Roundup: Poilievre plays victim around the media

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We’re in the first week of Pierre Poilievre’s leadership, and he’s already sticking to his antagonistic playbook. He announced his leadership team first thing in the morning, with two deputies—Melissa Lantsman (a Jewish lesbian) and Tim Uppal (a Sikh) in order to inoculate himself against the usual cries that the party is racist and bigoted. A short while later, Quebec MP Alain Rayes announced he was leaving caucus and going to sit as an independent, because he didn’t like the direction Poilievre was going. (Cue everyone insisting that the party has “never been more united,” which is what they all say just before and after such an exit).

Fast-forward a couple of hours, and the federal government has announced their assistance package for low-income people dealing the effects of high inflation, and Poilievre calls a press conference to react. And the spectacle begins. David Akin, one of the reporters present, takes offence that Poilievre insists he won’t take questions (and he hasn’t since he was made leader), and starts shouting questions at him. And what does Poilievre do? Call Akin a “Liberal heckler” (because the pool camera can’t see Akin as he’s behind it), and a few hours later, sends out a fundraising appeal to his base that plays victim, that the media is out to get him, and that they’re all protecting Trudeau, and that you need to send him money to take on both Trudeau and the media. It’s gross, it undermines institutions, it undermines democracy, but he doesn’t care. It’s his game. And most of the media in this country have no idea how to react to it, and it’s going to be a real problem going forward.

https://twitter.com/glen_mcgregor/status/1569903207555497985

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1569872613228400642

As for the government’s assistance package (dental care for low-income children under 12, enhanced rent support for low-income people, doubling the existing GST tax credit, which again, targets low-income households—and yes, the NDP are loudly taking credit for all of it), there are some good analysis threads from Lindsay Tedds and Jennifer Robson, and because these are targeted at the low end, they’re really unlikely to drive inflation, unlike say the cheques certain provinces are sending out to everyone, whether they need them or not. And Poilievre’s insistence that this will make things worse because they increase the deficit (the deficit, if there will even be one this year, isn’t driving inflation—global factors are), and then demands that the government not raise taxes. The only taxes going up is the luxury tax on boats, private planes, and luxury cars. The carbon price is not a tax, and rebates more to lower-income households than they spend. CPP and EI premiums are not taxes. Higher taxes actually fight inflation, lowering them makes it worse. The absolute economic illiteracy should be mind-numbing, until you realises that he gets his information from crypto-bros on YouTube, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1569770945895895042

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 202:

Russian troops are not only retreating from positions in the northeast of the country, they are also retreating in the south, and heading toward positions in Crimea. As these towns and cities are liberated, authorities are moving in to document war crimes against civilians. Of course, shelling does continue around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, and Russians are still hitting Kharkiv, even though they have been repelled from the area, which is being taken as a sign of desperation. Analysts believe this rapid retreat is the sign of a spent Russian military, their approach unsustainable,

Good reads:

  • The federal government announced a federal holiday on Monday for the Queen’s funeral—but it’s really only a suggestion, and most provinces aren’t playing along.
  • Trudeau said it’s “unacceptable” that a woman in Fredericton was not able to get a forensic exam after being raped because there weren’t enough trained staff.
  • Harjit Sajjan says the federal government will match donations to the Humanitarian Coalition dealing with the massive floods in Pakistan.
  • Patty Hajdu attended funerals at the James Smith Cree First Nation yesterday.
  • It turns out that contentious call between the RMCP Commissioner and the Nova Scotia leadership was recorded—and then deleted. Because of course it was.
  • Hockey Canada says they told the minister’s office of their National Equity Fund to pay out settlements in 2019, but the minister at the time says she never saw it.
  • Heather Scoffield remarks on the vastly different visions around inflation that Trudeau and Poilievre are building, and hopes the competition leads to solutions.
  • Colin Horgan points out Poilievre’s construction of a meta-narrative around societal decline, and how that poison encourages people to try and push the tipping point.
  • Colby Cosh meanders through royal genealogy, and points out that Camilla does have Canadian ancestors—a pre-Confederation prime minister at that.
  • My column points out that Poilievre threatening to fire people he actually can’t is the point of his appeal—his followers are looking to punish people.

