Appeasement has dire consequences

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This article was published 14/12/2023 (673 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘We understand that, with (his) miserable record, he does not want to talk about Canada or Canadians. He would rather spread falsehoods about faraway foreign lands.” — Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre in the House of Commons, Dec. 12

It’s almost impossible to believe that the Conservative Party of Canada would ever participate in kicking Ukraine to the curb. But in recent days, Poilievre has gone out of his way to mimic the champions of the U.S. right wing, like fired Fox News talk show host Tucker Carson and many U.S. congressional Republicans.

Poilievre claims that he is simply fighting for Canadians who are having an affordability crisis. And that’s a priority over the needs of the faraway foreign lands, like Ukraine.

It might be worth mentioning here that the most famous appeaser in world history was Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister of the Depression era 1930s. When it was clear that Adolf Hitler had every intention of gobbling up Czechoslovakia, Mr. Chamberlain spoke very much like the current Canadian Conservative leader, who aspires to be gobbling up votes in the next go.

Chamberlain minimized Hitler’s ambition for conquest, by calling the issue, “A quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.”

If we knew nothing about Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, we would not know many our neighbours trace their ancestry to Ukraine. We would not know that they grew up with parents and grandparents who told them about the Holodomor in the early 1930s. Sometimes it’s known as the Ukrainian Holocaust. Millions of Ukrainians died in a man-made famine.

The man who made that famine was a Russian Hitler by the name of Joseph Stalin.

If we knew nothing about the part of the world we live in, we also might not know how many of those we call our neighbours are descendants of people who came to our neck of the woods from Poland, Ukraine’s neighbour.

The recently elected prime minister of Poland is Donald Tusk. On the same day that Mr. Poilievre was dismissing Ukraine in Canada’s House of Commons, the Polish PM said, “We will demand full mobilization of the West to help Ukraine. I can no longer listen to politicians who say they are tired of the situation in Ukraine.” The attack on Ukraine, he said, is “an attack on all of us.”

For Pierre Poilievre and others who don’t know what they don’t know, I have a few nuggets of knowledge to offer about Poland.

The Polish people don’t need any political leader or political columnist to inform them that if Putin’s Russia conquers all of Ukraine, Poland is next. And so when the Polish prime minister says he can no longer listen to politicians who are exhausted with Ukraine, he’s not just talking about American right wingers.

He’s also talking about Canada’s most famous right winger, Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Undoubtedly many who read a column in the Free Press questioning the wisdom of careless Conservatives, will point to the current polls. Many of them indicate that a general election, held today would see the Conservatives winning a majority. And for those who tout the polls, they may think that Poilievre’s politics on Ukraine is not a game changer.

And for those who are thinking along those lines, I offer them three facts of life:

No. 1 — the election isn’t being held today. It’s most likely coming to us in the fall of 2025.

No. 2 — the latest credible poll, done by Abacus Data, shows a five-point drop for the Conservatives nationally over the past two weeks. Abacus says they have gone from 42 per cent to 37 per cent, while the Liberals have moved up four points, from 23 per cent to 27 per cent. The Conservative vote against the Canada-Ukraine trade deal may not be the only reason for Conservative decline. But it has to be part of the unattractive portrait.

And No. 3 — while Poilievre’s peculiar position on Ukraine may not be seen by some as a threat to his party’s claim on Canadian hearts, the issue is much larger than Ukraine.

It’s about support for democracy worldwide.

It’s also a glaring confession from Mr. Poilievre that he feels far more comfortable with the politics of the American right wing than many Canadians who are repulsed by it.

Pardon me for having ears made in Hungary.

But when I hear Pierre Poilievre strike a tone on Ukraine which reminds me of Viktor Orban of Hungary, the most famous of Vladimir Putin appeasers, I am not charmed.

I am alarmed.

All Canadians should be.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster.

charles@charlesadler.com