With weekly hauls seeking donations of up to $1,725 and that kind of cash coming in, Pierre Poilievre will able to keep spending without being subject to the limits on advertising that kick in once an election is called.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 15, 2024.

OTTAWA—Pre-budget fever has returned the Liberals to the front pages for the first time in months.

The prime minister and his front bench have been travelling across the country offering glimpses of what kind of budget the minister of finance will deliver this week.

Liberal themes are broad and deep. The government wants to send a message of real product differentiation.

Unlike the Conservative leader, the Liberals will be reaching out to help those in need—from school lunches for kids, to rental rights for young Canadians who are struggling.

Recent messaging has been strong. But it remains to be seen whether it is too little, too late.

Will the prime minister be able to continue this cross-country blitz once the budget has been tabled?

Or will the Pierre Poilievre bandwagon keep gaining popularity as it rolls along from riding to riding?

The Liberals promised back in 2015 that they would not do government advertising to promote government programs and initiatives.

That promise was a reaction to the multi-million-dollar action plan delivered by former prime minister Stephen Harper, which included signage in the woods to reinforce support with the hunting community.

Trudeau has stayed true to that promise. And it has cost him dearly. In the absence of government messaging, Poilievre has raised and spent millions of dollars to shape his image and promote his messaging in all media.

The Conservative spending on advertising, in social media, and on so-called legacy media has managed to shape an image of the Conservative leader that is quite different from one year ago.

Sans glasses, and sporting muscle T-shirts, with an articulate spouse on his arm, Poilievre is working hard to soften the obvious hard edges.

He is still reaching out to the anti-vaccine and anti-abortion movements, but is making sure that is not the message dominating the mainstream.

Poilievre is fundraising aggressively, as well, with weekly hauls seeking donations of up to $1,725. With that kind of cash coming in, he will able to continue to spend in the lead-up to the election without being subject to the limitations on advertising that kick in once an election is called.

The shape-shifting prompted by the Conservative advertising campaign begs the question.

According to the Canada Elections Act, each party is subject to an annual advertising limit. The last reported annual limit was $2,046,800 in 2019 available to each party.

However, the law states that messages posted for free on social media do not constitute partisan advertising.

That means that a 15-minute video released on X does not need to be included in pre-election, reportable advertising expenses.

As the production costs for most social media videos can be hefty, the cost for the creation of social media videos and messaging should be considered in each party’s partisan advertising bill.

If social media costs were factored in, it would not be long before the aggressive Poilievre advertising campaign would exceed the annual limit.

The same law states that advertising is not considered partisan if it “promotes or opposes a political entity only by taking a position on an issue with which the entity is associated.” By that definition, an “Axe the Tax” advertising campaign would not be considered partisan.

The onslaught of political advertising by the Poilievre team is producing the desired results.

But perhaps it is also time to take a look at just what constitutes partisan advertising. Tighter limits should be placed on pre-election advertising in the same way that parties are limited once the election is called.

Under current rules, the governing Liberals should start sending out their own political messaging. By leaving the door open to the official opposition, the Liberals have missed an opportunity to remind voters of the differences between the two parties.

Instead, the messaging has focussed on all the negatives of the prime minister, with Poilievre blaming him for everything from global inflation to housing shortages to grocery prices.

Even provincial issuance of student visas for post-secondary education is now the federal government’s fault.

And with no response from the Liberals in the paid media domain, as they say in French, “les absents ont toujours tort”.

The absentees are always wrong.

Pre-election advertising rules governing social media are not about to change any time soon.

So if the Liberals intend to have even a fighting chance in the next election, they have to start fighting on the legacy and social media networks.

It is their only hope to turn the train wreck around.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Thanks to their agreement with the New Democratic Party, the Liberals now have a year to aggressively sell its vision to Canadians. And that doesn’t involve an axe-the-tax. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 8, 2024.

OTTAWA–I woke up to a news item last week that said Liberals had experienced a big spike in national popularity while the Greens and the Bloc were on the uptick.

Hardly believable, but in the world of politics, you are on a roller coaster. And six months is about the time-frame for either a dip or rise in popularity.

Then I had a coffee and realized it was April Fool’s Day. I was the fool. Because for a brief second, I thought Liberals’ flagging fortunes had turned around.

Both the Liberal and Conservative leaders seem to be in campaign mode.

Whether it’s an orthodox synagogue in Montréal, or a rally in Newfoundland or British Columbia, Pierre Poilievre is everywhere. And on his ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign, he really seems to be enjoying himself.

