Previewing a Trudeau-Poliviere Fight to the Finish

June 27, 2022

If Poliviere wins the Conservative leadership race in September, and it looks like he might, we’ll be treated to a three-year war between him and Justin Trudeau before the next election.

Despite the traditional media’s ridiculing of Poilievre’s more outlandish policies and claims, something is happening with this charismatic performer that will ensure the battle is not the unequal one progressives assume it will be. 


For starters he is consistently bypassing media and communicating directly with his growing numbers of supporters through social media and especially using well-crafted videos on Facebook and YouTube. He is a natural talking without notes directly to camera making clear points and more often than not strongly expressing the concerns of cash strapped Canadians and putting the blame squarely on Trudeau and his policies. He has the authentic voice of a fed-up Canadian. 


Shrewd political observers see Poilievre as a talented communicator who has run a highly effective campaign filling venues everywhere across the country. His signing up of 311,958 new members to the party, if true, is the highest number of memberships signed up by any leadership candidate for any political party in Canada ever.

So a strong ground game and a very powerful social media game.  And no reliance on traditional media support to get his message out. Their relative impotence is on display and one well known veteran pundit, Don Newman, even acknowledged in Policy Magazine: “Initially, it seemed the reporting on Poilievre’s rhetoric, his support for the blockaders, his promotion of cryptocurrencies and his conspiracy theories would begin to be reflected in opinion polls. But like Donald Trump, Poilievre seems to exist within a polling zone of permanently suspended disbelief.”

And conspiracy theories of different sorts do have some appeal to Canadians as a recent Abacus poll showed. Amazingly, for example, 37% (or 11 million) think “there is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native born Canadians with immigrants who agree with their political views.” This is what is commonly referred to as replacement theory.


Poliviere is simply not fighting for hearts and minds in the same way and in the same media as his opponents, both Liberals and NDP, and Conservative Party people. He is opening up a new style of politics that is evident to anyone who watches his videos. 


I just watched an amazing three-minute one take continuous tracking video of Pierre Poilievre walking through Toronto’s Pearson airport – “this God-forsaken place” – articulately blaming the congestion and huge lineups on what he says are vaccine mandates of a power tripping Prime Minister that most countries have ditched some time ago. It’s one of the most convincing political videos I have ever seen. His voice is strong and unhalting. He speaks with a mask on in the main concourse and doffs it in a great gesture as he walks outside. As it turns out, mandates for domestic travel are now canceled while onerous ones for arriving international travelers are still in effect. The accusation stands and his commitment to never impose such mandates as PM certainly has a following.   

Scott Reid, former senior communications guy for Prime Minister Paul Martin and a respected CTV commentator was quoted in a recent John Ibbitson column in the Globe as saying this video is “proof of the threat Mr. Poilievre poses to the Liberal Party.”


“If anyone doubts how much game this guy is packing, just check this out – a three minute, one-take tracking shot that comes with a metal-jacketed message,” he posted on Twitter.


I agree, and to get back to the potential Trudeau-Poilievre battle, we have seen hours of Trudeau on camera daily during the pandemic. His somewhat dour-scripted, carefully-worded outings have the air of lectures with none of the broad appeal, hard work and sunny ways that the 2015 campaign had. Now it’s all “we have your back” with not a lot to back it up. This was proven in his Deputy Prime Minister’s recent speech in Toronto rehashing already announced policies as an answer to dealing with inflation. Again, Liberals seemed to not be sensitive to the real problems of ordinary Canadians.  The Globe’s Campbell Clark wrote in a recent column:  “(Trudeau’s) government doesn’t have a compelling policy response to inflation. It also doesn’t seem to understand the angst ordinary Canadians feel about it. “

A friend of mine got it right when it comes to who and how is being targeted: – he wrote: ”As an NDP person recently said, ‘We gave up the working class for the chattering class.’  Well, they and the Liberals have most of the chattering classes. But the cost may possibly be much too high. The same mistake Hillary made with her ‘deplorables’ attitude.”


