December 1st, 2024 | Grant Johnson

Problems With Pierre Poilievre 

Expectations may be higher than what he can deliver.

Canadian conservatives have a pretty low bar. Watching Trump sweep America was a truly astounding accomplishment. It was exciting. It was heart-warming. I wish I could say it was inspiring, but deep down, as a Canadian… it wasn’t. Instead, it was a reminder of what can’t happen here. 

In the U.S., Trump stormed the Republican party and brought with him an army of counter-elites to reimagine America's future. Even if he accomplishes half of his goals, it will reshape and reenergize America for the next twenty years. 

Meanwhile, back in Canada, we’re stuck with yesterday’s Barack Obama in the form of Justin Trudeau, pushing a woke agenda while being propped up by a neo-Marxist, even more woke NDP. I’d blame the politicians, but the truth is that the people are the problem.

The U.S. saw through the media/academia/elite culture that propagandized Harris and the Democrats, and instead voted for Trump’s Republicans. In Canada, people just believe the television and do what they’re told. There are 20% of Canadians (mostly in Alberta) that have to live in this ecosystem despite disagreeing with almost everything about it, but we’ll never overcome the majority.

People have high hopes for Poilievre to turn things around, but this hope is misplaced. Poilievre is an establishment man and a sophisticated cuckservative. I’ve often left conservative Canadians baffled by criticizing Poilievre from the right. They’re used to Liberals trying to vilify him as a Nazi or whatever, which they can then easily counter. Once conservatives realize that you’re more right-wing than they are and are criticizing the CPC from the right, they talk about PPC vote-splitting and the importance of getting rid of Trudeau. 

That’s conservatives. Don’t even try with the television watching normies. They’ll look at you like you’re from outer space if you complain about Poilievre. 

So what are my complaints?

I’ll forgo the whole “He’s WEF!” stuff that the PPC likes to shill as it sounds Alex Jones-ish. This still leaves us with some glaring and realistic issues. 

Firstly, he’s a career politician who has never held a real job. This makes him an excellent choice for navigating the practical realities of government, but it also makes a lot of his conservatism academic. His lack of plans or policy may be strategic (win first, figure out details later) but more likely the situation is simply that he knows how to do politics but doesn’t understand the world outside of that. 

Secondly, there is nothing socially conservative about him. He is nominally against some trans stuff… for now, but he is further to the left than Jean Chretien was on every social issue. 

Thirdly, he is status quo on the most important issues. He is the classic “slow” liberal. He doesn’t disagree with anything of substance that the Liberals or NDP are about, he just wants to manage things better and slow down the pace of “progress”. There will be no major changes to anything and no positive innovations will occur. Much like Stephen Harper’s incrementalism, a Poilievre government will just tinker at the margins and effect little to no changes.

But let’s say Poilievre does step up and attempt to improve Canada’s fortunes. Then the question becomes not will he do it, but can he do it. What will Poilievre be facing when (if) he wins next year?

1. Fertility Crash

Canada’s fertility rate has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded at 1.33 births per woman. (A country needs to be 2.1 for replacement level fertility)

This level of fertility, while catastrophic, doesn’t tell the whole tale. Canada has been below-replacement fertility since 1973. The problems didn’t really show up until twenty years later when our workforce consequently stopped growing. This is around the same time that Brian Mulroney adopted a policy of mass immigration for Canada.

The average age of an immigrant in Canada in 1993 was roughly 31 years old. So for the past 30 years the importation has helped keep Canada’s economy humming. Today, however, the new immigrants are beginning to simply replace the old ones. 

Part of the reason Trudeau cranked immigration from 250,000 a year to upwards of 500,000 (depending on calculations) is because 250,000 simply isn’t enough economically anymore. Today’s immigrants are just paying for yesterday’s immigrants. Therefore 250,000 today is basically zero, which is why the numbers are soaring. This ponzi scheme has implications that are now counter-productive both in terms of living standards and cultural cohesion. 

Pierre Poilievre is loath to touch the immigration issue because Canada still operates inside of the woke Progressive frame and he’ll be called racist if any reduction in immigration takes place. This is primarily why he talks about just building more housing. Infinity housing starts for infinity immigrants.

This isn’t a solution and it will only get worse.

2. Aging Population

Canada has a rapidly aging population. The Baby Boomers didn’t have enough kids to replace themselves, and in 1973, the fertility rate fell below the replacement rate. Even with mass immigration to help kick the can down the road, we’re still looking at a massive rearrangement of our society’s demographics.

The hardest hit will be our social welfare Ponzi scheme. Entitlements are going to get massively more expensive for the state. Old people (many who haven’t got much money saved for retirement) will vote themselves the retirement they want and the costs are going to soar. 

The average age of a Baby Boomer in 2025 will be 66-years-old. All that hand-wringing and future casting we read about in the 1990s is just about to happen now.

And Poilievre will be in charge.

Good luck.

3. Debt Problem

Canada’s debt is enormous. Whenever international studies do country comparisons they usually cite Canada as being better than average regarding national debt, or debt-to-GDP. What they fail to account for, is all the provincial debt added to the equation. 

Total government debt in Canada is about $3 trillion dollars and growing massively. The interest on the federal debt alone is more than what is spent federally on healthcare or the entire military.

Fiscal conservatives have been banging the debt issue drum for decades and nobody cares because they don’t see immediately obvious cause and effect, but the reason Canada has so many issues arising right now has much to do with the fact that we are on the brink of insolvency and there isn’t enough money for everything. 

