Ripper: Pierre Poilievre and the new politics

Mark Bourrie’s new book is a detailed and surgical examination of the man who could be Canada’s next Prime Minister.

Pierre Poilievre’s political convictions go back even as far as his childhood in Calgary where he frequently attended anti-abortion rallies with his mother, a conservative Roman Catholic. By his high school and late teen years, he had become in his own words ‘a rock-solid conservative.’

His only work experience outside politics was a four-month internship in 2001 in Frank Stronach’s company Magna.

He offered his services to Conservative call centres and soon came on the radar of Reform politicians like Jason Kenney, an early mentor. He left his studies in international relations at the University of Calgary to become a staffer for Kenney in Ottawa.

Other early mentors who helped his rise in the party included prominent Reform-Canadian Alliance figures Preston Manning and Stockwell Day. Poilievre showed a talent for coining pithy political slogans. He also showed an early talent for in-fighting in 2000 with his ‘Draft-Day’ website to replace Manning with Day for the leadership of the Alliance.

His game from the start was offense: attack, attack, attack.

In 2002, Stephen Harper was elected leader of the amalgamated Conservative Party, and the next year Poilievre was first elected an MP for the Nepean-Carlton riding outside of Ottawa, defeating Liberal defence minister David Pratt in the process.

Once elected he was quickly on the attack. Against Governor General Michaëlle Jean and her husband. Against gay marriage in a 2005 speech, despite his father, to whom he is close, being in a same-sex relationship, although eventually in 2020 he changed his mind on this. Poilievre became ‘Dial -A-Quote,’ the MP journalists went to for a sound bite, a catchy slogan.

In 2006, Poilievre was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to John Baird at the Treasury Board, but his political career was almost nipped in the bud on June 11, 2008. On that day, Stephen Harper made his historic residential schools apology in Parliament with the promise of financial compensation. Poilievre’s mean-spirited response was to wonder whether Canadians ‘were getting value for all of this money.’

Harper was enraged. In a shouting match behind closed doors, he gave a severe dressing down to Poilievre who was forced to apologise the next day in the House.

Mark Bourrie has been accused of being anti-conservative and hostile to Poilievre. Bourrie is keen to point out that he respects conservative values. Poilievre, he claims. does not. Hence to the title of the book, Ripper. According to Bourrie, there are, in politics as in life, weavers and rippers. Weavers knit people together, rippers destroy and tear them apart. Unlike true conservatives who conserve.

If Pierre Poilievre is not a true conservative, what is he? Bourrie attempts to pinpoint this and ends up with a blend of nationalism, populism, a hint of racism, and something close to demagogic fascism. This depends on the lie for its success. The bigger the lie the better, and Poilievre is a master of this art. Sometimes well concealed.

His Bill C-23 in 2013, the Fair Elections Act, for example. His appointment in the first place as Minister of Democratic Reform was possibly, according to Bourrie, Harper’s idea of a joke. The Bill increased the maximum amount that individuals or corporations could donate to political parties and at the same time banned the use of voter identification cards as legal documents.

In one stroke, the power and influence of money was elevated and the ability of ordinary citizens to vote was diminished. More like an Unfair Elections Act. It later took the Liberals three years to undo the worst aspects of it.

Poilievre’s role as an attack dog continued under subsequent Conservative leaders, Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole. The election of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister in 2015 was godsend for him. Trudeau was the antithesis of everything Poilievre stood for – affirmative political action, big government, socially progressive policies and a somewhat, if only somewhat, more enlightened approach to First Nations. Trudeau became the board at which Poilievre threw dart after dart.

Along with NDP MP Charlie Angus, Poilievre destroyed the WE charity, the Katimavik National Youth Service Program and, in savage attacks, the political career of Minister for Finance Bill Morneau. The real villain of the piece, Justin Trudeau, who had awarded contracts worth $300,000 to his mother Margaret and brother Alexandre, walked away.

Despite Trudeau and Canada’s success in saving lives during COVID, Poilievre condemned the measures taken. Canada’s death rate of 1,424 per million compared very favourably with the U.S’s 3,535 per million. Tens of thousands of lives were saved yet Poilievre railed against the measures and stood with the truckers who brought downtown Ottawa to a standstill for weeks. In one photo op, he stood in front of a convoy protest sign that read, ‘Stocked shelves, thank a trucker. Empty shelves, thank Trudeau.’

In 2022, he replaced O’Toole as leader of the Conservatives and was immediately on the attack.

DEI – Diversity, Equity, Inclusion – was in his words, ‘garbage.’ The environmental movement was mostly made up of ‘hypocrites and phonies.’ And the emptiest slogan of all: ‘Canada is Broken.’ Far from being broken, Canada has the second highest GDP growth of the G7 countries.

Poilievre positions himself as a champion of the working poor and the lower middle class. He condemns the ‘transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the have-yachts’ while spending many of his evenings at $1725 plate private dinners for those very same ‘have-yachts.’ Like Trump, he champions the very people he will, if elected, deprive of necessary supports and services.

Most politicians can be selective about the truth at times. Poilievre tells barefaced lies. In December 2024 he claimed that Justin Trudeau had taken office in late 2014 and was responsible for the downturn in the Canadian economy. In fact, Trudeau didn’t take office until November 2015 and the slump was due to world oil prices. Similarly with claims on crime. Crime rates are falling in Canada.

Attacks on ‘woke’ became attacks on women in general, on minorities, on environmentalists, on the bail system, on humane treatment of immigrants, on refugees etc., etc.

He claimed in 2024 that Trudeau and the NDP would ban all hunting rifles. It was never part of Liberal policy. Another lie.

Taxes, housing, crime, the need for change are the drums he keeps beating along with the line of a Canada broken by big government and out of touch socialist urban elites.

He was looking like the next PM until Trump 2 and Mark Carney came along.

Kim Campbell, Progressive Conservative leader in 1993 and Canada’s first female Prime Minister has called Poilievre ‘a liar and hate monger.’ The strand of conservatism she represents is hopefully still there. Otherwise, we possibly face a Trump like scenario in Canada.

This book is recommended for readers who want to understand the real Pierre Poilievre and right-wing politics in Canada.

Gerry McAlister is a member of the NB Media Co-op.