>>388687Let's take a closer look at Poilievre.
Consider that "apple" interview that Poilievre did that went viral, where a reporter said "people think of you as a populist" and Poilievre kicked it back on the reporter, asking him who said that. The contempt that Poilievre has for that reporter, and reporters in general, was good, to be sure, but ask yourself why Poilievre did not just say that he was a Populist? The reason is simple: he isn't one. He is the opposite of a populist.
A good enough measure of where a politician's true ideological passion lies is to just let them talk and see what they talk about. Consider Donald Trump. Ask him a question about nearly any topic, and if he speaks for a long enough period of time, he will invariably (after mentioning the seven swing states, what a terrible president Biden was, and how 2020 was rigged) will talk about Trade. 10 years ago, the same was true. He even talks about Japan beating the US in trade in
Art of the Deal, and that was written back in the 1980s. Trump has memorized the US trade balance with every nation and every single tiny barrier to trade. India tariffs motorcycles 100%, Canada tariffs milk 135%, American cars aren't sold in Germany, but Australia is okay because they buy Boeings. He brings it up even when an irrelevant question is asked. He's like the Captain Ahab of the US trade deficit.
Does Poilievre behave similarly? Well, yes. He does. In almost every conversation, in almost every interview and almost every statement, Poilievre returns to the same set of issues. Poilievre is concerned with the difficulty of doing business in Canada, or to put it another way, he is obsessed with the policies of Economic Liberalism. Every speech, he talks about Canada losing out to the United States in business and economic competitiveness, and the general drain of investment and talent from Canada over the past 10 years of Liberal government.
Now, please don't misunderstand me. Poilievre is right about all of this. Canada has problems with how its economy is regulated and managed and adopting more economically liberal policies is probably a good start towards fixing these problems. Probably. But this isn't the 1980s anymore. Thatcher and Reagan are both dead. While these policies may indirectly affect average Canadians, that effect is very much indirect. They do, however, seem to directly effect business owners and wealthy donors. And in modern times where there is a strong distrust of government, and a belief that government does not work for the people, but for the wealthy, that is not a good look to have. These kinds of policies are just simply not as attractive today as they were 40 years ago.
The biggest issue in all of the West, and
especially Canada, is immigration. To be sure, Canada has other massive problems, such as insanely high housing prices, excessively long waiting times for health care, crime, deterioration of the cities, stagnating or declining wages, and unemployment, but all of these are caused overwhelmingly by immigration and the resulting massive increase to the total population in a short time frame. A majority of Canada's problems are caused by immigration or overpopulation. Reducing immigration is the most obvious step towards solving virtually any problem in Canada.
So what did Poilievre say or promise to do about immigration? Astonishingly little. Deporting a few criminals but no mass deportations; a marginal decrease in the number of new immigrants coming in every year, but nothing significant enough to prevent the situation from becoming worse.
He would say almost nothing on the subject. Take the interview he did with Jordan Peterson, which lasted one hour and forty minutes. I immediately jumped to the chapter names on the video to see where Poilievre talks about immigration. It was the last minute and thirty seconds. Peterson asked Poilievre what should be done about immigration, and all Poilievre had to say was "we should return to the old system." I'm sorry Poilievre, but that isn't enough. And even if it were, it's obvious from this interview and from other speeches and interviews that immigration isn't an issue he cares much about. Certainly not enough to expand precious political capital to try to do anything about. Why would he be passionate about reducing immigration? Immigration lowers wages, increasing returns on investment for business owners, which is what he really wants. Reducing immigration could raise wages, which could reduce profits for business, and God forbid Pierre reduce profits for Canadian businesses. It's clear that Poilievre would scarcely reduce immigration at all if he were Prime Minister.
Even on stupid social issues like genders the two candidates were identical. Poilievre said "I am aware of only two genders" when asked how many genders there are, and Carney's later answer was "there are two sexes."
So what were Poilievre's final policy positions? Well, he wasn't Trudeau, he promised to eliminate the carbon tax, he would start an economic war against the United States (which even he knew would end terribly), and he would very marginally reduce immigration. But Canada already has a Prime Minister who has already done all of those things. His name is Mark Carney. No need to vote for a Corporatist candidate.
Poilievre did have some degree of charisma, he did have a good point on Carney being another globalist banker who helped exsanguinate Canada in the corporate world, and he was decent on crime as an issue. But it wasn't enough to make up for a lack of distinct policies.
Who do Canadians vote for if they wanted a proud populist who would dramatically reduce immigration, or maybe just remove that stupid milk tariff so Donald Trump can shut the hell up and back off of the 51st State stuff? No one. No such candidate exists in Canada.
But then again I'm not even Canadian. So what do I know?
>>388703This.