Pierre Poilievre is ‘not the right thing for right now,’ says biographer

For the better part of two years, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had a commanding lead in the polls. For him to become prime minister wasn’t a matter of if, but when. But then a funny thing happened. Justin Trudeau, his main nemesis, stepped down as both Liberal leader and prime minister.

Now, with a federal election a little over two weeks away, Poilievre finds himself in second place to former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, Trudeau’s successor. Carney, in one of his first acts as prime minister, neutralized the consumer carbon tax, one of Poilievre’s main talking points. Today, as the country faces an existential threat from U.S. President Donald Trump, it seems voters want less populism, not more.

“People are really sick of politics right now,” said Mark Bourrie, author of Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre.

“They would really like to be able to hand it all to somebody the way they hand off their taxes. And I think Carney comes across as somebody where you can just say, ‘Oh, finally, we won’t be hearing this crap anymore.’ It’s almost like the post-pandemic desire to return to normal after five years of weird.

“I think that [Poilievre] would still be very competitive against Carney if Trump hadn’t started talking about annexing Canada.”

The title of the book was inspired by New York Times political commentator David Brooks, who, during COVID, defined Western politicians as falling into one of two categories: Rippers or Weavers.

A Ripper is someone “whether on the left or right, [who sees] politics as a war that gives their lives meaning.”

“Weavers are the opposite; they try to fix things by bringing people together and building consensus.”

Bourrie says Poilievre definitely falls into the Ripper category.

“A ripper is somebody who’s very good at ferreting out issues and really tearing apart a government’s message and a government’s plan, and they’re excellent people for opposition,” he said.

But Bourrie is not sure Rippers make good leaders.

“[Poilievre] spends most of his time looking for issues, for things that resonate, as opposed to sitting down with people and developing some sort of strategy, a real cohesive strategy, say, to deal with Trump, or to deal with energy exports in a way that won’t cause big risks among environmental groups and Indigenous groups in the provinces.”

Bourrie sees Poilievre as a Canadian version of Donald Trump, a liability nowadays.

“He’s going to have an awfully hard time separating himself from the movement that created Trump and Nigel Farage in Britain and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen [in France],” he said.

“Every country seems to have somebody on the populist right, and that movement’s been doing very, very well, and it would be doing very, very well in Canada if Trump wasn’t such a friggin’ idiot and hadn’t basically pulled the rug out from under Poilievre.”

Bourrie describes Poilievre as the “political equivalent of a hockey goon” and as being “slogans over substance” and “soundbites over sound policy.” But he does acknowledge Poilievre’s mastery of political communication.

“Very few, if any, Canadian politicians have ever had this gift for crafting slogans,” he writes. “If Poilievre hadn’t gone into politics, he would have cleaned up in advertising.”

“He’s really far ahead on his use of non-mainstream media, like YouTube, where something like 90 per cent of people under 40 watch it every day. And his YouTube presence is way ahead of Carney’s and the Liberals and was way ahead of Justin Trudeau,” he said.

“The problem is to find the right messages. And he kind of went too far on the slogans. Certainly, the personal insults resonate now a lot more than they used to: Carbon Tax Carney and Justin Journos when he’s talking about journalists, that sort of stuff.”

The book is a more pointed treatment of its subject than Andrew Lawton’s Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life, which came out last year when the Tories were still riding high in the polls.

“Well, first of all, I’m not running for the Conservatives like Andrew Lawton [is] so I suppose there’s a difference there,” said Bourrie.

“I don’t think [Poilievre] has a lot of friends. And I was never a friend, but I certainly was never a critic or an enemy.”

Bourrie hopes the book makes readers think long and hard about Poilievre and whether he can transition from opposition attack dog to prime minister and statesman.

“If he is elected and things don’t work out, he’s more likely to blame other people than he is to actually try to find ways to make a solution work,” he said.

“That, to me, is not the right thing for right now.”

Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre is published by Biblioasis.