(hold for arrival)
Rt. Hon. Pierre Poilievre
Prime Minister of Canada
Rideau Cottage
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A1
Dear Prime Minister Poilievre,
This may be presumptuous, but I want to be among the first to congratulate you on your imminent ascension the position you so richly deserve: 24th prime minister of Canada.
As your website, pierre4pm.ca, makes clear, you are not running merely for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Your sights are set on replacing that thief in the night, Justin Trudeau, who is stealing our precious rights and freedoms. Your willingness to sacrifice your self-interest to serve the nation as leader of the opposition for the next three years, until the electorate can confirm the inevitable, is evidence of your dedication to democracy and your commitment to the public weal.
We know the Liberals are stealing our rights. We know it because the trucker convoy that held Parliament Hill hostage in February told us so. That’s right, those “bright, joyful, and peaceful Canadians championing freedom over fear,” as you called them, and whom you cheered on as they called for the overthrow of the government and/or the lynching of the aforementioned thief in the night.
Thanks to you, Sir, we have hope. Hope that you, as our Inspector Poilievre, will discover where the Liberal/NDP cabal is hiding the rights it is stealing and that you will keep your promise: “I will restore them, to put Canadians back in control of their lives and make Canada the freest nation on earth.” Hope that any Canadians who don’t yet grasp that they are being robbed of rights and denied control of their lives will see, as you so clearly do, that, “the Trudeau government has been spying on you everywhere. They’ve been following you to the pharmacy, to your family visits, even to your beer runs.”
Thanks to you, we know we must boycott barbecues at Aunt Millie’s, watch what we say to the clerk at Beer Store, and pull our ball caps down to hide our faces from the security cameras in the drug store.
Historically, Conservatives have fancied themselves as the party of law and order. There was a time when they would have been disgusted by a prominent politician who bonded with a motley mob of white supremacists, antisemites, hate merchants and other promoters of insurrection. They might have installed a politician like that in a jail cell, not in their leader’s office. Yet you are seducing them with a brilliant campaign. It may be, as described in some quarters, a Trump knock-off, a toxic blend of pixie dust and snake oil, but it works.
It works, although most Conservatives I know don’t believe for a second that your campaign really sold 311,000 new party memberships in just over 100 days. That, as one of them says, is equivalent to the combined total populations of Moose Jaw, Sask., Brandon, Man., Red Deer, Alta., and Belleville, Cornwall, and Huntsville, Ont.
When the candidates are finished challenging the memberships submitted by other candidates, no one will care about your claim of 311,000 memberships. It won’t matter. What will stick is the perception among Conservatives that Pierre Poilievre is running away with the race and they’d better leap on board.
I’m afraid not everyone is convinced. One who isn’t sold is an old friend and former press gallery colleague, Perry Anglin. Yes, he does have some Liberal skeletons in his closet at his home on Manitoulin Island, where he dabbles in political verse. However, here is a sample that you might like – or not – to post on pierre4pm.ca.
Pierre Poilievre has caused a commotion
Going all out on a far-fetched notion
To fire the head of our central bank
For leadership that we really should thank
As it saved us in Covid from ruination.
But Pierre says it caused (world-wide) inflation.
So is white black in Mr. Poilievre’s eyes?
He’s just dumb like a fox and ruthless in lies.
He throws them around in any amount
As lately when claiming his membership count.
You are most welcome, Mr. Poilievre.
Your true believer,
etc., etc.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail and Maclean’s. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com