Everything happened at once, Part 2

Pierre Poilievre, the new Conservative (?) leader

Over four months ago, I told you that Pierre Poilievre, was the front-runner in the race to become the third leader of the so-called Conservative Party of Canada since the defeat of Steve Harpoon in 2015.

Last night, in the greatest non-event shown on Canadian TV since the Toronto Maple Leafs bowed out of the first round of last spring's Stanley Cup playoffs, M Poilievre won the leadership on the first ballot, garnering 68% of the points available. Jean Charest, the ex-Liberal still-liberal candidate, finished a distant second, with 16%.

 M Poilievre urged Canucks to Ètake back control of your life!" Now that he has won the party, and has a good chance of winning the country, M Charest's supporters, the liberals, the leftists and the lickspittle media of Canuckistan are quaking in their boots that he will do what he promised.

The meme above was published during the leadership campaign and was (I supposed) meant to scare people into voting for a "less extreme" candidate. If I had been voting, I would have taken the likening of Pierre Poilievre to Dr Jordan Peterson as a ringing endorsement. 

After two leaders who apparently stood for nothing, Canada's Conservatives desperately need a leader who espouses and will fight for conservative values. Alas, I told you in "The problem with Poilievre" (WWW 30/4/22), M Poilievre is not that man. He is pro-abortion, pro-immigration, and pro-queer. The real conservative candidate was Leslyn Lewis, who finished third.  

So when the inevitable Rosie Tuchhus, covering the proceedings on CBC-TV, said Lucky Pierre would have to move to the centre and adopt a more moderate, conciliatory tone, in order to win the country, she was wrong. The attack dog won't change, because he doesn't need to.

M Poilievre has identified and tapped into the anger most Canadians feel about inflation, the lack of affordable housing, and the endless "mandates" (e.g. the ArriveCAN app) which take away their freedom. Thus he has created a populist groundswell similar to that which propelled President Trump into the Oval Office, all without straying from the path of political correctness on the issues which count for true conservatives.

He preaches classic conservatism -- smaller government; getting natural resources to market; less government interference in people's personal and professional lives; ending the Liberals' efforts to censor the Internet; defunding the CBC and ending media bailouts; and fiscal restraint, after a long period without it. 

All those policies find favour not just with hard-right conservatives, but the average Canuck. The chattering classes spent hours trying to figure out M Poilievre's appeal to young Canadians, who turned out in 1000s at his rallies. It wasn't hard to understand. They are looking, hoping... and will be voting... for at least a partial return to the lifestyle their parents and grandparents enjoyed. Or just some help paying the bills. Or just to be left alone. 

That's why Pierre Poilievre will knock the socks off Blackie McBlackface in the next election, whenever it comes. You read it here first!

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!"