which is remarkable for a party founded only recently. 

But they have no seats in Parliament -- "Mad Max" failed for the second time to win his own riding of Beauce -- and are in grave danger of being crushed by the stampede of conservatives hurrying to get aboard the CPC bandwagon, since M Poilievre looks certain to beat the socks of Just In Trudeau whenever the latter dares to call an election.

Walt's headline question, then, might better be: Wither the People's Party of Canada? It's sad.

Worth watching: "Individuality and Autonomy: Maxime Bernier and the PPC", recorded by Dr Jordan B. Peterson on The JBP Podcast, exactly a year ago.

Further reading (added 17/9/22): "The Trudeau factor in Pierre Poilievre's big win", by good ole Rex Murphy in the National Post. Subhead: "Conservative chief's leadership campaign was greatly helped by the Liberals' increasingly embarrassing feats of incompetence"

VIDEO: Pierre Poilievre talks about old wood (???) - a message for freedom-loving conservatives everywhere

For those readers, especially Americans, who don't follow Canadian politics [Why would they? Ed.], let me bring you up to speed. By comparison with the Excited States, Canada is a pretty laid-back... or just plain dull... country. And Canucks like it that way. They generally elect governments which are either slightly to the left or (occasionally) slightly to the right of centre. There hasn't been a really conservative Conservative federal government since Adam was a little boy.

It has therefore come as a shock to the liberal Laurentian establishment that someone who sounds like a conservaative-cum-populist, in the mould of Donald Trump, looks like becoming the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, and, quite possibly, the next prime minister of Canuckistan.

That someone is Pierre Poilievre, about whom I've written before. Mr Poilievre is not truly a social conservative like Leslyn Lewis, the dark horse on the right. He has refused to grasp the nettles of the abortion, gay "marriage" and critical race theory issues. See "More on Poilievre and Lewis + Brown", WWW 2/5/22.

He has, however, championed the cause of freedom from Big Government, associating himself with the leaders of last winter's Freedom Convoy, and condemning Emperor Justin's use of emergency powers to impose vaccine and other mandates on the Canadian sheeple.

In so doing, he distances himself from Jean Charest -- the last of the Red Tories -- and Patrick Brown, the puppet of the World Sikh Organization of Canada. [The link is for those who think Walt is making this up. Ed.] This week the CPC disqualified Mr Brown for violating was campaign rules and (possibly) the Elections Act. 

That leaves John James Charest (his real name) as the only serious (?) candidate of the old "Conservative" establishment, with the likely outcome of September's vote being the coronation of Lucky Pierre. But M Poilievre isn't taking a landslide win for granted. His team has just released a clever and skillfully made video, in which he waxes poetic over some old planks. What does this have to do with conservative values? Check it out.  

 

For those who didn't or couldn't watch the video, here's a synopsis. Mr Poilievre at home in Ottawa admiring a wooden post he recovered from an old barn and used in a DIY project. Early lumberjacks hewed it from logs, he says, leaving the scars of their axes as evidence of their labour. Then he turns to the planks on the wall. He bought them from a farmer, and spent hours cleaning and restoring them. 

Why? Because they tell a story about the people who fashioned them and the elements that weathered them. All he did, he says, was to reclaim what was already there in the wood. And reclaiming Canadians' lost freedom is what his campaign is about. That's his message.

Liberals, he explains, have been trying to build a kind of utopia, knocking down statues, sweeping away history and banning words as they go. This is nothing but a pretext to give themselves "vast new powers," which they've been trying to do all through the past seven years of Liberal government.

"Reclaim your life," he concludes. "Reclaim your freedom!" That's a powerful message -- a challenge which ought to resonate with not just the sheeplike Canucks, but with Americans, Britons and lovers of freedom throughout the western world. Walt says, "Right on!"

Canada's "Conservatives" bar three SoCons from leadership race

Turns out there are more people who, for some unaccountable reason, want to lead the self-styled "Conservative" Party of Canada than I told you about on Monday. Agent 3, who follows the politics of Canuckistan more closely than I do -- I can't handle the smell up close -- says there are not four, but six candidates who will appear on the ballot when party members vote for a new leader in September.

On Monday, and previously in "The problem with Poilievre", WWW 30/4/22, I gave you the rundown on Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis and Patrick Brown, who presently rank in that order in the opinion polls. But who are those other guys, the two in the top row?

Conservative Member of Parliament Scott Aitchison and Independent Ontario MPP Roman Baber have also been accepted by the cuckservatives in charge of organizing the leadership election as "verified" candidates. That means they proved they had at least C$300,000 (about $235,000 in readl money) to get through the toll gate, plus 500 endorsement signatures from members in 30 different ridings. 

