Western Standard - Inside Pierre Poilievre's Political Life

00:00:00.000 There's always a challenge in writing about something that is so contemporary.

00:00:03.840 So my first book was on the Freedom Convoy and I wrote it after the convoy had ended.

00:00:07.700 So it was more retrospective, whereas here it's a point in time.

00:00:11.960 And well, you know, likely you could make another book in four years or eight years or 12 years,

00:00:16.740 depending on how the election goes.

00:00:18.500 I am also convinced that it was important to have documented record of his life to this point,

00:00:23.920 how he got to where he is, which for Canadians who are deciding how to vote for

00:00:28.160 or Canadians that are just observers of politics, I think can be a really useful tool.

00:00:32.840 Yeah, well, and finding out who Mr. Polyaev is, I mean, he's an outspoken, extroverted man,

00:00:37.320 yet at the same time, he's very private about himself.

00:00:39.720 You don't get to know a lot about him.

00:00:42.400 We've had him here a couple of times, see to where you are for interviews,

00:00:45.260 and great, fantastic talks about what he wants to do with the party.

00:00:48.440 But you don't get much more else out of him.

00:00:50.920 So, I mean, as an author, it must have been challenging because you want to write a bit about him as well.

00:00:54.720 I mean, you know, the personal aspects.

00:00:56.300 I mean, not getting, you know, exposing or embarrassing, but just, like, what makes this man tick?

00:01:01.220 Yeah, no, I would have totally been all on the exposing and embarrassing stuff if I got it.

00:01:04.860 If it was there.

00:01:05.240 No, you're right.

00:01:06.580 And when he talks about his personal life, usually it's in a very curated way to make a point.

00:01:11.060 So he's talked about, you know, the upbringing of his parents, schoolteachers from Calgary,

00:01:15.600 the adoption he went through.

00:01:16.920 He's talked about his parents having to downsize because of interest rates back a few decades ago.

00:01:22.580 So there are little glimpses of this you get through.

00:01:24.720 But the one thing for me, though, in writing this was that I was talking to a lot of the people around him,

00:01:29.420 and they were a lot looser with their lips than he might have been.

00:01:32.620 So I still think I got a relatively good picture of his life, you know, going back to his youth in Calgary,

00:01:37.860 his adolescence, getting involved in politics.

00:01:39.980 And a little bit of that personal stuff does shine through.

00:01:42.640 Oh, definitely.

00:01:43.360 I mean, and there's some interesting things with his history.

00:01:46.060 I mean, his father came out of the closet late in life.

00:01:51.920 He was a gay man and, you know, there was a split family.

00:01:54.980 But it sounds like Mr. Polyev is very well, comfortably reconciled with that.

00:01:58.580 But these are formative things with people on their way and growing.

00:02:01.380 And I find some of that more fascinating to know those things, I guess,

00:02:05.160 than just the policy statements that we tend to get.

00:02:07.320 Yeah, I mean, no one exists in isolation from their experiences and their stories.

00:02:11.700 So even if people know him in a political context,

00:02:14.480 there's still a human experience that has led to that moment.

00:02:17.800 And, you know, how much it has led to it, who knows?

00:02:20.820 One example that comes out in the book and has not been reported elsewhere

00:02:24.020 is that his daughter has quite a severe case of autism.

00:02:28.540 And that's something that he as a father has had to grapple with while working in politics.

00:02:32.500 So that's the type of experience that could very easily shape your outlook

00:02:36.620 to certain issues as a parliamentarian.

00:02:39.580 Well, absolutely.

00:02:40.760 And I mean, it'll give, I guess, more of a direct, you know,

00:02:43.900 sense of things when it comes to the challenges parents with kids with special needs have,

00:02:47.920 especially as a parliamentarian.

00:02:49.260 We're in a job when you're flying and bouncing around with a child

00:02:51.620 that needs a lot of stability and attention.

00:02:54.180 It's a very challenging role, which also shows, I mean,

00:02:57.260 that was a large part of why Mr. Polyev didn't run in the last leadership

00:03:00.960 because that was just coming out at that time.

00:03:03.800 But now he's gone for such.

00:03:06.660 He's a driven man.

00:03:07.780 I mean, something that was clear in the book, too, though, you know,

00:03:09.660 there's people who did other careers and then fell into politics later.

00:03:13.080 But it sounds like Mr. Polyev has always had a razor focus on the political life.

00:03:17.600 Yeah.

00:03:17.820 The subtitle of the book is A Political Life for a Reason,

00:03:20.260 because his life has been politics.

00:03:22.020 Politics has been his life.

00:03:23.340 And even the people around him have been, I don't want to say unchanged.

00:03:26.200 He certainly met people over the last 20 years.

00:03:28.540 But a lot of the relationships that he forged when he was first getting involved in politics

00:03:32.720 are relationships that are still very valuable to him today.

00:03:35.800 I mean, he interned with people that are now members of parliament with him.

00:03:38.940 He volunteered on campaigns with people who are now working on his campaign.

00:03:42.760 The internship coordinator when he interned for Jason Kenney

00:03:46.220 was Jenny Byrne that he had a 12-year relationship with and is now his chief advisor.

00:03:50.800 So all of these connections, again, many of which forged right here in Calgary

00:03:54.800 or certainly in Alberta have really followed him throughout his entire life.

Western Standard - June 03, 2024

Inside Pierre Poilievre's Political Life

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