Pierre Poilievre, the "Common Sense" Bigot

By Hugh Pedersen - Pierre Poilievre seems very sure that he will be Prime Minster after the next election, just as Andrew Scheer and Erin O'toole were in their time. You can never count Justin Trudeau out of the race, especially with the NDP ready to support his every imperialist move 

But one day, given the complete lack of will in the NDP leadership to mobilise the workers, indigenous, national minorities and queer folk in a true fight for their needs against the greed of the ruling classes,  the Conservatives will win. So what is the superficial and smarmy Pierre Poilievre really all about?

There’s a reason the ‘parents’ rights’ crowd feels entitled to call for more control over their kids 

And the answer, in a word? Conservatives. Specifically, conservative politicians, institutions and media. This year alone, several provinces have implemented policies informed by the so-called ‘parents’ rights’ movement, which the 1 Million March 4 Children protests belong to. These new rules are ostensibly about protecting parents’ ability to have a say in how their children are educated, which might sound fine on the surface, but what they actually do is restrict students from going by their chosen pronouns and names at school. They are really about controlling children, and denying them the autonomy to decide how they publicly identify and present. This is harmful for all kids, regardless of whether they’re trans, non-binary or queer themselves, because it revives and strengthens stigma. But it’s especially harmful for trans and gender nonconforming kids, because it potentially exposes those who only feel safe being their real selves at school to family who may not accept them—which, in the worst case scenario, also puts them at risk of real harm.

Pierre Poilievre - "Parents should be the final authority on the values and the lessons taught to children....Parental rights come before government's rights." 

Poilievre, who represents the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean-Carleton, went on to question the merits of related compensation payments.

"Now, you know, some of us are starting to ask: 'Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?'

"My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That's the solution in the long run -- more money will not solve it."

Comments condemned

On CTV's Mike Duffy Live, opposition MPs called Poilievre's comments "racist" and those of a "redneck."

"What surfaced in Poilievre's remark was the old Reform-Alliance racist attitude that this Conservative Party has been trying to run away from," Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said.

"Pierre sounded like the old redneck hillbillies we used to make fun of in the old days," NDP MP Pat Martin said. "I think Pierre has done himself a great disservice . . . I think he's damaged his career somewhat."

It’s not hard: If you’re a politician at a public function and someone approaches you wearing a T-shirt bearing a highly offensive message in big bold letters, you walk away.

If you can’t make out the words on the T-shirt (maybe because you recently ditched your eyeglasses in an attempt to appear more relatable), then surely one of your staffers has vision and sense enough to tell you to walk away. What you don’t do is stick around to pose for a smiley photo with the guy in the offensive shirt and then proceed to claim — as if Canadians are a uniquely stupid people — that neither you nor your staff noticed the homophobic nonsense printed in enormous block letters across his chest.

But perhaps stupid is what federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre thinks we are, because the latter is exactly what he did this month at the Calgary stampede. When a man wearing a “Straight Pride” T-shirt approached the federal Conservative leader, Poilievre happily posed for a photo with him. (The T-shirt also bore the message “thank a straight person today for your existence,” alongside the male and female pictographs typically seen outside public restrooms.

In February 2022, the gathering of right wing Christian evangelicals, Alberta rednecks, fossil fuel supporters, anti abortionists and anti queer haters formed a “truckers’ convoy” to Ottawa with the strong backing of Pollievre and his conservatives. With slogans of “freedom” and “Trideau Out” they occupied Ottawa for weeks while Poilievre worked to make Trudeau wear the entire fiasco . The “freedom” they were fighting for was first, not to take vaccines, thus endangering other Canadians and secondly, to rid Canada of a government recently elected.  The words “freedom” and “liberty” by the right wing means personal freedom and individual liberty, it rejects social responsibility, the interests of the community and working together for the benefit of all. It is an ideology that serves the needs of the billionaires who oppose the costs of social benefits such as Healthcare, education and pensions, all in the interests of higher profit.

Poilievre posed with these thugs, marched with them and opportunistically used their “occupation” to sew the discord he loves, to divide Canadians along the fault lines of prejudice and hate. The true fault lines are the lines between the classes, between the billionaires and the workers, the wealthy oppressors and the oppressed. 

Poilievre’s thin veneer of representing the common people, the workers, is a duck blind from which he strives to sew division among workers and hate against indigenous people, queer folk, immigrants and people of colour, all part of the working class. 

But Poilievre, just like Trudeau reprints the oil cartel, the mining giants, big banks, agribusiness and big developers. These are the people Stephen Harper served, and so will Poilievre, if he gets elected.

Image: Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Nov. 27. JUSTIN TANG/THE CANADIAN PRESS (Source)