Finally, it looks as though the prime minister is also moving into campaign mode.

In a series of pre-budget announcement, Justin Trudeau and some of his key ministers have peppered the country with funding and programs.

From children’s school lunch funding, to a renters’ bill of rights, to carbon pricing, the governing party has finally realized that in government, you can control the agenda.

And they are definitely shaping a narrative that could play in their favour in the next election.

Poilievre is focusing on individual pocketbook issues. By pushing his anti-tax view, he is sending the message that under a Poilievre government, there would be cuts in government spending that would end up in your wallet.

He may be on to something. As altruistic as we would like to think ourselves to be, Canadians usually vote for what is in their personal self-interest.

Up until last week, not too many Canadians actually knew that 80 per cent of the population will receive a carbon rebate which exceeds the additional cost of the pricing program.

The frenetic pace Poilievre was keeping climaxed on April 1 when the new pricing regime went into effect.

He pulled out all the stops, including engaging oil-producing provincial premiers in a fight to roll back the carbon price increase.

But by associating so closely with leaders like Danielle Smith and Doug Ford, who are not universally admired across the country, he may be digging himself a petroleum hole from which he cannot get out.

Smith was hard-pressed to explain why, on the same day she was trashing carbon pricing, her government was hiking Alberta’s gas tax by a total of 13 cents a litre. Her supporters defended the hike, saying the money would be used to build roads and infrastructure, not to reduce carbon emissions.

When you compare the building of roads to the fight against global warming, which is more critical to our survival?

The younger generation—or NexGen as they are euphemistically known—consider global warming the challenge of our times.

Poilievre has been successful in attracting young voters on the basis that his policies will make housing and daily essentials more affordable.

Just like Trudeau rode the marijuana wave to victory in his first election in 2015, Poilievre hopes to ride the affordability train.

But on global warming, he has been strangely silent. His communications people say that the Conservative plan to fight climate change will come out when an election is called. That will be too late. By then, his image as a petro-politician will have solidified.

That will help in Alberta, but he certainly won’t become prime minister on the basis of that province alone.

His anti-environmental positions do not play well in Quebec or British Columbia, both provinces which were critical in getting the Liberals over the line in the last election.

Because Poilievre’s political message has been so tightly identified with carbon pricing, it will be hard for him to build any credibility on global warming.

His axe will also be used to cut government spending. But where will he start? Will he cancel dental benefits, pharmacare, or $10-a-day childcare? Something has to go.

The Axe-the-Tax campaign has finally created an opening for Liberals to start talking about what they have achieved, and asking the pertinent question: what will Poilievre axe?

Thanks to their agreement with the New Democratic Party, the Liberals now have a year to aggressively sell its vision to Canadians. And that doesn’t involve an axe-the-tax.

With April 1 come and gone, if the sky doesn’t fall, Poilievre could be left looking like Chicken Little.

A campaign that promotes dental care, pharmacare, rental rights, and daycare sound a lot more interesting than one involving an axe.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 25, 2023.

OTTAWA—Protests and counter-protests on the rights of children to use their chosen pronouns were held across the country last week.

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh led a counter-protest in Ottawa, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to X (formerly Twitter) to condemn “hate and its manifestations,” and reiterate his support for the 2SLGBTQ+ community across Canada.

Not surprisingly, Conservative Members of Parliament were silent on the issue, with the Canadian Press reporting that the leader’s office had told them not to discuss the protests with the media or on social media outlets.

A memo, shared with CP, was sent from the leader’s office claiming that protesters against LGBTQ education in the schools have a legitimate point to make about “parental rights.”

Heated clashes in cities across the country led to arrests in Halifax, Vancouver, Victoria, and Ottawa. The issue is heating up as governments in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan have introduced legislation requiring students to get their parents’ permission before teachers can address them in their preferred he/she/they pronoun.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office may not be able to stop Members of Parliament from weighing in when so many of them were elected thanks to support they received from social conservatives who do not support LGBTQ education in schools. The fact that the opposition leader is trying to keep a lid on comments shows that he understands the issue is a political hot potato that will win his party no new supporters.

As his party’s numbers climb, Poilievre has to be very careful to appeal to voters who are leery of social conservatism. Chances are the solidarity of potential power will not be enough to silence those in the caucus who got their political feet wet on recruiting social conservatives.

It is no coincidence that when Leslyn Lewis first ran for her party’s leadership in 2020, she was the first choice of Saskatchewan Tories. She swept the province where the premier and his government have recently enacted legislation to prevent minors from changing their pronouns without their parents’ permission.