Odds and ends:

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4 thoughts on “Roundup: Poilievre plays victim around the media”

  1. In Yiddish, a “lantsman” is someone from your home country, and used as a sort of term of endearment for the sort of person you would automatically warm up to as a fellow refugee/immigrant in a new land. I find it hard to view Melissa as being from my country.

    But, that aside, in all the close-up observations I’ve had of Pierre Poilievre, it appears he simply has no head for workable policy. Yes, he can throw a punch, but he doesn’t have much to offer beyond that. The politics of grievance CAN certainly get you elected, but there’s a whole lotta “what next?” where he’ll come up short. If he was as new to the job as Trudeau was a decade back, I’d cut him some slack. But he’s been around the Hill long enough that he ought to have learned a thing or two about what to pay attention to when developing policy. But it seems he hasn’t. His election posters and constituency office have always proclaimed that he was “:fighting for you”. But I am constantly reminded of Brando in The Wild One, where one of the girls dancing with a member of his motorcycle gang asks Brando’s character “What are *you* rebelling against, Johnny?”, and he replies “Whaddya got?”. Being a rootless critic without a tangible objective is no gift to the nation, or even to the party.

  2. Trudeau announced cogent and meaningful policies that will assist Canadians in lower tax brackets contend with the effects of inflation. He did it with members of his caucus in reasonable tones and what did he get? Media who still tried to find the negative. On the same day Poilievre and his righteous mean spirited party gave no thanks or proposed an alternate plan for Canadians but this has been going on for years. Canadians her Poly shouting his misinformative rhetoric and are still waiting for policy. There has been in social policy from the CPC and there is little hope that there will be any from them going forward. From where I sit, I can hear the sound of whetting of the same knives that sliced the throats of the leaders of their party. We may well see a blood bath prior to the next election and the CPC
    will fully understand that their days are numbered in Canada.

    • I don’t know that the CPC’s “days are numbered”. And I would hope they aren’t. Having 3 major parties is a big part of what makes government and governance in Canada as good as it is. (The only party for whom the “numbered days” descriptor seems apt are the Greens, sadly.) But, that aside, I can’t see Poilievre lasting very long unless he is a MUCH faster learner than he has been to date. Tom Mulcair has an interesting opinion piece on the CTV site, tat I think sums up Poilievre’s weak spots quite well.

  3. Pugnacious Pete is “Dweeb Trump,” pulling the same Lugenpresse schtick that the “lying fake news media are the enemy of the people.” The media then genuflects after being spanked because they’re afraid of losing precious “access” and then proceed to their usual practice of hammering the Liberals while treating the right with kid gloves. Then when Liberals get mad about the double standard and employ the media-failed hashtag, PPG and pundits lash out at the wrong people, accuse Liberals of undemocratic attacks upon the free press, label them as groupies for the PM and block them like a bunch of Rempel-Garner wannabes. Akin’s unnecessary groveling apology was so contrived and pathetic, one would swear he was a willing stooge for Pepe’s publicity stunt. But it sets a precedent going forward: any media deemed insufficiently fawning in the hall of the pigeon king (which also includes being sufficiently nasty to the hated Trudeau) will see themselves defenestrated. Putin’s favorite two-dollar word… along with Andrew Scheer’s.

    This is called working the refs, and it’s how the right rigs the playing field. The losers are the uninformed and gaslighted citizens, who only get a blinkered view of the landscape and a slanted perspective on the candidates. Writer Adam Serwer explained the politics of bullying when it came to Trump, in a famous quote from his piece in The Atlantic: “The cruelty is the point.”

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