I agree with those things, I just don’t happen to think he’s the man to do any of them. I don’t think he has the competence and I don’t trust populists.
In any event, a lot of the CPC promises (as is the case with other parties) are so vague as to mean nothing. “We will cut the base income tax bracket from 15 percent to 12.75 percent” is a legitimate promise, to get them credit for that. “Strengthen the military” is not a definable commitment of any sort (and their platform document just blathers on about the subject with more vague statements.) They have made no specific promise of any kind regarding the Canadian Armed Forces’ capabilities, order of battle, or equipment except saying a “new Arctic naval base” will be built, without saying where, how, or by when.
I read a CBC article that had me rolling my eyes though I can’t find it now. It had quotes from a young man who was (if I recall correctly) traveling around to conservative rallys and convincing himself that those crowds were clearly a majority opinion and he was getting the “facts” from his own observations and didn’t trust the polls, etc.
The article did not point out the sheer stupidity and confirmation bias that comes with going into a crowd of Conservative supporters and using that to “prove” that no one supports the Liberals and therefore the election will be rigged.
It was such an enraging article!
I thought it was this one, but I’m not seeing the segment I remember. This one is also scary to me, though for other reasons. We aren’t all living in the same reality and I have no idea what to do about it.
It’s not just that he didn’t attack Trump, though. It’s also that he behaves like Trump (actually Trump-lite) and does nothing more than toss out stupid name-calling BS and shallow, repetitive slogans. Even today or yesterday he was trying to slag Carney for apparently “hiding” from campaigning every time he takes time off for actual governing (IOW dealing with an existential crisis).
And that’s exactly what I plan to tell the Conservative campaigners when they come to my door, as they always do: PP is Trump-Lite; he’ll toady up to Trump, and sacrifice our sovereignty on the altar of Trump.
And the third-grade name-calling? Stupid and juvenile.
And I’m in Alberta. PP may see us as safe bets, but there are a lot of other Albertans who are thinking like me right now.
Yeah, a lot of voters—at least, of my acquaintance—are rethinking automatically putting an X in the circle beside the Conservative candidate’s name. They might still do so, of course, and that’s their right, but they’re not going to automatically do so, like they always have. They’re going to think about this for a bit.
Attacking Trump is just #1. We can draw up a list of things that PP should’ve done/stopped to distinguish himself from Trump. Vapid sloganeering, name calling, populist rhetoric, hyper partisanship, extremist/loony courting, it does go on and on.
Goating Carney with “hiding” is nothing. Last week he called him a “grifter” This is still nothing compared what he used to call Trudeau or Singh (who had an entire website selloutsingh.ca, dedicated to character assassinations, and complete with a countdown to Singh’s qualification to pension).
I said it before and I’ll repeat, PP had years of solid support, but he never even tried to assume the role of a distinguished PM in waiting. However if he is going to be an attack dog, he should’ve focused on attacking Trump in defence of Canada. For the longest time, PP refused. No problem, Canadians rallied behind someone who would.
ETA: (to PP) Also excellent job at attacking the NDP, way to go there. You really showed them! lol. You got FULL payback at Singh for not calling that election! Kick back and reap the rewards.
Here’s an article from Politico, interviewing Graves of the Ekos polling firm, which was the first to detect the Liberal surge in January. It’s an interesting interview, particularly his take on why Poilievre has had trouble pivoting (hint: lots of Tories like Trump) but the conclusion brings it home as to the effect Trump has had on Canadian politics:
To my mind, this is the decisive factor. I’ve said it before, Trump is a chaos agent, and absent the entire United States suddenly coming to its senses, we’re stuck with him for the foreseeable future. The one absolute, must-have characteristic our next government needs is the ability to react in real-time to Trump’s most current nonsense. How they react probably won’t matter as much, so long as they know what’s going on.
And PP has shown several times in the last six months that he’s stuck in a rut so deep, he doesn’t even realize it’s a rut. He didn’t adjust his plans based on Trump winning in November, he didn’t adjust his plans in January when Trudeau resigned, he didn’t adjust when Trump actually took office and started throwing shit around, he didn’t adjust when Trump started his 51st state nonsense, and he didn’t adjust to Carney being Liberal leader. He’s consistently been weeks to months behind the curve this whole time, and he shows no signs of getting better.
I’m remembering how the right-wing “selloutsingh” protest loonies were harassing Singh after the the Tories turned up the attack ads in July. You could visibly see how Singh had enough, as shown by this confrontation in Sept.
I saw that video when it happened, and yeah, that guy was a complete coward. Talking shit so long as Singh was walking away, but as soon as he was confronted, “Oh, that wasn’t me, boohoo, it must have been someone behind me…”
The fact that PP and the Conservatives have been empowering jerks like this is the other major reason I’ll never vote for them. We’ve seen what this kind of shit has done to the United States, and you’d have to be an absolute idiot not to realize it can destroy us in exactly the same way if we don’t shut it down.
What is the correct way to callout Singh for keeping the government in power just to get his pension? The Liberals wouldn’t and even helped him by extending the election date in October. But Singh screwed himself and the NDP by not using the power he had and now everyone is likely to vote for other than the NDP. If he had brought down the government when he had the opportunity, he had a chance to be the Official opposition.
Then he goes on to say that this is hate and people should be able to feel safe walking the streets. Essentially meaning that people shouldn’t have the right to challenge their politicians when they don’t agree with them. They were probably planning Star Chamber legislation to prevent such confrontations in the future. All they had to do is just take a page from the Liberals on arresting and assaulting people who ask them uncomfortable questions or protest too loudly.
If the asshole actually believed any of that (purely speculative, mind you) stuff, why did he immediately deny being the one who called Singh corrupt? You stand behind the truth, you don’t go blaming an invisible guy behind you.
His crap, and this kind of pathetic defense of his crap, is exactly the sort of thing that drove me away from the CPC, so good job breaking it, heros.
If Singh supported the non-confidence motion the last time the Conservatives had brought it up for a vote he would have handily won his seat and thus his pension, so your argument is meaningless. Ironically, it’s possible that he now loses his own seat and that same pension because of the huge rush to the Liberals from the NDP.