Anti-trans rallies were organized across Canada last week by a group identifying itself as the “One Million March For Children,” which said it stood against gender ideology. But the marches were countered by groups defending the rights of 2SLGBTQ+ youth. Some are concerned that adolescents should not be outed to parents, and others wanted to support those teenagers who have self-identified as trans or gay.

Hate crimes against the gay community are on the rise, according to a report by Statistics Canada released last December. The report stated that police-reported hate crimes increased by 60 per cent between 2019 and 2021, reaching their highest level in five years.

Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised to change the sex education curriculum when he was courting socially conservative voters during his leadership campaign. However, while in government, he was accused of re-introducing a sex education curriculum that was virtually identical to the one he had criticized during his campaign. Ford learned quickly that modifying sex education is probably not a top-of-mind priority for most Ontarians.

Poilievre is likely discovering the same challenge at the federal level. But how is he going to be able to stop his right-wing caucus members from aligning themselves with the thousands who rallied across the country against sex education involving the 2SLGBTQ+ community? The temperature is rising on both sides, so it is difficult to see how the Conservatives are going to be able to stay out of the fray.

And when the leader of the New Democrats makes it his business to lead the counter-demonstration, he obviously understands the political issues at stake.

Most Canadians don’t really involve themselves in the adolescent pronoun debate. However, they do support rights for the LGBTQ community. With the advent of same-sex marriage and support for choice in sexual orientation, most people appreciate the wave of equality that has evolved in the past two decades.

But the small percentage of people who oppose transgender teaching in schools has unleashed the wrath of the silent minority. The number of parents and grandparents who showed up last week to support their transgender progeny could translate into a significant voting bloc in the next election.

If the issue provokes enough interest, it will actually move votes in the next election. Therein the reason why the Tories don’t want to be on the record with any comment when it comes to transgender policies in local school sectors.

Their political silence is golden. But it may not be sustainable.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 19, 2023.

OTTAWA—A Conservative private member’s attempt to revive the abortion debate by conferring unique legal status on pregnant women was clobbered in the House last week.

The governing Liberals united with New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois to defeat Bill C-311 by almost a two-to-one margin.

Opponents of the bill introduced by Saskatchewan Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall numbered 205. Supporters mustered only 113 votes.

Under most circumstances, that should be the end of the story. But with the Conservatives leading in national public opinion polls, and their strong support for the bill, it will only be a matter of time before the question of the legal status of fetuses ends up being litigated when a future Wagantall bill is passed.

Witness the debate concerning the Violence Against Pregnant Women Act in Parliament to understand why this legislation could represent a threat to legal abortions in the country.

The United States is already experiencing a wave of anti-women and anti-gay legislation as a result of a Supreme Court ruling that put legal abortions at risk in parts of their country.

Canadian pundits said this could not happen here, but another item in the news last week paints a different picture.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith named her cabinet, including a health minister with a strong bias against legal abortions. Adriana LaGrange served as education minister in the United Conservative Party government of former premier Jason Kenney. In that role, she presided over one of the largest public sector cuts in Alberta history, firing 20,000 educational assistants, substitute teachers, bus drivers and maintenance staff.

With LaGrange at the helm and Smith’s well-documented ruminations on private medicine, it likely won’t be too long before the new government moves to start charging for more health services.

Even more concerning is the minister’s opposition to legal abortion in the province. Her maiden speech in the Alberta legislature four years ago was entitled, “The lord leads me where he needs me.”

While she was a school trustee, LaGrange served on the provincial board of Alberta Pro-Life. In her first provincial election, she was backed by RightNow, an activist anti-abortion organization.

As education minister, LaGrange introduced a controversial piece of legislation requiring parental notification when any student joined a gay-straight alliance club. The original protection from parental notification was designed to protect those students who could face danger if their parents became aware of their sexual orientation. Students were also denied the right to use the word ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ in describing after-school clubs, and administrators were permitted to keep their inclusivity policies secret.

If LaGrange was controversial in education, there is no reason to think she won’t repeat that history in health. Those who think that access to abortion is safe across the country need to face facts.

Wagantall in Saskatchewan and LaGrange in Alberta are only the tip of the iceberg. When the bill on pregnant women was introduced, the Conservative party was pretty much unanimous in support, starting with the leader.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said that he will not introduce legislation on abortion, but he has also stated that other members of his caucus are free to do so.

