Poilievre right to shut down Jivani after 'hissy fit' comment
National Post, 21 February 2026
Conservatives who want to blame Canada are a problem for the party
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was curt and harsh about Jamil Jivani telling Trump-friendly American media that Canada was having an “anti-American hissy fit” and that governing Liberals needed “to grow up and mature” in the face of American aggression on trade policy.
“He speaks for himself, I speak for the party,” Poilievre said. He wanted to quickly shut down discussion about whether Jivani was more sympathetic to the Trump administration than he was to Canada. Poilievre was wise to do so. Blaming Canada is not a winning strategy for a party that is trying to earn Canadian votes.
“Blame Canada” was popular once — in the United States. Satirically. In 1999 a South Park movie about parents concerned with the corruption of their youth had them evade responsibility by choosing an improbable scapegoat: Blame Canada!
“They are not even a real country anyway,” claimed the lyrics, comedically foreshadowing Putin on Ukraine and Trump on Canada.
The original song was nominated for an Oscar. There was certain absurdity in the political air; Donald Trump had ended the first of his four presidential campaigns just weeks before the Academy Awards. (Trump ran for the Reform Party in 2000).
Robin Williams performed “Blame Canada” on the show in a Rockettes-style dance number. A good time was had by all, including the wholesome Anne Murray, who was described in the song with a not-very-nice word. It was outrageous good fun because who would possibly, seriously, blame Canada?
The serious and consequential political lesson was taught fifteen years earlier, by the formidable Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the fiercely anticommunist Democrat whom Ronald Reagan appointed as his ambassador to the United Nations.
In 1984, at the Republican convention nominating Reagan for re-election, Kirkpatrick explained why Democrats like her — she began by favourably quoting Harry Truman — supported Reagan on foreign policy. She delivered an impressive tour d’horizon of the global scene, but the professor stole the entire convention, even from the Great Communicator himself, with her diagnosis of a sickness in her fellow Democrats.
“They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do,” Kirkpatrick said. “They didn’t blame Cuba or the communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians — they blamed the United States instead. But then, somehow, they always blame America first.”
“When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the ‘blame America first’ crowd didn’t blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines; they blamed the United States. But then, they always blame America first.”
Kirkpatrick continued her litany: “When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations … they blamed the United States…. When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, they blame United States policies of 100 years ago. They always blame America first.”
The phenomenon of the “Reagan Democrats” was a major factor in Reagan’s reshaping of American politics. Kirkpatrick represented one important faction of the Reagan Democrats, those who were tired of liberals siding with America’s rivals and enemies over America itself. “Peace through Strength” was Reagan’s motto then, but “peace with patriotism” could have been a corollary.
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