Canada's federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to supporters on Monday after winning a by-election in Alberta's Battle River-Crowfoot riding.Amber Bracken/Reuters
There’s an episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns, billionaire nuclear-power-plant owner and villain of Springfield, decides to run for governor against the incumbent, Mary Bailey. During a war-room meeting, Mr. Burns’s campaign manager lays out their challenge: “While Gov. Bailey is beloved by all, 98 per cent of the voters rate you as despicable or worse. That’s why we’ve assembled the finest campaign team money can buy.”
After introducing the team, the campaign manager steps over to a flip chart at the head of the table. “Their job is to turn this Mr. Burns,” he says, pointing to a photo of the sinister-looking billionaire, “into this,” he says, unveiling a rendering of a joyful Mr. Burns hiking on a mountain.
“Why are my teeth showing like that?” Mr. Burns asks, peering at the artist’s rendering.
“Because you’re smiling,” the campaign manager replies.
Though he would ephemerally win over voters, Mr. Burns would lose the election in the end; an election-eve incident with a mutated three-eyed fish would reveal the billionaire to be the same mean, greedy malefactor whose nuclear plant had been poisoning Springfield’s waterways for years.
Like nearly all episodes of The Simpsons, there is a practical lesson to be derived from the story: Authenticity reigns supreme in politics. Voters know, or eventually come to know, when a candidate is putting it on.
In a few weeks, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will be back in the House of Commons, thanks to the voters of Alberta’s Battle River-Crowfoot riding, who elected him as their MP on Monday with roughly 80 per cent of the vote.
Three takeaways after Poilievre wins Alberta by-election
And ahead of his return, Mr. Poilievre is already being encouraged by political allies to bring with him a more congenial attitude. Former Poilievre communications director Ben Woodfinden told the Toronto Star that Mr. Poilievre must adopt a “softer tone and approach.” Former Conservative cabinet minister Monte Solberg told CBC’s The Current he thinks Mr. Poilievre should “turn some of that attack-dog-type approach over to some of his deputies instead, and assume sort of a more prime ministerial tone.” It’s not bad advice for his first days, or perhaps weeks, back on Parliament Hill. The Conservative Leader should have been humbled by his election losses, and his demeanour ought to reflect that.
But Mr. Poilievre has spent the last 20 years cultivating his attack-dog reputation in the House. It’s the one that, in recent years, earned him the affection of young people and blue-collar workers alike, who saw their frustrations mirrored in the tirades Mr. Poilievre would unleash against the government. It wasn’t enough to win under the particular circumstances of the last election, but it did earn him 41 per cent of the popular vote. It would be foolish for Mr. Poilievre to shelve that approach now, considering it has been one of his greatest strengths, and one that is authentically him. Voters won’t buy pictures of him joyfully climbing a mountain, showing his teeth.
There’s a difference, however, between aggressively prosecuting the government, and resorting to the types of sophomoric attacks Conservatives gleefully engaged in during the Trudeau era and afterward. Mr. Poilievre loved to drone on about “Justinflation.” He incessantly brought up Justin Trudeau in blackface, long past the point that most people actually cared. And during the recent election, he repeatedly insisted that Prime Minister Mark Carney would be “worse” than Mr. Trudeau, pushing a level of hyperbole that even the most incredulous Conservative faithful couldn’t buy. Canadians were desperate for a serious leader to take on the threats posed by U.S. President Donald Trump and other global forces, yet Mr. Poilievre, for much of the time, was acting like a frat boy.
With Poilievre on the ballot, voters in an overlooked corner of Alberta look for a brighter future
Mr. Poilievre can be an attack dog while also being a grown-up. And indeed, he has already shown signs of that; for example, when he remarked back in July that he doesn’t “blame [Mr. Carney] entirely” for failing to make progress in trade talks, noting that “he’s dealing with unfair treatment by the Americans.” But he can still challenge Mr. Carney on his failure to “eliminate” interprovincial trade barriers as he promised by July 1. He can question why the government is trudging ahead with its wasteful and pointless gun-buyback program. He can demand clarity on the extent to which Mr. Carney will allow a duty to consult First Nations on infrastructure projects to delay development. Plenty of Canadians are still frustrated with the status quo; Mr. Poilievre can be their voice in the House once again.
Indeed, Canadians need effective opposition, and Mr. Poilievre is perhaps the most effective there is. He shouldn’t abandon his strength for something pleasant yet inauthentic. He just needs to be a lot more serious about it.