He is the only leader ambivalent about his support for the LGBTQ2S+ communities, refusing to attend Pride parades or showing visible support for those struggling with a wave of homophobia across the country.

With a raucous parliamentary session coming to close, Poilievre’s popularity continues to outstrip that of the governing Liberals.

Abacus Data released a poll last week in which 35 per cent of the respondents said they would vote Tory if an election were held today. That number had increased three percentage points since the previous month, while the Liberals were down two points at 28 per cent.

The appetite for electoral change is there and the Conservatives are the beneficiaries. Approximately 80 per cent of those polled said it is time for a change in government.

Polls move, and most would agree that both Poilievre and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are stellar campaigners. The fight may come right down to the wire in a tight election in 2025 (or whenever it happens).

If there is a Conservative majority win, do not be surprised if limitations on women’s reproductive rights and rights for those in the gay community resurface.

Premier Smith did not hide her intention to move toward health privatization.

Her party has many abortion opponents sitting in the legislature. A key one is now occupying the health minister’s chair.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

In reaching out to Elon Musk, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre left the impression he’s trashing Canadian broadcasters while aligning himself with a billionaire who has turned the social media world upside down.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 24, 2023.

OTTAWA–BuzzFeed News is shutting down and Twitter users are fleeing the platform in droves. Fox News has been hit with a $787.5-million lawsuit for publishing false information about Dominion Voting Systems presidential election count in 2020. The media world—social and otherwise—is roiling.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre reached out to Elon Musk, the current owner of Twitter, to ensure the company identifies the CBC as a government-funded media outlet. Political parties are lining up on one side or the other of the media divide.

To fight back, CBC has joined the “Global Task Force for Public Media,” whose aim is to underscore the fact that editorial independence is protected by law. No government has any influence on what to cover. The task force is accusing Twitter of misrepresenting their editorial independence.

While the Fox saga was unfolding in the United States, it involved Dominion, a Canadian-founded company.

In Canada, last week’s media attention was largely focused on the Twitter fight between Poilievre and the CBC.

Poilievre went hard after the CBC in English, but was strangely silent in French. He has pledged to fully defund the CBC, but at the same time, he says the Radio-Canada arm of the organization should remain.

His call to defund the CBC cites the total annual $1.24-billion federal government subsidy. That promise has created a tidal wave of opposition in Quebec.

The Twitter attack succeeded in drawing attention to the Conservatives’ plan to cancel funding for the CBC, which may not have been in the party’s game plan.

Defunding the CBC is obviously very popular with Poilievre’s base. But the same cannot be said for the rest of the country.

In Quebec, Radio-Canada is untouchable, and Poilievre’s Twitter attack woke the province up to his plan, but not in a good way.

Both the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois attacked Poilievre. His decision to make a “government-funded” tagline plea to an American billionaire raised the ire of just about everyone.

That outreach also hurt him in the rest of the country, even with those who are not the strongest supporters of the CBC.

It left the impression that Poilievre was trashing his own country’s broadcasters while aligning himself with Musk, who has turned the social media world upside down with his Twitter changes.

While Poilievre’s popularity numbers remain competitive, he cannot win the election with a wipeout in Quebec.

And a campaign promise to cancel funding for Radio-Canada will certainly gain him no friends in La belle province.

In response to the “government-funded” tagline, the CBC announced it would no longer be using Twitter to cross-pollinate radio and television stories.

Other users have also been dropping off en masse, but it is unclear at this point which alternate social media site will fill in the gap left by the Twitter exodus.

South of the border, what could be the world’s largest defamation decision made waves in media outlets everywhere, except on the Fox News Channel.

The culpable channel only broadcast the Dominion payout three times, with a total of about six minutes of coverage.

While the financial outcome of the case was stunning, the agreement did not force Fox media personalities to apologize or acknowledge the lies. Instead, a statement issued by the corporation was the only recognition that multiple lies were repeated on the network in an effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

A Fox statement acknowledged “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”

Legal trouble in pursuit of the truth does not end there. Dominion is also following up on defamation cases against other news outlets and Trump lawyers and supporters, including Rudy Giuliani.

Meanwhile, Fox’s Tucker Carlson has just produced a documentary suggesting the United States should move in to take over Canada and liberate it from Justin Trudeau’s communist tyranny.

Carlson may not realize it, but Poilievre should know that a Fox attack on the Liberal leader will actually push more people into Trudeau’s corner.

By allying himself with Musk, the Tory leader runs the risk of alienating Canadians.

The media landscape is changing rapidly, in Canada and globally. The Dominion defamation suit reaffirms that the truth matters when it comes to broadcasting, but Twitter can hang a false handle on the CBC with impunity.

Musk’s rocket blew up last week. So may Twitter.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The government would like nothing more than a channel-changer on foreign interference investigations. Even if the Liberals succeed, with the appointment of a special rapporteur and multiple committees, all eyes are still on government foibles. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 13, 2023.

OTTAWA—In one month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will celebrate 10 years as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

That celebration will be fêted in early May at the party’s national convention in Ottawa.

There will be much to celebrate. Back in 2013, pundits were writing off the Trudeau leadership.

He was leading a third party that was supposed to be on the verge of extinction.

Then came the blockbuster campaign of 2015, in which he was able to ignite the youth vote and encourage many non-Liberals to swing over to support the prime minister’s vision, including the legalization of marijuana and a commitment to end the current first-past-the-post voting system.

Back in 2015, Liberals moved ahead with their promise to legalize marijuana, but shelved their promise to change the voting system.

One out of two ain’t bad.

But in the lead-up to a potential election later this year, a 50 per cent success rate won’t help the government attract more swing voters.

Some say the Liberals promised to bring in proportional voting. But that is not accurate. In the prime minister’s mind, he was looking at the possibility of a weighted vote, with Canadians choosing to rank their choices in every local election.

Whatever Trudeau’s vision, the change was not accomplished and that failure is one of the issues that will affect the next election.

The promise to change the voting system appealed to those in smaller parties, like the New Democrats and the Green Party, as neither realistically hoped to form government.

Instead, they would be satisfied to have direct influence in shaping government policy.

Minority government has given them that opportunity. The New Democrats have been key to the introduction of dental care and potential pharmacare.

But whether the third party will be rewarded by the electorate for promoting these initiatives remains to be seen.

New Democrat supporters who switched to the Liberals in 2015, left in 2019 and did not return in 2021.

Green Party voters may make a switch as their party’s internal challenges have definitely damaged their credibility.

Looking forward, voters can be expected to make decisions on what parties will do in the future, not what they promised in the past.

Liberals will be particularly challenged since, as government, the party has been in power for eight years, and politics is the only job where the more experience you have, the more voters want to dump you.

Trudeau hopes to make history as only the second prime minister in Canada to be elected four times in a row.

He would follow in Liberal Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s footsteps by pulling off a four-peat.

But it is a daunting task.

The government is working hard to put some successes in the window. The recent health-care agreement is a great win.

It will help assuage Canadians’ fears about access to health care: from primary providers through to mental health and continuing care.

The next election will not be fought on political successes.

Public attention is focused on allegations of foreign interference in elections, in particular from the Chinese government.

Most Canadians don’t follow the allegations closely. They will be aware that the heated political temperature in Ottawa is putting pressure on the current government.

Trudeau stepped up earlier last week with a series of measures to respond to the allegations, but whether that is enough to cool things down remains to be seen.

If not, the Liberals may be positioning to move to an election sooner rather than later.

The official opposition has been searingly critical in recent exchanges in the House of Commons. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been clear and concise in his attacks, and is obviously trying to keep the issue front and centre in the public mind.

The Liberal hope is to dampen down the heat and move the issue to the back burner.

Conservative MP Michael Cooper may have inadvertently helped the Liberals when he made a clearly sexist attack at Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly while she appeared before committee.

Even New Democrats demanded an apology.

The government would like nothing more than a channel-changer on foreign interference investigations.

Even if they succeed, with the appointment of a special rapporteur and multiple committees, all eyes are still on government foibles.

With that in mind, a successful Liberal convention in May and a summer spent travelling and rolling out budget announcements may mean we are heading for a fall election.

That could be the only way to douse the parliamentary fires.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Most commentators ignored the paucity of diversity on his team. But for those of us who care about these issues, the photo was a stark visual reminder that in Poilievre’s party, it is still a man’s world.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 19, 2022.

OTTAWA—Will Rogers said you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Pierre Poilievre must not have been listening.

If so, his first week as leader could have been a winner.

On the evening of his coronation, even with regal funereal news competition from across the pond, Poilievre knocked it out of the park.

His spouse’s introduction placed the new leader exactly where he needs to be, a happy family man whose soft edges are inclusive.

His embrace of personal diversity, including his own family story, were certainly not aligned with the narrative he had used to steamroll his way into the win.

The party endorsement was overwhelming. Two-thirds of the vote went to him, while former premier Jean Charest was reduced to the teens.

