Read the room, Pierre, and quit falling for Trump’s lies

Opinion

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This article was published 05/02/2025 (252 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you listen closely, you can hear a persistent noise running through the background of national news these days. It’s the unmistakable sound of frustration, seasoned with a dollop of anger and a dash of desperation.

It is the sound of the Conservative party and its leader, Pierre Poilievre, struggling to get attention.

In the space of a single month, Poilievre has gone from the very nucleus of the daily national news cycle to a bit player unceremoniously kicked to the sidelines.

The transformation has been swift and dramatic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Jan. 6 he would step down and prorogued Parliament to give the Grits the opportunity to choose a new leader. That day, Poilievre stood triumphant over the smouldering wreckage of the Liberal party, his only concern being whether he could find movers to shift his files and personal belongings into the Langevin Block.

For the next two weeks, Poilievre tap danced on Trudeau’s grave, disparaged potential successors and began to muse openly about his plans for when — not if — he wins the next election.

Then, on Jan. 20, Donald Trump was inaugurated as U.S. president. The focus of national news in this country shifted in seismic fashion.

Suddenly, the threat of a trade war overtook the outcome of the next federal election as the biggest issue of national concern. Just as sudden, a lame-duck prime minister was back in the news looking — dare we say — prime ministerial.

None of this means Poilievre’s chances of becoming the next prime minister are diminished. However, the Tories are struggling to find their footing in a country where they are no longer the centre of attention.

What is a political leader to do? If you’re Poilievre, you ramp up the hyperbole machine.

Poilievre on Wednesday promised to deliver life sentences to drug “kingpins” caught with more than 40 milligrams of fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid behind the overdose crisis. Poilievre said he will “crack down on mass fentanyl production and organized crime ‘superlabs’ that have appeared in Canada over the past nine years.”

Punishing fentanyl dealers is not necessarily a bad idea. Although, it should be said that longer sentences, or more severe mandatory minimum sentences, do nothing to reduce crime. And, for the most part, kingpins are almost never caught with drugs. So, Poilievre’s solution is nothing more than a repeat of past strategies that fill up prisons with low-level dealers and leave the kingpins untouched.

The more serious problem is Poilievre seems to be buying into the false idea that Canada is a hotbed of fentanyl production and distribution. We’re not, and most Canadians know this by now.

On the same day Poilievre made his promise to punish fentanyl kingpins, most news organizations were reporting on the incredibly small contribution Canada makes to this continental scourge.

As a justification for his tariff threat, Trump claimed mass amounts of fentanyl were flooding into the United States from Canada. The reality, as proven by U.S. drug interdiction data, is 0.2 per cent of all fentanyl seized by U.S. border security officials came from Canada.

White House officials countered that those numbers were out of date and a more recent and “massive” bust of 20 kilograms of fentanyl last July shows Canada is a growing source. Various news reports Wednesday found more than a third of the fentanyl in that bust was actually seized in Spokane, Wash., with no connection to Canada or the border.

When you get the facts, you can see how the whole tone of Poilievre’s anti-fentanyl policies not only goes against the grain of reality, he appears to be capitulating to Trump’s erroneous allegation.

Memo to Conservative headquarters: while Canadians are experiencing a particularly acute case of anti-American sentiment brought on by the threat of tariffs, don’t do or say anything that makes you sound like you agree with Trump. That is a particularly important message for the Tory leader now, as he seems to double down on Trump-like messages.

As part of a bid to get back into the news, Poilievre revealed something he called the “Canada First” policy this week. It’s a series of measures designed to combat unfair trade practices and support the economy. The name of the policy sounds oddly similar to Trump’s “America First” mantra, which is itself an echo of a slogan used by American isolationists and pro-fascists in the first half of the 20th century.

Even if that’s not what the Tories intended, it is a bad choice for a slogan.

Conservatives are reportedly conducting internal surveys to determine the best way to “pivot” the party’s messaging in a post-Trudeau world. Respectfully, “internal” consultations aren’t what the Tories need right now.

The Conservatives need to listen to Canadians and how they feel about Trump, tariffs and threats. If they really listen, the Tories might see a reborn nationalism built on rejecting — not emulating — the mayhem south of the border.

Failure to read the room right now might not deny Poilievre his shot at being prime minister. But it might deny him a shot at a majority.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca