Roundup: Poilievre on the first ballot

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Not unexpectedly, Pierre Poilievre won the Conservative leadership race quite handily on the first ballot, with some sixty-eight percent of the vote, and winning the point share in about 300 of the 338 ridings around the country. This is going to be declared “decisive,” and that it will force the caucus to rally around him, but I have some doubts, particularly as you had MPs who were openly questioning their future in the party under a Poilievre win. We’ll see where they go in the coming weeks, but Poilievre is already making some backroom changes, including replacing the board of the party’s fundraising arm—because replacing the entire party machinery with loyalists is one way to ensure that the membership is stymied from holding you to account in the future (and yes, the Liberals are most especially guilty of this after Trudeau oversaw the party’s constitution be replaced with one dedicated to total control by the leader’s office). We’ll also see who he picks for his front-bench.

As for what this means moving to the next election, there is a lot of doubt that Poilievre is going to “pivot to the centre,” because he doesn’t think he can win there. He is likely to try and get more votes from the far-right, and access votes from there by appealing to them in various ways, as he has explicitly done so far, whether it was supporting the occupation in Ottawa, or playing along with conspiracy theories like those around the World Economic Forum. You’re going to have a lot of talking heads bring up that “300 ridings!” figure to show that he somehow has support across the country, when that is a massive sample selection bias, which shows that he knows how to organize small numbers nationally, but says nothing about the broader public. And while this thread from Justin Ling is good to read, I will echo his caution that calling Poilievre a “white supremacist” plays into his hands—his wife is from Venezuela, his children are mixed-race, and if the media tries the narrative on him, he will eviscerate them for it, while reminding everyone yet again about Trudeau’s history of Blackface. His opponents can’t play the game he wants them to play, but we’ll see if they have the capacity or ability. As for media, well, I suspect they will continue to keep both-sidesing his lies, and he’ll keep beating up on them, and on and on it goes.

For pundit reaction, Aaron Wherry remarks on Poilievre’s vow to remain as loud and antagonistic a populist as possible, and how he has been willing to undermine the institutions of democracy his whole careers. Jen Gerson considers Poilievre’s win the death knell of moderate conservatism in Canada, but it’s less a question of policy than of temperament. Althia Raj buys into the notion that Poilievre’s caucus will be more united, which frees up energy to fight the Liberals. Chantal Hébert believes that Poilievre’s victory will convince Trudeau to stay on for the next election, believing that he can’t let Poilievre win.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 200:

The counter-offensive, particularly in the north-eastern part of Ukraine, has been advancing at a rapid pace, and Russians are fleeing with minimal resistance, leaving a lot of weapons and ammunition behind. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put out a video mocking the Russian retreat, saying that it’s showing their best side. Further south, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has now been completely shut down in order to prevent a nuclear catastrophe as shelling continues in the region. Meanwhile, in Sloviansk, in Donetsk province, continues to see artillery attacks as Russian forces try to take the entire Donbas region. While the counter-attack is a positive sign, it is likely that the conflict will continue for some time, with the added complication that Western allies are starting to run out of inventory to donate to the effort, and everyone needs to beware of what Putin may do when he feels like he’s been backed into a corner.

Good reads:

  • The Accession ceremony for Charles III as King of Canada took place at Rideau Hall on Saturday.
  • The military ombudsman reports only ten complaints over the COVID vaccine mandate, and that he found no issues around enforcing it.
  • There is frustration in the civil service over vague and inconsistent “back-to-work” plans, and over who gets to remain hybrid or work-from-home.
  • The Liberals are starting their fall caucus retreat in St. Andrews, New Brunswick.
  • Jean Charest says he’s returning to the private sector after his crushing defeat.
  • The Green Party’s president has resigned, citing her “optimism has died,” amidst ongoing allegations of discrimination and harassment among the party’s leadership.
  • My weekend column calls out how disingenuous the republican attempt at a conversation on the future of the monarchy has been, now that it’s upon us.

Odds and ends:

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