Poilievre’s opening performance seemed to indicate that he was prepared to pivot. Having convinced the vast majority of fellow Conservatives that he was their man, his job is now to convince the country.

The acceptance speech got a lot of Liberals worried. Several former cabinet colleagues were gathered at a Toronto symposium on foreign policy the same weekend.

The group’s consensus was that the government would be foolish to assume that Poilievre could not win an election.

The good news for Liberals is that most people do not tune in to party conventions.

And the softer side of the new leader was immediately disposed of at his first post-leader press conference.

After opening the presser with a refusal to take questions, Poilievre was heckled by Global News reporter David Akin, who insistently raised his voice to ensure a question period.

Poilievre accused Akin of being a Liberal plant, set up to heckle him on his first day.

His tone was crisp and angry. That was the first impression he left with those who were seeing the Conservative leader for the first time.

Akin, hardly a Liberal troll, was immediately attacked by Tories heeding Poilievre’s call to “go around” the media.

Later that day, Akin posted a Twitter apology, characterizing his outburst as “rude and disrespectful.”

But that did not stop the Tories from using the incident as a fundraiser.

Within 48 hours, Poilievre’s team sent out a fundraising email, claiming the party could not count on the media to carry their message, saying, “we have to go around them and their biased coverage.”

He also reiterated his promise to defund the CBC.

Poilievre has obviously decided that his best path to victory is in bypassing the media, mobilizing followers to use social channels and attack the messenger.

In the Akin instance that worked, as the apology actually set up the narrative of an aggrieved party that cannot count on reporters to tell the truth.

But Poilievre tried the same tactic in French and he got his clock cleaned.

This mistake will prove a lot more damaging than Poilievre’s decision to bypass the mainstream media in English.

When former Quebec lieutenant Alain Rayes announced he was leaving the party because Poilievre’s leadership was incompatible with his values, Tory trollers were whipped into high gear.

Instead of adopting a conciliatory tone which could have downplayed the departure, the leader came out with fists swinging.

He accused Rayes of refusing to fight Justin Trudeau’s inflation and went on to claim that he had the support of the majority in Rayes’ riding as 53 per cent of the 663 Tory ballots cast there were for Poilievre.

That may be the only time Poilievre gets a majority in Quebec.

His thrashing of a native son did not play well, and his next move was career-shortening.

The leader sent a message to electors in Rayes’ riding, asking them to phone the office of their Member of Parliament to demand his resignation.

When that news became public, the backlash was so horrendous that Poilievre became the one doing the apologizing.

Two apologies in a week marked Poilievre’s public foray as leader.

The announcement of his leadership team, complete with a photo on the steps of the West Block, was also a step backward.

In a team of 10, Poilievre only managed to include two women and one racialized Canadian.

Compare that to the equity cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It makes one wonder if the Tories are going back to the future.

Most commentators ignored the paucity of diversity on his team.

But for those of us who care about these issues, the photo was a stark visual reminder that in Poilievre’s party, it is still a man’s world.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

It would be a huge mistake to think that a right-wing Conservative is unelectable in Canada. In politics, anything is possible.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 8, 2022.

OTTAWA—Jean Charest was at his most eloquent during the recent Conservative debate last week.

The only problem, the lights were on, but there was no Tory home.

The debate did not attract major television attention and was held at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, pretty much the worst possible slot for widespread coverage.

But the whole purpose of the event was to avoid national attention.

After all, what political party has a debate where the front-runner refuses to attend and simply pays a $50,000 fine to absent himself from the proceedings?

Pierre Poilievre and Leslyn Lewis both coughed up the $50,000 so the party actually made money by allowing two candidates to duck out of a leadership debate.

That will probably not be the end of the story.

Elections Canada, which has some oversight of party nomination processes, will probably be asked to take a look at the payments, as the Tories might have benefited from a tax credit courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer.

But the sad thing about the non-debate is that nobody beyond those actually voting in the leadership even care about this egregious abuse of process.

Too bad for the Conservatives. Had they actually watched Charest in action, they might have come to the conclusion that the rest of the country has already arrived at: Charest stands the best chance of all Tory candidates of defeating the current government.

He is seen as capable, moderate, and appeals to those in the centre who have kept the Tories out of power for years.

The debate was a bit of a moot point. According to official Conservative records, in excess of 100,000 ballots have already been mailed into headquarters, more than a month before the winner’s announcement on Sept. 10.

If the twitterverse is any indication, dozens of voters claimed that Charest’s performance could not change their minds, as they had already voted for Poilievre.

