Hitching your wagon to the king of chaos

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This article was published 28/03/2025 (219 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It must have seemed like such a perfect plan. A foolproof strategy. A can’t-lose proposition. A pothole/pitfall-free runway right to the front gate of the prime minister’s residence.

On top of everything else, it was so doggone easy. Having observed the manner in which former and soon-to-be-reinstalled U.S. president Donald Trump had rallied the disgruntled right, derailed traditional conservatives and taken control of a generally rudderless party, all that was required of Pierre Poilievre was to do pretty much the same thing here.

And so that’s what Conservative Party of Canada’s leader set out to do: paint a picture of a “broken” country in need of rescue from its despair, belittle opponents by employing schoolyard-taunt nicknames, repeat misinformation with sufficient frequency to make some people believe it’s true, gloss over complex issues by reducing them to pithy, alliterative slogans, and demonize media outlets that question the agenda by dismissing them as “fake news.”

The more like Trump he could style himself to be, it seemed, the better things would go for Poilievre, as Canadians en masse decided prime minister Justin Trudeau had overstayed his welcome and, according to poll after poll after poll, turned away from the ruling Liberal Party in droves.

Last December, pollster Angus Reid had the Conservatives receiving the support of 45 per cent of decided and leaning voters, compared to just 11 per cent for the plummeting Liberals. As recently as Jan. 27, three weeks after Trudeau announced he would resign, Poilievre’s party still had the support of 43 per cent, albeit compared to a noticeably improved 29 per cent for the Liberals.

The Trump-lite strategy still seemed a winning gambit; all that was needed was a minor moniker makeover, replacing “Justinflation” with “Carbon Tax Carney” to redirect Poilievre’s supercilious scorn toward the PM’s presumptive successor.

And then….

Trump was, as many expected and even more feared, returned to the White House, and promptly embarked on a tariff/trade war with Canada (and Mexico, and the European Union, and…) and started dropping remarks about annexing Canada as the 51st U.S. state because Canada “doesn’t make sense as a country.”

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As trade threats escalated, the 51st-state nonsense was repeated, often enough that Canadians could see Trump isn’t joking. His disdainful attitude represents a direct threat to Canada’s sovereignty, shattering a long-standing neighbourly cross-border relationship.

Canadians are mad. Like, really, really mad. At Donald Trump.

Angus Reid’s latest poll, released earlier this week, shows the now-Mark-Carney-led Liberals supported by 46 per cent of decided and leaning voters, compared to 38 per cent for Poilievre’s CPC. With a federal election now set for April 28, it looks very much as if Poilievre’s decision to hitch his entire political identity and future to Trump’s wobbly-wheeled wagon was, one might charitably say, unwise.

There’s much to be discussed and debated on the campaign trail during the next five weeks, and the election’s outcome is anything but a foregone conclusion. Poilievre will have ample time to make his case to Canadians, to show them he’s something more than a fawning facsimile of the U.S. tyrant-in-waiting his every intonation over the past couple of years has seemed designed to emulate.

But it will take much more than doomsaying about a “broken” country while Canadians are straightening spines and raising elbows. Poilievre’s only hope is to convince Canadians he’s not “Trump lite,” and his biggest problem is that the folks producing Liberal campaign ads have reams of footage at their disposal to suggest that’s exactly who and what he has aspired to be.