Scott Aitchison is the only candidate who could be described as a non-city person. He represents the truly beautiful Ontario riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka and concerns himself with issues relevant to farmers and other real people. In particular, Mr Aitchison wants to see an end to Canada's crazy supply management system, which makes things like milk and eggs cost more than they do across the border. That was the hill Maxime Bernier chose to die on in 2017... and die he did.

(((Roman Baber))) emigrated from the Soviet Union with his family to Israel, thence to Canada. The Jewish lawyer was elected to the Ontario legislature as a Progressive Conservative, representing the Toronto ghetto of York Centre. Whyen he had the temerity to oppose vaccine mandates and lockdowns, he got booted out of the PC caucus and now sits as an Independent. He says he believes in "democratic conservatism", whatever that means.

Today's real news, though, is that the Conservative party elite rejected three putative candidates, even though they had the money and the signatures, because they were "unacceptable" for reasons which were not explained.  According to the party's leadership election rules, the Leadership Candidate Nomination Committee, the group of party stalwarts reviewing applications from leader wannabes, can take into consideration "any other information they see fit to ascertain the suitability of an applicant." They can then recommend to the organizing committee that a particular candidate be barred from running. 

Three candidates have been told "Thanks for coming out. Now bugger off." Joël Étienne, another lawyer from Toronto, and the only genuine French-speaker to put his name forward, told Radio-Canada he personally delivered the required paperwork to CPC HQ Friday afternoon, well before the deadline, but was told that the party wouldn't accept a credit card as payment for some of the necessary fees. M Étienne also said the party rejected some of the signatures he collected as "invalid", withouot saying why.

Joseph Bourgault, a Saskatchewan business owner (Bourgault Tillage Tools, if you need a good hoe), is a social conservative who was strongly endorsed by Campaign Life Coalition. In addition to his anti-abortion credentials, Bourgault was a member of the Freedom Convoy and participated in protests against COVID-related measures like vaccine mandates earlier this year. Obviously such "unacceptable views" (as Mr Socks would say) made him unfit to stand.

Grant Abraham, a consultant [lawyers and consultants, consultants and lawyers -- will it never end? Ed.] also didn't make the cut. In a social media post, his campaign said Mr Abraham was told Sunday he has been "deemed ineligible" by the party. He has criticized Conservative MPs for failing to stop Bill C-4, the Liberal government's ban on conversion therapy. He has also called for a return to a "Judeo-Christian framework" in Canada and an end to secularism. And he's surprised he won't be on the ballot? Really?

That leaves Leslyn Lewis as the only social conservative candidate. (The position of Messrs Aitchison and Baber on abortion and similar issues is unknown.) The Laurentian elites can't touch Ms Lewis because she's too well-known and because... well, you get the picture. She's the "Conservative" answer to the objection that the party is dominated by straight white men.

They have no answer, though, to the charge that the CPC is dominated by the old "Bay Street boys". All of the "acceptable" candidates are from Ontario. Mr Charest pretends to be a Québecer but according to  every poll is reviled by real Québécois. There are no candidates from west of Lake Huron or east of Montréal. Mr Poilievre, born and raised in Calgary, turned his back on the West the minute he arrived in Ottawa at the age of 24, and wouldn't know which end of a straw to put in his mouth. Expect Western alienation to intensify, no matter who wins.

Expect also a flight of real conservative Conservatives to a truly conservative party. No matter who wins, only Max Bernier's People's Party of Canada will be strengthened by the Conservatives' internecine war. Lifetime pct .990.

More on Poilievre + Lewis and Brown

Walt has had some adverse comments (on Disqus) to "The problem with Poilievre", WWW 30/4/22. Seems like a lot of Canadian conservatives (with and without a big C) are jumping on the "Poilievre for Prime Minister" bandwagon. He's drawing huge crowds -- in the 1000s -- wherever he goes, in spite of the fact that the Conservative Party of Canada leadership vote is months away, and that it's only a contest to choose a new leader, with no election in the offing until 2025.

What seems to be surprising the lickspittle Canuck meeja is the large numbers of young people -- teens and twenty-somethings -- turning out to hear PP. Agent 3, who's closer to the action than I am, says Mr Poilievre is tapping into the massive, frustrated energies of a disillusioned electorate that has dismissed the idea that there is some duty to vote. For them, it's like being told you have a duty to buy a new car, and then offered a choice between a Chev and a Ford. [This should not be taken as a comment on the impending Ontario election. Ed.]

The secret of attracting and turning on a crowd is getting turned on by the crowd. Pierre Poilievre is the only candidate for the Tory leadership who seems to understand this. He's the only one who can connect with people on some kind of visceral, instinctive level that is both above and below "traditional politics" In this he resembles... wait for it... President Donald J. Trump.