When Brian Mulroney took over from Pierre Trudeau in 1984 he learned quickly that balancing the budget was functionally impossible. He spent years trying to get out from under Pierre Trudeau’s debt. Mulroney even got to the point of having operating surplus budgets, but the interest on the already accumulated debt caused further deficits.

It took two decades and three Prime Ministers to at least correct the emergency (but not solve long-term structural problems), but since 2008, we’ve seemingly given up on any attempt as a nation to be solvent.

Pierre Poilievre is walking into a situation worse than 1984. Far worse. He may not have the high interest rates to deal with (yet), but he will inherit an older and more entitled country with far more debt at many more levels. Every attempt to cut will be met with screams from the progressive blob and every action for correction will be stifled by the permanent state.

Good luck Pierre Poilievre!

4. Economy

Our economy is, at best, in a state of malaise. People harbour this notion that simply electing Poilievre to the helm of government will somehow undo ten years of horrific mismanagement by virtue of intent. It won’t.

Oil and gas is a good example to illustrate with. Initiating oil and gas projects requires years worth of study and regulation hoop-jumping. Billions of dollars are invested into the process. Justin Trudeau and guys like Stephen Gilbault hate oil and gas and have been doing what they can to stifle and end the industry.

Executives and citizens alike seem to think one election win, will suddenly change everything related to our moribund industry. Why would it? Putting aside the fact that actually achieving regulatory change takes months and years, we’re still left with a country that is demonstrably unreliable and dangerous for investment. Foreign money didn’t come pouring into Canada even during the Harper years, when Canada worked tirelessly to compete on the world stage. Heck…to be fair…Jean Chretien and Paul Martin weren’t half bad to begin with, when Harper took the reigns and announced he wanted to make Canada an energy superpower.

It still didn’t take off like it should have.

And now we’re here after ten years of woke oil and gas hatred. 

Extrapolate this type of “born to lose” mentality across the country and we’re in for a long and painful realization that Canada has allowed itself to cross a tipping point from which managed decline is the only realistic option. It now transcends politics. Canada’s economic future will be a graveyard of eco-subsidies and printed money and slumlord real-estate trading. 

Watch for further commentary on The Hub podcast as Laurentian elites wonder things like, “Why the brain drain?” and “Why the falling productivity?” over and over again… same as it ever was.

When our dollar falls below 70 cents U.S. then we’ll be getting even more schlock about the economy and Pierre Poilievre can hand wave all he wants, but nothing will change, because nothing ever does. Managed decline is our only path now.

5. People and Media

There are massive innovations in the U.S. and Europe in new media and communication. This has been a long time coming. Twenty years ago we had blogs and message forums. Fifteen years ago we got social media. Ten years ago podcasts took off. Today we are swimming in a sea of bounty…from TikTok to Twitter/X to Substack to newsletters to YouTube/Rumble to whatever you basically want. 

I worked in Los Angeles in the year 2000 when this stuff was in an embryonic phase. When I came back to Canada real life was always ten years behind. I left broadcast media in 2010 because I saw the writing on the wall, but it’s only now that the eco-system for media in the 21st century has caught up with the early promises. 

Except in Canada.

Canada is basically a dead-zone for new media. The fact that someone like Andrew Coyne is still a mover and a shaker on the Laurentian scene, and the fact that this still has currency throughout the media landscape in Canada, is so pathetic that it is difficult to even begin to explain.

Canada’s Soviet-style media landscape is still nominally intact, mostly through massive government subsidies and censorship. What’s worse is that most people don’t seem to see anything wrong with this situation. The hardcore wing of Conservative voters have been calling for the CBC to be abolished for decades, and their opinions are now half-heartedly reflected in Poilievre’s “take on the media” approach, but the majority of Canadians still want to fund the CBC and don’t particularly see anything wrong with it. The fact we’re still debating this when Harper had the chance to end it ten years ago speaks for itself.

Canadians aren’t the type of people to seek out media alternatives. Canadians either check out altogether or they simply believe whatever the tv says. The 20% of us who don’t fall into these categories (probably you if you’re reading this) are outliers. The result is a national propaganda network that manipulates public opinion for the benefit of the ruling elite. Whether you want to define that as corporate or communist doesn’t really matter. The media landscape in Canada is dire.

In the U.S. and Europe a thousand media flowers are blooming, but in Canada we’ve got a handful of plucky, but fairly irrelevant start-ups and some astro-turfed wanna-bes. For normie Canadians, “the news” is still whatever the television tells them. 

Poilievre has some sass, but really that’s about it. Chomping on an apple with some small time local reporter who just parrots shitlib lines is entertaining for the length of a phone clip, but when it comes time to actually vote, the knives will be out for Pierre. If he manages to overcome that, then from the moment he takes power the media will be working overtime to convince Canadians to hate him for everything he does and doesn’t do. Canadians will comply and begin hating him.

As much as we could use our own Trump, a poindexter like Poilievre is the best we have on offer. He’s an empty vessel and to the far-left of Jean Chretien in the 90s, but I guess with Canadian conservatism, that’s simply the most we can ask for. Desiring something better is a dream too far. (Yes, I know, Maxime Bernier… okay… I doubt it, but okay.) Even if we did get a candidate that had the fight and ambition that we’re seeing in the United States, it wouldn’t translate in Canada since our fundamental problems at this point transcend the state of our politics.

It’s going to be a rough four years with Trump running things and Canadians had better prepare themselves for some lean times. If you think the same sort of euphoria and domination we’re seeing in America is arriving our way next year, you’re going to be in for a massive disappointment.