Poilievre stoops to scare tactics, exploitation

Opinion

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This article was published 28/11/2022 (714 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been a rough week for Pierre Poilievre. The rookie Conservative Party leader is facing nationwide criticism over comments he made in a five-minute video released on Nov. 20.

The video begins with Poilievre sitting on a log in front of several makeshift tents somewhere on Vancouver’s shoreline. With ominous music playing, he asks, “Do you ever feel like everything’s broken in Canada?”

Having gained our attention with that jarring question, he shifts to the issue of drug addiction. Using several poor souls as props, Poilievre blames Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the increase in overdose deaths in many parts of the country.

The Tory leader says steps taken to reduce overdose deaths, including supervised consumption sites, are a “failed experiment” implemented by “woke Liberal and NDP governments.” He argues the focus should be on “recovery and treatment and detox programs,” as if such efforts aren’t already happening.

He says we need to “bolster our borders to keep drugs out of the country,” “bring in tougher laws” and “stop using tax dollars to fund dangerous drugs under the so-called and ironically-named idea of safe supply.” The first two are already happening; the third one isn’t.

The response from commentators across the country has been scathing. National Post columnist Chris Selley described Poilievre’s comments as “an incredibly disappointing and potentially dangerous take.” Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason wrote: “Mr. Poilievre doesn’t know what he’s talking about. … He couldn’t be more wrong. And his position couldn’t be more dangerous.”

Tom Brodbeck wrote in this newspaper: “The only thing more offensive than Pierre Poilievre’s peddling of dangerously false information about illicit drug use in a recent video is how he exploited marginalized people to make it.”

There is no need to spill more ink in response to Poilievre’s dangerous, deceptive remarks. Columnists all over the country have already done the job. That said, their focus on addictions policy has caused them to ignore two other significant issues within the video.

First, there is Poilievre’s ham-handed attempt to blame “woke Liberal and NDP governments” for Canada’s addictions crisis. In that regard, his selection of a “tent city” in Vancouver as his backdrop – as opposed to similar scenes in Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Toronto and even Winnipeg – was no accident.

That’s because each of those five cities is in a province that has a conservative government, and addictions treatment is a medical issue that falls squarely within each province’s health-care jurisdiction.

Had Poilievre recorded his video in Winnipeg, and pointed out that Manitoba is also on track to set a new record for overdose deaths, it would have put the Stefanson government in the crosshairs of his accusation, and it would have exposed his strategy to scapegoat “woke Liberal and NDP governments” as a ridiculous lie.

Instead, he chose British Columbia, which has Canada’s only NDP government.

Rather than playing games with his choice of location, Poilievre could have discussed the millions of dollars in health-care funding the provinces have received from the Trudeau government in the past few years – including millions earmarked for addictions – that have instead been used to finance tax cuts and shrink deficits.

That misdirected money might have saved more lives, but Poilievre would have embarrassed his conservative cousins by saying so.

Second, Poilievre’s claim that “everything’s broken in Canada” – an outrageously false claim – is a rhetorical trick often seen in political campaigns. The candidate scares his audience with a problem that may or may not exist, proposes a solution and then argues he is the only person who can and will implement that solution.

In the 1930s, a German politician with a bad moustache rose to power by promising to “make Germany great again.” Donald Trump used the same strategy in 2016. By arguing that everything is broken in Canada and that he will fix it, Poilievre is already campaigning on the assertion that only he can make Canada great again.

He’s dead wrong. Canadians don’t need Poilievre to fix what isn’t broken. What we really need is an opposition leader who sticks to the facts and doesn’t prey upon vulnerable citizens for his political advantage.

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