That's great, but the nub of the Poilievre Problem, IMHO, is that in reality he's just another good, big-C Conservative, more interested in power than in principle. The Conservative Party of Canada is an atavistic entity, hopelessly old-fashioned, still trying to be all things to all people, the Natural Alternative to the Natural Governing (read: Liberal) Party. There is no hope of beating the Liberals, let alone accomplishing anythning genuinely new or different in Canadian politics, until the Conservative Party is put out of its self-inflicted misery.

Before I run out of space [again. Ed.] let's take a look at the leader wannabes trailing Mr Poilievre and his not-too-close competitor, Jean Charest.

With just over 3% support in recent polling, Patrick Brown, the mayor of Brampton ON, is in fourth place. For Mr Brown, this is a grudge match. He was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament in 2006, and, seeing no future on the Harper back benches, jumped into Ontario provincial politics in 2014, and was elected leader of the oxymoronically named Progressie Conservative Party of Ontario in 2015.

Under Mr Brown's leadership the PCs won five by-elections, and seemed poised for success. But the shithammer struck early in 2018 when he was me-tooed by two women, dating back to the time he was a federal MP. Brown denied the allegations and initially refused to step down, but you know how it goes these days. Canada's CTV admitted, in March of this year, that there were "innacuracies" in its report, and, errr, the two women weren't under age after all. 

But the damage had been done. Mr Brown was booted out of the PC caucus and quit provincial politics for the brownfields of Brampton where he landed with him bum in the butter, elected Mayor in October of 2018. To understand how that happened, just look at the picture at left.

All ye need to know about Brampton is that Canadians of European descent account for about 25% of the population. Another 20% or so are black, but are to busy with other pursuits [word chosen carefully. Ed.] to bother with politics.

The majority of Bramptonians are from south Asia, and the majority of those are Sikhs. All you  have to do get elected in Brampton (as a whitey) is get yourself declared an honorary Sikh, turn up for the Khalsa day parade, support an "independent Khalistan", etc, and you're in like Flynn Singh. 

Works in Toronto too, and since Patrick Brown is the only leadership candidate from the GTA, he seems to be counting on the BIPOC vote to see him in the Leader's chair. Walt gives him two chances....

Slightly ahead of Mr Brown in the early polling is Leslyn Lewis, the only woman and the only person of colour in the field. I didn't go for the cheap "dark horse" joke, because Ms Lewis deserves to be taken seriously. She is the the favourite of the social conservative wing up the party, and -- unlike Messrs Charest and Brown -- is a Member of Parliament, representing the southwestern Ontario riding of  Haldimand-Norfolk. Getting elected as a black woman in white-bread country is an achievement in itself.

Last week, Ms Lewis released two major platform updates. In "No Hidden Agenda", posted on her campaign website, she writes:  "I am pro-life. I am not ashamed to say it.... These are issues that concern us all. When we are afraid of talking about important topics, we don't do anything to improve life for Canadian women. That’s why I put forward a 'no hidden agenda' platform on abortion in the 2020 race. I stand by those policies and would put forward the same four if elected leader now."

Her platform reads as follows: "I will fight for the value of every girl through banning the misogynistic practice of sex-selective abortions. I will protect vulnerable women by criminalizing coerced abortions. I will increase funding for pregnancy centres. And I will end abortion funding overseas and focus Canadian funding on actually helping women and girls overseas thrive."

Leslyn Lewis stands on principle. Walt says, good for you and God bless you! Mind you, her chances of winning the CPC leadership are not much better than those of Patrick Brown. But if you call yourself a social conservative, and eligible to vote in the Conservative leadership, you should vote for her!

Here's why. Pierre Poilievre is the acknowledged front-runner in the race, and lots of people will vote for him because they think (mistakenly) that he's a true conservative. Patrick Brown is a liberal, a "progressive consesrvative", even more so than Jean Charest. Every vote for Leslyn Lewis will come off Mr Poilievre's pile. If Mr Brown fizzles, as seems likely, and if Ms Lewis runs a good third, Jean Charest might just squeak through.

But (Walt hears you say) hang on! Is that what you want? Do you want another pinko leading the alt-liberal party? Answer: YES, because this time real conservatives like Ms Lewis (and maybe even Mr Poilievre) should realize the truth of what I wrote above about the CPC, and quit the Party. 

They might even join Max Bernier's People's Party of Canada, to offer a real choice to fed-up Canucks in 2025. That would be my strategy. If you have a better suggestion, do click on the headline to open the comments window, and let us hear about it!