MARCH 1st, 2023 | RYAN TYLER

Pierre Poilievre Is Treading On Thin Ice

The Conservative leader is alienating the people who have had his back.

The Conservative Party leader's capacity for knee-jerk reactions and capitulation has been exposed. Pierre Poilievre has spent the last few weeks acting like a career politician, condemning bad people he doesn't know anything about and using strong words to describe situations he doesn't fully understand. It's like Erin O'Toole came back with a different face. If he doesn't cut it out, Poilievre's thoughtless pandering and capitulation will make him another forgotten name in the history books.

The latest fiasco involving a German politician named Christine Anderson isn't where it all started. Poilievre has been stepping on the wrong toes and commenting on things he hasn't properly researched for a while. His comments about Christine Anderson, distributed to Brian Lilley, were merely the straw that broke the camel's back.

There is going to come a time when standing up to CBC journalists and calling out the media are no longer enough. That time is fast approaching, so Pierre Poilievre better start listening to the people who have had his back.

Immigration

No one has asked Pierre Poilievre to close down Canada's borders to immigrants and refugees, but they have asked for some restraint. There are always going to be those who demand unreasonable things and take extreme positions, but the majority of those asking for reforms aren't looking to close down the country and label immigrants as lower forms of life. Those people are few and far between and their influence in conservative circles is always exaggerated by Liberals.

We want tighter controls and more restrictions on immigration. None of us think immigrants are worthless, we just see a serious problem emerging from Canada's current policies.

Canada has a housing crisis and a healthcare crisis. We don't have enough space to house our own citizens and we don't have enough doctors to treat our sick—yet, the Trudeau government plans to import millions of new immigrants within the next couple of years. Even to ordinary swing voters, this policy seems destructive and ill-advised. Most Canadians don't have a problem with a million new immigrants, but a million new immigrants within such a short frame of time, during an ongoing crisis, is another story.

The Liberal solution to everything always involves throwing more resources at a problem. To solve inflation, they throw more printed money at it; to solve debt, they throw more debt at the existing debt; to solve shortfalls in healthcare, they throw more money at the bureaucracy; to solve short-term deficits in tax revenue, they throw more immigrants into the mix. Liberals have little regard for the long-term consequences of their actions.

More immigrants will put further strain on housing inventory and more strain on our public healthcare system. With labour shortages in construction and supply shortages across the board, we can't build houses fast enough. With fewer doctors, we can't fill holes in our healthcare system to deal with the influx of new illnesses and emergencies brought by having more people. The Liberal idea of filling low-skill construction jobs with unskilled immigrants also doesn't work—it hasn't yet. If it was working, there wouldn't be a labour shortage across the entire country.

Furthermore, filling construction jobs with unskilled workers can result in low quality work—which leads to bigger, more costly problems down the road.

Canada's current immigration policies aren't making life easier for anyone. Pierre Poilievre hasn't addressed Canada's immigration policies properly and has, instead, resorted to the same old talking points and pandering. He called for Trudeau to close Roxham Road, but that little opening in Quebec isn't the problem. Canada's policies are the problem and Poilievre, too scared of being called a racist MAGA boy, won't tackle the real issue.

The War In Ukraine

It's almost like Poilievre is following a global script when he talks about the war in Ukraine. He uses the same talking points and has all the same perspectives as other leaders inside the Western war machine. He peddles the same deceitful and inaccurate ideas about Russia's invasion being “unprovoked” as Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden.

Poilievre spreads misinformation and endorses escalation.

Anyone who has read books and done research knows why Putin invaded Ukraine. It has nothing to do with greed, or the insanity of a tyrannical madman. It has everything to do with the expansion of NATO, protecting Russia, and the pro-Russian sentiments inside Eastern Ukraine. If anyone were to ask Joe Biden how he would react to Russia setting up missile silos and bases in Cuba, they would probably get a response similar to that of John F. Kennedy.

The push by Western allies and Zelenskyy to join NATO has been strong. Before Zelenskyy, the U.S. had been interfering in Ukraine's politics and attempting to install pro-American leadership for years. None of this got by Putin, who isn't the warmongering lunatic our media tries to portray. NATO and American allies have been trying to encroach on Russia, via Ukraine, for longer than two decades. Finally, in 2022, Putin was provoked into doing something about it.

Everything from the annexation of Crimea to the current invasion of Ukraine is an enforcement of the red line drawn by Russia, which states that Ukraine cannot join NATO, for the same reasons Russia can't build bases in Cuba. On a deeper level, there are pro-Russian sentiments in much of Eastern Ukraine and the country has a strategic location, making it highly valuable to Russia.

Rather than speak even a little bit of truth, Pierre Poilievre has decided to tow the Western line by making false statements and posting tweets about an “unprovoked” invasion.

Christine Anderson

Last, but not least, is Poilievre's response to Christine Anderson. The Conservative leader couldn't have shit the bed in more spectacular fashion than he did when he sent a hasty response to Brian Lilley. After three of his MPs—including Leslyn Lewis—met with Anderson, Poilievre called her views vile and racist in a statement to the Sun columnist. He then went on to say that Anderson should stay out of Canada.

Christine Anderson has been a vocal opponent of the “Islamification” of Germany and of vaccine mandates, but that doesn't make her a vile racist. In many European countries, Islamic “ghettos” and no-go zones are a real thing, making concerns and criticisms from people like Anderson somewhat justified.

If Poilievre wants to peddle the idea that someone who opposes the violent and extremist wings of a global religion is “racist”, that's on him. Many Canadians feel the same way Anderson does. However, most of the reception she received in Canada had to do with her opposition to mandates and Justin Trudeau, not about her criticisms of Islam. 

Canada doesn't have the same problem with no-go zones as Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom, but it isn't something we are immune to. Some Canadians believe we are getting closer to having similar problems, but that doesn't make them any more racist than those who vocally oppose paedophilia in Catholic churches and the more extremist views of other religious institutions. The views and customs imposed on our society by Christianity are regularly criticized in media and by supporters of the NDP and Liberals.

Criticizing the growth and expansion of harmful views within our society is natural and necessary, on all sides. Calling everyone who does it a racist is childish, censorial and asinine. By choosing to be a typical career politician who feigns outrage over things he doesn't understand, Pierre Poilievre is treading on thin ice.

If Poilievre is mad because Anderson took a photo with someone he severely dislikes, he should learn to take his emotions out of the equation. It makes him look weak and impulsive.