By Ray Rivers
March 23, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
“There is no baby without a mother, no Sideshow Bob without a Bart, and no Pierre without a Justin. It was all Destrudeau, and Mr. Trudeau has left the building. I guess that’s why Pierre Poilievre seems – well – broken”. (JILLIAN HORTON SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL MARCH 14, 2025)
Canadians are experiencing something akin to buyers’ remorse, and are deserting the Tory leader instead.
Pierre Poilievre has lost his mojo. Over the last two years he has broadcast how badly Canada is broken and how it’s all Justin Trudeau’s fault. But times have changed, and now is not the time to tell Canadians that their country is broken, even if that were true – which it’s not.
Second this rant that Trudeau must resign and kill carbon pricing – a tax that benefited lower income Canadians – is somehow the scourge driving up prices of everything, has worked. So now, that old adage “be careful what you wish for” has come around to bite the pretender to the throne. Trudeau and the consumer carbon tax are no more.
But rather than piling on gratitude, Canadians are experiencing something akin to buyers’ remorse, and are deserting the Tory leader instead. So our Pierre Poilievre is left wondering what to do given that the emperor’s new clothes have left him naked. Well here are some suggestions:
- Stop being so nasty, so angry – such an attack dog. End the negativity and the ad hominem ads and personal attacks. Those tactics, though disgusting, may have been effective when you were the opposition leader. They worked to alter how Trudeau was seen, his credibility, and the public trust in the sitting PM. But also remember how those kinds of nasty ads worked for Kim Campbell.
- Promise not to deprive Canada of our national and time-honoured broadcaster, the CBC. At few times in our history was a national news media as critical for this country. Canadians deserve to be better informed than what they’ll get with alternatives like social media, or worse yet, fringe media like Rebel. Don’t follow the example of the US president, who has excluded major news media from his news briefings simply because he doesn’t like what they report.
- Show Canadians that you actually have an organized plan to govern. What are your plans for the economy and the environment? It’s not enough to be opposed to carbon pricing and emission caps without offering a fully costed alternative. Explain how your the notion of even more business subsidies to reduce greenhouse gases will work, and how it would impact your other goal of slashing the deficit. How would your plan to respond to US tariffs differ from what is currently being prosecuted?
- Be clear about your intentions regarding our newly acquired additions to the social safety net. Would programs you once mostly opposed in opposition – like child care, pharmacare and dental care – be on the chopping block?
- Clarify whether you are really going to fire the Bank of Canada governor as you once promised to do? And clarify if you are serious about making bitcoin cryptocurrencies an alternate official currency, thus making Canada the ‘blockchain capital of the world’ as you had once promised? Can you explain how crypto would make Canadians’ lives better?
Poilievre is articulate and a compelling opposition spokesperson for his party.
These are troubled days and Canadians are looking for unity and purpose in a leader, not more divisiveness and negativity. Poilievre is articulate and a compelling opposition spokesperson for his party. But as leader of his party in a moment of national crisis, he isn’t telling us what we need to hear. Rather he just repeats the same tired old meme – that he will fight for Canada – or stand up for Canada – or some other flag waving meaningless platitude. And this is not the time for platitudes.
Mr. Poilievre has been caught off guard by his own success, that is true. But nothing is more important to voters than a road map telling us how he’ll keep the country and its economy secure. In this time of insecurity Canadians are not likely to elect a man without a plan? Or was the man who has spent his entire life planning to be PM just a one trick pony – the axe-the-tax man.
Seriously, the carbon tax has been axed, give it a rest. Mr. Trudeau your chief political opponent has left the building. And you have nothing new to say? One has to ask, is there really no Pierre without a Justin?
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
No Pierre without Justin – Now What – Conservatives Media Access –
BlockChain Capital – Rebel News – Subsidy- Right Wing Media – Industrial Carbon Pricing –
Thank you to the Publisher for allowing these links.
The CPC have produced short documentaries on their key policies, if you go into YouTube under https://www.youtube.com/@PierrePoilievre/videos you can find these along with 1000’s of other video’s, interviews, rallies and so on.
What I’ve done here is listed the key documentaries that have been produced since the January 2025, they provide background to the issue and the Conservative plan.
As you can see there are many views for each just on YouTube, this does not include views on other platforms.
Building out the Ring of Fire (99k Views, March 19, 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cMVISd15ZA
Take Back Control of Our North (251k Views, Feb 25, 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPoCjTUiGB8
Life Sentences for Fentanyl King Pins (188k Views, Feb 2, 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUGDJ7VKWHc
Take Back Control of our Boarders (137k Views, 3,224 comments Feb 3, 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoV7q5MhQEQ
A new trading Partner – Interprovincial Trade (425k Views, 4,610 comments, Feb 3, 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev9tZT1nAjU
Taxation and Fiscal Policy (131k Views, 1,500 comments January 15, 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyWXvI_uQ3c&t=720s
I will provide more in the next day as I’m travelling.