This class totally disdains the truckers that Poliviere embraced for their dedication to his loose focus on “freedom”. A recent article in the New Statesman reviewing two books about the rise of authoritarianism in western politics made telling point about ignoring the cries of the angry and dispossessed: who are seduced by simplistic messages: “Too often the response of political mainstreams has been to belittle such voters for their faith in obviously illusory answers, rather than asking themselves what causes the sense of dislocation in the first place.” Indeed. The mainstream parties have not been paying attention.


In the last Ontario election Doug Ford heard these voters and the Liberals did not. His common person demeanor worked, and he understood that they did not want fancy social policies and that building new highways, subways and infrastructure and the new jobs that came with these investments was just fine.

Pollsters seem to agree that voter fatigue is the Liberals biggest enemy going forward. If this is the case, Poliviere has the advantage of moving quickly and being sharp and original.  And relentless in fastening people’s anger and frustration on the current government. 


There will be an ongoing fight, perhaps not to the finish since what Trudeau’s father called the good common sense of Canadians with a major push by the Liberal ad machine that could redefine Poliviere and eat away at his credibility. But never since his father and Rene Levesque squared off have we had such polar opposites in such gladiatorial political combat. 

Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Well-meaning Assault Weapons Ban and Buyback victim of poor timing and major opposition

By Patrick Gossage • April 14, 2026
In contrast to US inaction after almost weekly mass killings, it took one horrible shooting rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, in 1980, to start the drive for public policy changes around gun control. But years delays between the mass shooting outrage and actual policy to rid the country of assault rifles doomed the eventual gun buyback program. The polytechnique horror was huge news in our relatively massacre-free nation. That December day, 25-year-old Marc Lépine stalked the hallways and classrooms of the École Polytechnique de Montréal with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered 14 women and injured another 13 people before killing himself. A year later, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed to push for stricter gun laws, led by survivors of the Montreal massacre. Later that year, the federal government passed Bill C-17, which imposed safety training and a mandatory waiting period to get a firearms licence-- not an effective means of controlling automatic rifles. Much later, in1996, Parliament passed the Firearms Act, Bill C-68, driven in part by a push for stricter gun laws following the Montreal massacre. The act created a national firearms registry and imposed new rules for obtaining a gun licence, including background checks. The former Conservative government, under prime minister Stephen Harper, abolished the long-gun registry, which it said placed an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners. Quebec subsequently created its own provincial registry to replace it. It took another horrific killing nine years later in Nova Scotia to force Ottawa to take real action on miliary-style guns. On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations, killing 22 people before he was killed by the RCMP. On May 1, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following through on a 2019 campaign promise, announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of assault weapons.. The Canadian government sought to follow New Zealand's lead when at the same time it announced the ban it promised a plan to force gun owners to surrender military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly, in 2019, Ottawa only launched a long awaited buyback program in 2026. In contrast, the government of then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda announced its firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in March, 2019. In order to move quickly, New Zealand set up mobile units where firearm owners could get refunds in exchange for their firearms. They worked hard to get co-operation from gun owners. Meanwhile, here, the firearms industry and individual gun owners vigorously opposed the project, and it was delayed for years. The program was finally initiated this year with little of the sense of urgency it could have had right after the Nova Scotia killings. It has not been going well. In April, the federal public safety minister's office said more than 67,000 assault-style firearms have been declared by 37,869 firearm owners across Canada. That's just under half of the 136,000 firearms the government had budgeted for when it set aside aside $248.6 million for the program. The precise number of banned firearms in Canada is unknown due to the end of the long-gun registry in 2012. There are other deeper problems. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have indicated they will not assist with the program, meaning police are not co-operating as in New Zealand. Conservative MPs and firearm owners say the buyback is a wasteful exercise that targets law-abiding citizens. The original gun-control advocacy group, PolySeSouvient, blames “weak political leadership” for what it calls “poor participation” in the compensation program. It looks like Ottawa - to put it mildly - has blown the opportunity to really reduce the number of people-killing guns in this country.

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"
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