Poilievre and the CPC are well-within the historic Canadian mainstream political spectrum. The same can’t be said for the far-left Liberal-NDP Pact.
When a politician takes over a venerable political brand, hollows it out, and replaces it with something else, it can be easy for the entire political spectrum of a nation to be skewed.
That’s exactly what has happened in Canada.
Instinctively, Canadians tend to think that the Liberals are centrists, the NDP is left-wing, and the Conservatives are right-wing.
Thus, any policy proposed by a Conservative in opposition to the Liberals must be right-wing, and even far-right given the rabid use of that term by the press.
But what if the Liberals aren’t ‘liberal’ anymore?
What if they are a reskinned NDP under the leadership of someone – Justin Trudeau – who has disdain for the more moderate and reasonable approach of most of his predecessors?
Well, it throws everything into confusion and disarray.
Note for example how Pierre Poilievre is often denounced by Liberals and some of the media as ‘extreme’ or ‘far-right,’ and then ask yourself whether that makes even a shred of sense?
Things get even more interesting when you contrast the approach of Pierre Poilievre with the approach of Justin Trudeau, and then compare them both to past Liberal & Conservative Prime Minister’s.
Remember, Justin Trudeau’s divisive approach to major Canadian industries (boosting some while singling out the Western Canadian energy sector for criticism and regulatory decline) is an outlier, aside from the approach his father took.
Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre’s pro-Western energy approach, along with the overall goal of making Canada a better place for all industries across the country to do business, is more in line with both past Liberal & Conservative PMs.
Justin Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act is also as a historic outlier.
Can you imagine Jean Chretien or Stephen Harper or Paul Martin rebuffing desperate allies who want to buy Canadian LNG?
Trudeau also deviated from the previous Canadian consensus on trying to balance the budget.
Trudeau’s use of vaccine mandates as a wedge issue also concerned some within the traditional Liberal coalition, including former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who is representative the pro-business ‘blue Liberals’ that are increasingly marginalized in the LPC.
Now, everything Trudeau does makes more sense when you consider that he is basically a socialist ‘new democrat’ hiding behind the Liberal brand.
*I didn’t have to mention Singh much in the list above, since he is as far-left or even more so on each issue than Trudeau.
It’s no wonder that he and Jagmeet Singh have a Pact (despite their play-acting disagreements), since both are far more socialist than they are ‘liberal’ in any traditional sense of the term.
This is important for people to understand, because it puts the many unhinged criticisms of Pierre Poilievre in context.
If you were trying to smuggle a socialist agenda into power without people noticing, than you would need to rebrand the usual way of doing things – which had worked relatively well for Canada – into something dangerous and ‘extreme.’
So, Poilievre is branded in that way, even as he advocates for things that were once considered Canadian common-sense.
I encourage you to discuss this with others, to help them see past the deceptive rhetoric being deployed against the Opposition.
Spencer Fernando
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