BURST
He smiles.
“How do I feel? Are you my shrink or what?”
Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, was asked how he feels.
After all, conservatives had so much hope. Finally, they could see the defeat of the Liberals.
We all know the rest of the story.
“We’ve got to get back on our horse, get back in the saddle and gallop forward. That’s all you can do. We made a lot of gains. We came very close,” says Poilievre.
What are conservative voters telling him?
“Keep going. Keep going. Don’t give up.”
Why keep going?
Poilievre points to the more than 8 million Canadians who supported him and the Conservatives in the recent election.
“The countless young people who showed up at rallies in tears because their lives are falling apart. Who want to start families but can’t get out of their parents’ basement or who can’t get a job because the job market is flooded with low-paid temporary foreign workers.
“The middle-class families who literally work non-stop and can’t pay their bills. These people put their faith in me and I have to fight for them. I have to deliver for them.”
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What does the Conservative leader say to those critics who say he has to change his tone or soften his image or water down his convictions?
“We won the debate on all the issues. We won the debate by submission. They submitted. They tapped out on the issues,” he says, speaking of Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals.
“It’s not me saying we won the debate. It’s the Liberals who admit we won the debate.”
Poilievre laughs.
“First they said Poilievre has no policies. Then they said he’s got policies but they’re terrifying, they’re so wild and extreme. Then they said we agree with Poilievre on everything.
“They can do that all in one sentence. It’s incredible.”
He lists wins on the carbon tax, housing, crime, immigration, inflation, drugs, natural resources.
“On every single one of those issues we were proven right. I get a laugh out of it when people say we have to change our policies. If our policies were so unpopular the Liberals wouldn’t be clamoring to pretend they agree with them.”
Now Carney is in charge. What is the difference between him and former prime minister Justin Trudeau?
Poilievre thinks for a minute.
“The thing with Trudeau is he dug in. When you challenged him on something he would dig in,” says the Conservative leader.
“He dug in on the carbon tax, he dug in on deficit spending, on the No New Pipelines law. He was soft on crime. He would take the most radical possible position and it didn’t matter how badly he was losing the debate, he would just dig in.
“Carney is a mystery. If you read his book and listen to what he’s said over the years he’s just as radical as Trudeau but he seems to be willing to reverse and then counter-reverse himself again and again and again and again.
“So it’s not clear what, if anything, Mark Carney believes.”
Poilievre sizes the guy up.
“I think at his core, Mark Carney believes in a top-down government-knows-best agenda. That is his core ideology.
“The common people need to be guided around or bossed around by the enlightened bigshots. I think that’s how he sees the world.
“Trudeau saw it that way too but he was so much more obnoxious about it. This guy does it with a bit of a softer touch. But it’s the same Liberal elitism.
“A small group of multinational corporations and government authorities should tell us all what to think, where our money should go, how to live, what car to drive, what we can say, what we can’t.”
Poilievre is as he has always been. He is not pulling his punches when punches need to be thrown. In fact, he says he is even more determined.
And for the fight ahead with Carney and the Liberals who have promised Canadians the world.
“At the end of the day he can’t deliver on it all because he’s got too many radical ideologues in his party and he doesn’t truly believe in it anyway.
“The country needs what we’re offering. I’m going to keep on fighting and we’re going to win.”