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Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poièvre speaks at a press conference about hospital safety in Vancouver on May 14.Ethan Cairns/Canadian Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a press conference this week about electric vehicles, and reporters took advantage of the opportunity after his remarks to ask him whatever they wanted.
My colleague Laura Stone took the microphone.
“I'd like to ask you about your leadership.'' Opinion polls show us trailing the Conservatives by 20 points, and despite recent efforts to communicate in the Budget, things don't seem to be improving. “Hmm,” she said.
“The public seems to have an overwhelmingly negative view of you as an individual, and you seem to be losing control of the conversation on some of the important issues that Canadians care about.” she continued. “I think the public is now looking at you and your position and thinking, 'Why would he stay in office, in the interest of the Liberal Party?'”
The questions were polite, pertinent and cruel. Trudeau began with a dry, “Thank you for your concern, Laura,” which drew laughter from the audience, but then followed with a hilarious, dandelion-fluff, non-answer that makes politics ridiculous. Things changed.
His only concession on this point was to tweet that “the world is in trouble.” This is both his standard response to the question and a tragically funny way of euphemizing the idea that “everybody's tired of you.”
And the problem is, Prime Minister Trudeau gets asked all the time now why he doesn't just take the hint and go for a walk in the snow or whatever the weather conditions are outside. It's basically an Ottawa parlor game.
So the media is trying to get him, they are asking questions ranging from hostile to corruption, and all this is a plot designed to keep Mr. It is strange that it is Conservative Party leader Pierre Poièvre who keeps saying this. Prime Minister Trudeau is floating.
So, at the risk of paying lip service, look at the polls. If this is a conspiracy then it sucks for everyone involved and they should find a new hobby.
Nevertheless, Mr. Poièvre has vigorously argued over the past two years that journalists who ask him pointed questions are carrying out a greasy partisan agenda. There is a wide range of media that has trained the public to see him as a #JustinJourno impostor.
Part of the reason is certainly social media and fundraising. The ultimate prize is a video of Mr. Poièvre fighting one of these public enemies that goes so viral that conservatives in the US, UK, and Australia rub it in like Actinidia, like videos of him eating apples. Thing.
But even a clip short of that level would energize Mr. Poièvre's base and provide the kind of fundraising the Conservatives have mowed down the competition quarter after quarter.
Immediately after winning the leadership, Poilievre held a press conference in Ottawa and declined to take questions. The reporter pushed back, and soon an email about the fundraiser arrived.
“This is what we are up against,” it read, insisting that the Liberal Party is no longer the only problem. “It's the media and they're not even interested in pretending to be fair anymore. They want us to lose.”
Last fall, a journalist asked him whether he was irresponsible for mistakenly calling a cross-border vehicle explosion a terrorist attack. Her Conservative Party leadership has lashed out at her, claiming the government said so in news articles but not actually saying that, and repeatedly insulted her press.
He has also attempted to distance reporters from questions by repeatedly interrupting them with pedantic rhetorical questions, and publicly accused reporters of being part of the Liberal Party cabal.
Mr. Poilievre loves rhetorical fights and is good at them. So he's trying to accomplish something far more permanent than temporary evasion of surveillance.
What he's doing is protecting himself from any unwanted questions or scandals that may surface in the future. And he is teaching his accepting public to automatically distrust anyone who criticizes him. That means Mr. Poièvre doesn't even need to be there to yell at annoying reporters because he's already set the stage for people to disrespect them.
Three years from now, if current opinion polls are true, Poilievre will be prime minister and have an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons.
Pointing out a spending problem, a policy choice, a stupid program, a stinky email, an ugly act by a public official means you are part of a conspiracy. Do we deny this, or do we insist that these are legitimate questions that the public deserves answers to? That's what the idiots who paid for it would say.
You may really like Mr. Poièvre's view of Canada's problems and their solutions, or you may think that what he claims is a common sense approach is long gone. . Many people agree with you.
And talking about why his attacks on the media are important, frankly, to you as citizens more than to us as journalists, like one of the adults in “Peanuts.” “Democracy'' and “weakening of institutions.'' I know, I can hear it happening to me right now. And Mr. Poilievre knows it too.
But consider the worst scandal you've ever heard of. A cover-up that made your blood boil, a cover-up that hurt someone or something you care deeply about, something so bad and rotten that you want to spit on the pavement every time you think about it. .
Now, you may be very fond of the guy who is pumping his fist into this media battle.
But every outrageous thing that matters, every troubling thing you'll want or need to know someday started out as a question someone didn't want to answer.
