“I am also happy that the suspected shooter is dead.”
With those 10 words, in response to Friday’s apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre sent Canada’s propriety police into one of its trademarked tizzies.
It’s been a tough few weeks down at ProPo HQ: they still haven’t even closed their investigation into Poilievre calling Trudeau and his policies “wacko,” yet. I’m not sure these people — all stalwart Poilievre opponents — entirely understand what they’re doing and what’s being done to them.
“(This) is not leadership. This is not how a prime minister talks,” clucked Ontario New Democrat MPP Joel Harden, who once boasted of interrogating Jewish neighbours “about how much longer we should put up with (Israel’s treatment of Palestinians).” (He later apologized.)
“Leaders don’t celebrate death,” Harden said of Poilievre’s remark. “We work for community safety.”
An “insane thing to say,” was left-wing commentator David Moscrop’s reaction.
Former Alberta MLA Thomas Lukazkuk called it “irrational” — “revenge over due process.”
“If the criminal was apprehended alive, we could have learned so much more, which could serve the future safety of all,” he argued.
“While others appeal for calm, Poilievre rejoices in retribution,” Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne observed on X. “It’s human enough, in such moments, to think it. But to say it — and not in some unguarded private moment, but as the public reaction, with the potential for further violence hanging in the air, of a would-be prime minister… This is not normal.”
I’m no fan of the statement either. Political leadership does involve not saying certain things that you think (although calculated circumspection probably isn’t a quality aspiring politicians should advertise). While “revenge” and “retribution” aren’t the right words here — law enforcement was trying to neutralize an active threat, who had already killed someone — it certainly would be better to have the guy in custody and find out what made him tick.
I don’t really care about politicians’ styles, but if I did, Poilievre’s would be a serious impediment to my voting Conservative. Because his is very often the style of a (very effective) online troll. He says things in hopes his opponents’ overreactions will make him look sane in comparison, and it works with alarming regularity. It’s like he and his team understand their opponents better than their opponents understand themselves — and the more embedded those opponents are in the day-to-day political battle, the worse it seems to be.
That “happy he’s dead” statement was no gaffe, so there’s no point lecturing Poilievre as if it were. It was very deliberately put in there in full knowledge it would elicit the reaction it is currently eliciting.
The hope is that most people who took notice would agree with Poilievre about the shooter, or at least not see any harm in the sentiment being expressed. And thus, Poilievre would look relatively normal, and his opponents clutching their pearls into to dust would look … well, a little bit wacko. Just like they did when they objected to the word “wacko,” which may be unparliamentary (at least in certain circumstances) but which is hardly profane.
The Wacko Siege was itself textbook trolling, immaculately executed. On April 30, Speaker Greg Fergus expelled Poilievre from the House of Commons for using the W-word to describe Trudeau and his drug policies. (“This wacko policy by this wacko prime minister,” were his exact words.)
The Conservatives noted that the NDP House leader Peter Julian had used the term a few times in the past without being censured, and as such doubled and tripled down on it. On May 3, Alberta MP Blaine Calkins used the W-word eight times in a 154-word statement in the House of Commons. And by then even Julian was in on the very unfunny joke, complaining about the Conservatives’ “wacko amendment” to a bill and how it amounted to “wacko obstructionism from an official Opposition that is not a serious party.”
Prithee, sir, where might we find one of these “serious parties”?
Poilievre may be walking a tightrope here. His polling numbers are higher than many observers believed his ceiling could be. Clearly he has for now won over a good few people who were hesitant about him beforehand; he came to the job far better known to Canadians than his predecessors Erin O’Toole or Andrew Scheer were before they became party leaders, and many of those opinions about him were negative. Politicians with very particular styles can wear out their welcomes very quickly.
But Poilievre has many months to kill before an election. No one drops a full platform this early. He could do a lot worse than poke his opponents gently and watch them spill their apple juice in response, over and over and over. Everyone looks silly doing it, if you ask me, but in the end, someone will win the election and it will all have been worth it for them.
Trouble is, we’re on a dead reckoning toward an election that will be about whether it’s Justin Trudeau or Pierre Poilievre who will destroy Canada and leave it a charred ruin full of irradiated zombie mutants.
And that really, really isn’t the election we need.
National Post
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