It’s actually quite stunning the Liberals continue to say the CPC don’t have a plan, when so many well produced and well-articulated mini documentaries have been issued just this year!
Note that all of these were produced well ahead of any discussion from the Liberals or Carney on these topics.
There is also a policy document on the CPC web site, from September 2023, on as many topics as you could image, its 50 pages long.
As we’ve already seen the Liberals are quite competent at copying the Conservatives policies. The Conservatives know this, so more details will follow now that an election has been called.
As a final qualification, I am not paid by any political party, I do not work for a candidate, I am a “regular Joe” just doing my homework.
Thank-you for posting this information. The REAL truth of the Conservative policy proposals puts a lie to the ongoing Liberal misinformation campaign. It also reveals the extent to which Mark Carney has stolen Conservative policies and passed them off as his own.
I agree Philip all we see is Carney taking items from the Conservative platform he knows the electorate were demanding because the Liberals couldn’t come up with any other kind of platform that would get them elected! There will be nothing NEW under a new Carney led government, what you might see is the usual Liberal ploy especially regarding the carbon tax if elected, think back to Jean Chretien saying he would do away with HST when running for election & we know how that turned out. Liberals are very smug about telling you what you want to hear & delivering the opposite.
Sir May I suggest you investigate the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management for the unrelenting attacks by old post media entities in Canada amplifying P.Poilievre messaging undermining Trudeau and Canadian democracy.
Poilievre has never been popular…few Conservatives actually like him, it has all been about disliking Trudeau so he really has nowhere to go…he has never had positive ideas and no policies other than ” cut”, “axe” and ” broken”
We need positivity now more than ever; it is too late for Poilievre to change his tune, his record has already fallen off the charts!
“Or was the man who has spent his entire life planning to be PM just a one trick pony – the axe-the-tax man”. Really Ray, Mr. Poilievre’s policy positions are more than just a REAL axe-the-tax. Let’s have a look. Yes, Mr. Poilievre has promised to fully axe the tax, meaning repeal the legislation in its entirety; in contrast, Mr. Carney has promised to remove the consumer carbon tax BUT IT IS A FALSE PROMISE–he has reduced the rate to 0% only, leaving the legislation intact to get him past the election. As an eco-zealot, do you really believe that Carney has removed the tax or is he just going to hide it?
Mr. Poilievre also promised to remove the GST from home construction under $1 million as part of a larger plan to accelerate housing construction. FORGOT THAT ONE, RAY? This part of his plan was stolen by the Liberals and Carney.
Mr. Poilievre also promised to facilitate the development of Canada’s resources and to facilitate their export to overseas markets. FORGOT THAT ONE, RAY? Again, a policy stolen by Mr. Carney.
Mr. Poilievre has also promised criminal justice reform. FORGOT THAT ONE, RAY?
Crickets from the soft-on-crime Liberals and Mr. Carney.
You seem to have conveniently forgot many of Mr. Poilievre’s proposals, Ray, since there are far more than I’ve listed here. And your new shiny penny, Mr. Carney, perhaps should have run as a Conservative since he has adopted many of their proposals–or is he just lying–AGAIN!
Apparently Ray has lost his internet connection.
With the publishers permission I would be happy to provide links to Poilievre’s policy statements thus far so that hopefully we can put and end ti the left’s misinformation on this point. Yes he has a very detailed plan.
Last time I did this the publisher removed the link calling it political advertising, so I want confirmation before putting in the effort.
I would note that Carbon Tax Carney has already stolen and copied Poilievre’s plan for housing regarding removal of GST on homes under 1M dollars. Now he’s Copy and Paste Carney.
The carbon tax is not gone folks, wake up. The legislation is still in place, the consumer tax rate has only be reduced to 0. To remove it completely he would have to recall parliament to remove the legislation.
Copy and Paste Carney is also on the record promoting an industrial carbon tax that will be job killing on top of the tariffs from the US – it a “Thankyou Pres Trump Industrial Carbon Tax”. Again I can provide video evidence with the permission of the Publisher.
Editor’s note: Let it all hang out Michael.
Apparently, there is no Carney without a Poilievre since Carney has stolen many of the policies that Poilievre laid out. This continuing version of the far left Liberal Party, initiated by Justin Trudeau, has one overriding purpose–the pursuit of power and they will say anything, do anything to achieve it. How many voters actually believe that Mark Carney will implement the policies that he has stolen in an effort to fool the electorate into believing that he is a centrist? Already he has lied repeatedly in the past six weeks. How can be a centrist when he has surrounded himself with a cabinet made up of the same Trudeau cabal. As an economic advisor to Justin Trudeau for the past 5 years and a confirmed eco-zealot for the past decade, he is firmly committed to continuing existing Liberal policies.