Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s negative ratings with the public are at 60 per cent, according to polling by Angus Reid.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Conservative MP Dean Allison called a news conference last week to give the media an update on his inquiry into the COVID-19 vaccine.
If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking: There’s an inquiry into the COVID-19 vaccine? Why?
Mr. Allison was accompanied by a couple of supporters: The husband-and-wife team of Shawn and Theresa Buckley, who run the Covid Testimony Association. Ms. Buckley stepped to the microphone to make clear what was at stake.
“This is a non-partisan event,” she said, summoning the seriousness of someone announcing the end times. “This is not political. The injuries [suffered] by probably hundreds of thousands of Canadians is not a political event. This is life.”
She encouraged anyone watching the news conference to print out the posters and cards on the group’s website, and distribute them at grocery stores and malls. She also urged people to give details of the inquiry to their doctors.
“They need to understand that the time for silence is over,” she said.
And maybe the Conservatives need to understand that wasting the public’s time on senseless overtures like this is why, in part, they find themselves in the predicament they do now: So far down in the political doldrums it would take the James Webb telescope to make out even the faintest signs of a party ready to lead.
Robyn Urback: The humiliation of Pierre Poilievre continues
I mean, a COVID-19 vaccine inquiry? What’s next? A probe into who killed the Canadian penny? An examination of whether the Earth could be flat, contrary to reports?
Even diehard conservatives are miserable and dejected by the current state of affairs.
“I’m more depressed about the state of conservative politics in Canada right now than I think I’ve ever been, I won’t deny it,” Ben Woodfinden, former director of communications for federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, recently said on X. “I look at all sorts of conservative camps and factions right now and I see intellectual poverty everywhere.”
Mr. Woodfinden’s remarks stirred much debate in conservative circles. Federal Liberals, of course, loved it and are delighted by the caustic infighting cannibalizing the Conservative Party at the moment. As always, the golden rule governing these internal imbroglios is a simple one: The problem is always traced back to the leader.
Mr. Poilievre is failing his party on an epic scale. Many Conservatives can see this. His negative ratings with the public are at 60 per cent, according to Angus Reid polling. His favourables are heading toward 30-per-cent territory. He currently doesn’t even enjoy broad support among the Conservatives’ most reliable demographic, men and those between 35 and 54. (Only 33 per cent have a favourable view of the job he’s doing.)
There is a reason: Mr. Poilievre is a man ill-equipped, intellectually, for the times the nation faces.
He is most at ease when he’s lobbing gratuitous, often childish insults in the direction of whoever is prime minister, all while wearing a look of smug self-satisfaction. He seems incapable of reading the room. Faced with an existential threat from Canada’s closest neighbour and strongest trading partner, Mr. Poilievre delivers vacuous sound bites about how all would be fine if only he were in charge.
This from a political leader at the top of a party whose priorities, it would appear, include an inquiry into the COVID-19 vaccine. The self-described freedom convoy folks and anti-vaxxers must be thrilled they still have someone fighting for them in Ottawa.
Editorial: The moment is not quite ready to meet Pierre Poilievre
Mr. Poilievre recently ignited fresh hostilities within his own party, too, by attacking Caroline Elliott‘s campaign to win the B.C. Conservative leadership race. She lost in the fourth and final round by just 60 votes to Kerry-Lynne Findlay on May 30. Last week, Mr. Poilievre said he was thrilled Ms. Findlay won over the “Liberal lobbyists from out East” who worked on Ms. Elliott’s campaign. This was a shot at folks like Kory Teneycke and Nick Kouvalis, prominent Conservative strategists from Ontario who have been critical of Mr. Poilievre.
Many Conservatives were dumbstruck and angry that the leader would further fuel the internal dissent eating the party alive. Talk about a major backfire.
Many in the party have seen enough. I talked to one prominent Conservative donor in recent days who told me he is done with Mr. Poilievre. He doesn’t believe he’s capable of changing. Worse, he believes Mr. Poilievre doesn’t think he has to change.
Like Donald Trump, Mr. Poilievre appears to own a mirror that tells him every day he is the fairest leader of them all.
It is inevitable, however, that one day he will have to come face-to-face with an unpleasant reality: He’s not the person who should be leading the federal Conservatives.