The eligible voters’ list is more than 600,000, but there is a chance many of them may not vote.

The decision of the party to turf candidate Patrick Brown because of alleged irregularities will undoubtedly cause some of his supporters to boycott the race.

Others will likely throw their support behind Charest, who is the most closely linked to Brown in political ideology.

But if history is any indication, the party will be hard-pressed to get a 50 per cent voter turnout in the dog days of summer.

The whole intent of the campaign was to keep it as low-key as possible, which plays in the favour of front-runner Poilievre.

The race is certainly as close to a coronation that any party could carry out. Sometimes, a healthy and robust leadership race can be good for the process.

Liberals had their experience with a coronation and it did not end well. When the party believed that finance minister Paul Martin was the obvious choice, the race became a coronation.

At the final Toronto celebration, in a standing-room-only Air Canada Centre event, even international celebrities like Bono attended to congratulate the future prime minister.

The biggest question facing Martin’s leadership at that moment was how many years he would stay. In the end, the coronation fractured the party.

In the current Conservative leadership, a similar front-runner phenomenon is unfolding.

Unlike Martin, who was already extremely popular with the public at large when he was chosen, Poilievre mainly appeals to the right-wing of his own party.

He will have a hard time convincing the moderate middle to support him.

That is what all other parties, especially Liberals, are counting on.

If Charest were to be successful in September, Liberals on the Hill would sit up and take notice.

They know he has the capacity to turn things around in Quebec, and whither Quebec goes, so goes the country.

Charest would also bring progressive Conservatives back into the fold. These are the Red Tories who the party must attract to win elections.

If Poilievre succeeds, as is most likely, Liberals will be counting on him to stay in the opposition benches.

However, there is a truism in politics.

When it comes to elections, opposition parties don’t win, governments lose.

When voters decide they have had enough, they will move to throw the government out. In most cases, they are prepared to give the opposition leader the benefit of the doubt.

A Poilievre win could be very feasible.

It would be a huge mistake to think that a right-wing Conservative is unelectable in Canada.

In politics, anything is possible.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By retreating into a cone of silence over the specific allegations that led to Patrick Brown’s disqualification, Conservative Party brass stand to delegitimize the whole leadership process.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 11, 2022.

OTTAWA—Patrick Brown has just suffered his second political assassination.

The first was at the hands of the provincial Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario, when he was dumped from his leader’s job based on allegations of sexual impropriety, which he denies.

In that first instance, Brown claimed he was the victim of a “fabricated political assassination.”

The story led to a late-night emergency meeting of the provincial party executive and a quick decision to dump Brown as leader.

The network stood by its story, but in the end, issued a correction saying that certain aspects of the story were “factually incorrect and required correction.”

The correction came four years after the career-ending story, just before Brown joined the current federal party leadership race.

History repeated itself last week as, right in the middle of a leadership race, the Conservative Party of Canada turfed Brown, alleging serious but secret breaches of Election Act financing rules by the Brown team.

After announcing the expulsion, the party went mum, explaining that as the matter is under further investigation, there will be no additional official comments on the specifics of the allegations.

Buried in the entrails of the allegations was a ruling by the party that Brown’s campaign had not and would not receive a copy of the interim membership list, as a result of the firing.

Why is that relevant?

Well, the only political game in town over the next two months is an opportunity to switch voters who have already registered.

The persuasion campaign will be undertaken by all the candidates, but it is believed the top two candidates in voter sales were frontrunner Pierre Poilievre followed by Brown.

I was told by a Tory insider that Poilievre outsold former Quebec premier Jean Charest 11 to one in Quebec.

But the difference between Brown and Poilievre sales is less evident.

So, if the party has airtight information on election breaches, why not publish it and let the voters decide?

By retreating into a cone of silence, the brass stands to delegitimize the whole process.

Brown thinks there is more to this than an alleged violation.

His lawyer fired off a letter to the party, requesting it safeguard all communications, including those with the Poilievre campaign, that are pertinent to the allegations.

“Please take immediate steps to ensure that all documents and records of any kind whatsoever including emails, text messages, WhatsApp messages, and any other forms of electronic communication concerning the disqualification and the process leading to it are preserved …. advising all members of LEOC [Leadership Election Organizing Committee] to retain all of their communication with members of the Pierre Poilievre campaign and other stakeholders in relation to Patrick Brown,” the letter said.

Brown retained the firm of Henein Hutchison, which is no slouch when it comes to high-profile legal proceedings. Marie Henein was the lawyer who successfully defended Jian Ghomeshi against sexual assault charges.

