Big start to the year for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.
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In the polls, certainly, where they are prancing at 40%, very far ahead of the liberals.
But also a nod to political conspiracy and the corners of the Internet.
Common sense
There is certainly the absurd case of Leslyn Lewis, a member of the Conservative shadow cabinet – therefore, potentially a minister – sponsoring a petition calling for Canada’s withdrawal from the UN.
If Lewis wanted to criticize the UN, that is his right.
But Lewis instead plays the classic score by picking up the usual notes of modern conspiracy, from Bill Gates, to vaccines, to the World Economic Forum. We know the song.
That Poilievre, PM-in-waiting, accepts that an MP from his party is floundering in such a swamp is already troubling.
But now the Conservative leader saw another good business opportunity, when an agitator from the Rebel News site was arrested while trying to interview Minister Freeland.
However, rather than leaving this “controversy” where it belongs, that is to say on the margins of the Internet, Pierre Poilievre has instead decided to support Rebel News.
To make it a political issue.
According to him: this arrest would reveal “the state of freedom of expression in Canada”, “after 8 years of Justin Trudeau”.
So the fault of the government, therefore of Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau is said to have “divided the media into two groups: those he bought with subsidies and those he censored and had arrested.”
Is that the common sense that Pierre Poilievre claims to have?
Canadian Chaos Engineer
Does he really believe what he writes? Who knows?
What I know is that his tactics allow him to garner emails and political donations from the conspiracy world.
What I also know is that Poilievre is going another step, by supporting Rebel News, from which his predecessors have historically distanced themselves.
And not only does he support these provocateurs, who are only copies of the American extreme right, but he makes them a journalistic reference.
What I also know is that this whole circus fuels chaos.
And from this chaos, he thinks he will emerge a winner.