Western Standard - June 27, 2023


They just don't get Poilievre, do they？


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

138.01361

Word Count

730

Sentence Count

37

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

Nigel Hannaford: Is Pierre Polyaev a liability to his party and is wasting his chance to become Prime Minister? The Western Standard's own editor-in-chief, Nigel Hanaford, argues that the real problem is that Canadians are not angry enough.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 As Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert tells it, Pierre Polyaev is a liability to his party and is wasting his chance to become Prime Minister.
00:00:10.900 Women don't like him, writes the Globe and Mail's Marie Wolfe.
00:00:15.320 I've known Pierre for 20 years and I can't say I've ever noticed that, but Marie Wolfe says he shouldn't be so quick to press the anger button.
00:00:23.840 David Musgropp, a Canadian writing in the Washington Post, says he's a phony and a loudmouth.
00:00:32.000 And Andrew Coyne, who I always thought was a Conservative, says, God, Polyaev is a thug.
00:00:39.940 One could go on. He's a busted flush, you see, and to the delight of the Eastern writers who truly understand Canadian politics,
00:00:47.820 former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney recently heaped praise upon Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's leadership
00:00:54.600 while conspicuously neglecting to make any mention of Polyaev.
00:01:00.660 There really is no accounting for tastes.
00:01:04.140 But the fact there's a Conservative Party of Canada for Polyaev to lead is very much related
00:01:09.320 to decisions Mulroney made that blew up the old progressive Conservatives.
00:01:14.400 Remember that Winnipeg CF-18 fiasco?
00:01:17.820 But those who wish Pierre Polyaev well should not be alarmed at the media pile-on as Parliament wraps up for the summer.
00:01:27.060 If he could choose his critics, these would be the ones he would pick.
00:01:31.820 All those folks who circulate their ideas through the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the CBC
00:01:37.740 and having reviewed each other's work, figure they have taken the pulse of the nation.
00:01:41.940 Now, to concede the smoke that is assumed to indicate the presence of a raging fire,
00:01:49.740 a recent Leger poll did suggest that if an election had been held in May,
00:01:55.220 Trudeau would have had a sporting chance of forming another minority government and a fourth consecutive term.
00:02:01.760 Not a certainty, but it was not impossible.
00:02:04.580 Okay, pundits have also decided that the failure of the Polyaev team to break through in any of the recent by-elections
00:02:13.320 represents a stalled party.
00:02:17.220 Again, fair enough.
00:02:19.420 However, if a week is a long time in politics,
00:02:22.200 the more than two years before the next scheduled election is a really long time,
00:02:28.380 and by-elections in safe seats with a 40% turnout seldom produce surprising results.
00:02:35.440 Remember, 20 years ago, the same kind of people were saying the same kind of thing about Stephen Harper.
00:02:42.160 He then went on to be Prime Minister for nearly 10 years.
00:02:45.160 Let us just remember that 20 years ago, it was Preston Manning's efforts to draw the PCs
00:02:51.960 into his United Alternative that were rebuffed, first by PC leader Jean Charest,
00:02:58.360 who was completely blown out in last year's CPC leadership race,
00:03:03.500 then by former Prime Minister Joe Clark, when he took over leadership of the failing PC party.
00:03:10.120 Clark himself was utterly dismissive of the United Conservative movement under Harper.
00:03:16.080 Oh, it would have wonderful debates, he said, but could never form a government.
00:03:20.480 It's hard to remember that we ever listened to these people.
00:03:24.760 But with the well-known attraction of reporters to conflict and personalities,
00:03:29.360 a discouraging word from Clark was a story, and Belinda Stronick's defection,
00:03:34.860 a wound from which the party recovered by bedtime,
00:03:37.920 was a sensational development.
00:03:40.120 And when Stockwell Day famously conducted a lakeside presser,
00:03:44.920 his wetsuit arrival on a jet ski was the story, not what he said.
00:03:49.680 So here's the thing.
00:03:51.640 Perhaps the issue is less that Polièvre is too angry,
00:03:57.380 than that Canadians are not angry enough.
00:04:01.760 Notwithstanding the soothing praise Mr. Mulroney lavished on Mr. Trudeau,
00:04:05.860 what should you feel other than anger when the Prime Minister apparently failed to heed security warnings about Chinese electoral interference,
00:04:16.880 doubled the national debt to look like a COVID hero,
00:04:20.920 insults hard-working Canadians who pay their taxes and play by the rules,
00:04:25.720 sets out to destroy Alberta's energy industry that funds equalization,
00:04:29.840 and represents 10% of Canada's GDP.
00:04:34.720 Again, one could go on.
00:04:36.140 The F-35 debacle,
00:04:38.120 the ethical violations,
00:04:39.940 the strong-arming of a Solicitor General,
00:04:42.440 prancing about in blackface,
00:04:44.480 paying off a terrorist,
00:04:46.220 but telling Canadian veterans
00:04:47.820 there was no money for them.
00:04:49.980 And then weaving and dodging in question period
00:04:53.160 under Polièvre's skilful interrogation.
00:04:58.360 A thug?
00:04:59.440 A phony?
00:05:01.140 A loudmouth?
00:05:02.340 Not at all.
00:05:04.600 It's just time somebody like him
00:05:07.540 asked some of the questions that need to be answered.
00:05:12.860 For the Western Standard,
00:05:14.960 I'm Nigel Hannaford.
00:05:16.040 Thank you.