Recently, Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre appeared on Jordan Peterson’s podcast, and the interview has received north of 40 million views when both YouTube and X viewership are included. These are numbers associated with celebrity social media views and pop songs, but a Canadian opposition leader — not the prime minister — is captivating the podcast and alternative media space talking about his policy goals for when he becomes prime minister of Canada, which is inevitable at this point.
So, the question must be asked: Who is Pierre Poilievre? And what is he all about?
First of all, his surname is pronounced “pwah-lee-ev” but many Canadians pronounce it “paw-lee-vere.” The name is clearly French Canadian, but he hails from Alberta, which is where he was born (1979) and raised. He was adopted as an infant and has been a conservative his whole life. While he was in university, he was involved with his school’s Reform Club, which was a student political club supportive of the then Reform Party of Canada, a Western Canadian right-wing political party.
He got into professional politics when he was quite young, working for the Canadian Alliance Party — the renamed Reform Party — when he was fresh out of school, and elected as a member of Parliament (MP) in 2004 for the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada, which was a merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party.
His general political opinions have always been right-leaning and populist, which is in keeping with his Albertan roots, and his views on economics have been consistent throughout his career. As he stated in his interview with Peterson, he has been advocating for economic and personal liberty since his youth, which was something he argued for in his essays as a student.
However, his stance on moral issues has not remained the same as he has progressed in his political career. Earlier in his career, he demonstrated a pro-life stance when votes associated with pro-life issues arose in Parliament, but that changed. In 2021, he voted against Bill C-233, which aimed to ban sex-selective abortions, and he has called himself “pro-choice” since taking over the Conservative Party in 2022. His family also has an LGBT element, as his father left his mother and eventually entered a homosexual relationship with a man.
For these and other reasons, you will not see Poilievre fighting the culture war in the old-school sense of “pro-marriage” and “pro-family,” but he has been consistent in his rhetoric against “wokism,” which he says he detests. He is a sharp critic of identity politics, and despite the fact that he holds some left-leaning views morally speaking, he doesn’t have a habit of making those part of his political platform or even talking about them at all unless he is pressed.
In reality, he isn’t much different than a centrist libertarian in this regard.
He has his views based on his conception of personal liberty, but he doesn’t need to make much of it or have you believe it. Also, while he won’t be going to bat for Christ the King in Parliament any time soon, he also won’t be going after strong Christians either and has many in his caucus.
Economically, he is quite sensible, and his policy positions are based on sound economic principles that conservatives of all stripes can get behind. During the 2023 Conservative Party convention, he even cited Thomas Sowell, which, in my opinion, is never a bad thing. He advocates cutting the fat in government agencies, getting rid of red tape and the “gatekeeper” economy as he calls it, stating that he will immediately scrap federal taxes on home building, which would result in savings of tens of thousands of dollars per home. In fact, exorbitant home prices have been at the forefront of his policy positions, as he believes taxes and red tape have helped to artificially drive up prices, which I agree with.
He has campaigned strongly against leftist environmentalist policies and taxes based on carbon emissions, and he wants to unleash the energy sector in Canada. He also wants to clean up the immigration problem and tighten up the process for claiming asylum in Canada, which has been heavily abused.
Poilievre has also expressed over and over again that he wants to throw criminals in the slammer for longer, especially when drug-related offenses are involved, saying that this is key to dealing with the opioid epidemic that has ravaged some Canadian cities.
In addition, he has said that he is “Canada first” and wants to put Canada’s interests at the top of the list, which is a breath of fresh air in a globalist world.
Ultimately, his positions are not dissimilar overall when compared to MAGA talking points: pro-enterprise, pro-individual liberty, Canada first, anti-woke, tough on crime, pro-drilling, etc. And, given the fact that the current iteration of Trump’s Republicans have shied away from pro-life advocacy, and Trump has never been against gay unions, there really isn’t a whole lot of difference between the conservative movements on both sides of the northern border.
When Poilievre is elected, we should expect Trump and his Canadian counterpart to have a strong working relationship based on common interests, which will be good for both countries.
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