Poilievre must pivot from his apple munching ways

National Post, 23 March 2025

The politics of humiliation have fallen out of fashion in Canada

Pierre Poilievre often stresses that the Liberals are seeking a fourth consecutive term, implying that four is simply too many. It certainly is for Conservatives, who have never won four in a row since Sir John A. Macdonald, who won four consecutive majorities (and six of the first seven Canadian federal elections).

For the Liberals, contrariwise, four is, as in golf, par for the course.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier won four consecutive majorities himself. His successor as Liberal leader, William Lyon Mackenzie King, won three consecutive minorities in the 1920s, and then three more elections in 1935, 1940 and 1945. Together with his successor, Louis St. Laurent (majorities in 1949 and 1953), they won five straight. After the John Diefenbaker interlude, Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau won another five straight elections (and six out of seven) from 1963 to 1980. Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin then won another four straight elections from 1993 to 2004. If Prime Minister Mark Carney were to win a fourth after Justin Trudeau’s three, it would fit a 125-year pattern. A fourth Liberal mandate would be wholly unremarkable in Canadian history.

What is remarkable is that the day before yesterday Poilievre was cruising along, confident — perhaps even complacent — of a thumping majority. Then cometh Trump and goeth Trudeau, presenting the possibility that cometh Carney may mean goeth Poilievre.

After leading by wide polling margins for two years, Poilievre still has the advantage. The voters’ settled judgment in his favour is being reconsidered now, but reconsideration is not followed inevitably by reversal. Reconsideration may lead to reconfirmation. That happened in 1984 and 1993.

Aside from his Ottawa relaunch rally — at which Poilievre not only wrapped himself in the flag but even put on a suit — the opposition leader has not been campaigning vigorously; all the attention has been on President Donald Trump, Premier Doug Ford and now Carney. Perhaps Poilievre is preparing to follow the pattern of Stephen Harper’s first victorious campaign, when he unveiled a new policy each day for thirty days straight. There is much yet for Canadians to see and judge.

Yet one thing will have to change. Poilievre will have to leave behind the politics of humiliation.

It is a key part of Trump’s appeal; he delights in humiliating others. His tribe delights in watching him do so. And it is a source of his power. He humiliates his allies. If they refuse to accept it, Trump turns on them. But if they compound their humiliation with self-abasement, Trump rewards them.

Canada is now the target of Trumpian humiliation. Canadians have not chosen self-abasement.

Carney demonstrates in his (historically) astonishing decision to have no direct contact with the American president in the first weeks of his premiership. He says that he will speak with Trump when the “disrespect” stops. He does not offer pre-emptive obeisance.

For the moment Carney’s distance from Trump, who is massively unpopular with Canadian voters, poses something of a challenge for Poilievre.

There is no indication that Poilievre would abase himself before Trump, and Carney was wrong to claim as much in his victory speech. Nevertheless, as Canadians reject the politics of humiliation, Poilievre has a problem. He has practised it.

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