Toronto Life magazine dubbed Henein “the fixer,” saying she was the most sought-after defence lawyer in Toronto.

In Brown’s case, there are no criminal charges as yet, but there is certainly a case pending, with huge political implications, that will garner the attention of the whole country.

This is one controversy the Conservative Party does not need. Just recently, long-term former senator and staunch Conservative Marjory LeBreton gave a candid television interview in which she feared that Conservative leadership candidates jumping on the “grievance brigade” would fracture the party irreparably.

LeBreton said she feared the union of the Progressive Conservatives and the Reformers, orchestrated by Peter MacKay and Stephen Harper in 2003, may not survive this leadership change.

Those ominous reflections occurred even before Brown’s expulsion from the race.

One can only assume that the cleavage between the former Progressive Conservatives and Reformers will only grow as a result of last week’s bizarre firing.

Multiple senior Conservatives came out publicly to demand more transparency regarding the decision

Strategist Tim Powers said the party could be damaged if it continues to withhold information from the public.

Ballots for the September vote were sent out before Brown was removed, which means his name will remain as a leadership choice.

That seems strange, because if the party was investigating allegations, it could have delayed striking the ballots until the investigation was concluded.

Instead, the ballot is going to include an ineligible candidate on the progressive side, instead of clearing the field for a fight between Poilievre and Charest. And that can only benefit Poilievre.

On the surface, it certainly looks as though the party fix is in.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Lionizing illegal occupiers has nothing to do with freedom. Instead, it is an attempt to overthrow the social compact that Canada was built on.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 4, 2022.

OTTAWA—Freedom obviously means different things to different people.

In some parts of the world, freedom is survival.

If you don’t have access to food or water, how can you worry about anything more than securing the basics of life?

If you are a woman in some countries, you do not even have the right to leave home unless accompanied by a male member of your family. Absurd though it may be, your son may actually have the authority to keep you locked inside.

If you are a girl in Afghanistan, you don’t have the right to an education. Even if your family could afford to send you, schools are verboten for those who have been born with a vagina.

If you are not a straight male, there are many places in the world where you could be imprisoned or even killed simply for loving someone.

You are not free to be who you are, but must either hide your sexual orientation or simply bury your sexuality to be free.

In some countries, there is no freedom.

But that is not the case in Canada. And as we celebrated our national holiday on July 1, it is time to start calling out those fakers who claim they are fighting for freedom in our country.

Can you imagine any other country in the world where you are so free you can park a bouncy castle in front of Parliament for weeks, paralyzing the operations of government, without being arrested?

Threatening judges and disobeying court orders is common amongst those who claim they are fighting for our freedoms.

Our “freedoms” involve infecting others with variants of COVID simply because they refuse to embrace the reality that vaccines make us all safer.

Why would any political party want to associate themselves with a bunch of fake freedom fighters whose main claim to fame is an illegal occupation of Canada’s capital?

Last week, interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen authorized all caucus members to meet with these fakers, in the name of democracy. She told CTV “I support peaceful and legal demonstrations, and if my MPs want to be there, they’re free to do whatever they want and they’ll answer to their constituents.”

Conservatives are currently battling with the People’s Party of Canada for the favour of those illegal occupiers who continue to display their disdain for the very system they claim to support.

Illegal convoy organizer Tamara Lich was released from prison in March after she agreed to bail conditions which prevented her from inciting another illegal occupation.

Instead, her lawyer confirmed she was arrested last week in Medicine Hat, Alta., for allegedly violating bail conditions. Meanwhile, political parties battle to share the spotlight with Lich.

“This is disgusting,” tweeted Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada. “Tamara Lich is a political prisoner and the Liberal regime is persecuting her like all authoritarian regimes do with dissidents. We will continue to support this courageous woman.”

Meanwhile, one judge involved in convoy prosecutions is alleging claims of harassment, intimidation, and even death threats.

In an interview with Radio Canada under concealed identity, the judge said multiple threats forced them to change the locks on their home, vary their daily path to work and consider moving their children out of the family residence.

This is harassment and intimidation from a group that claims to be fighting for freedom. The fact that any of these illegal protest organizers could be characterized as political prisoners illustrates just how bizarre our political narrative has become.

Even more strange is the fact that any legitimate political party would want to be associated with this group of twisted malcontents.

Conservative front-runner Pierre Poilievre constantly peppers his speeches with references to freedoms, underscoring that his political goal is to give liberty back to Canadians.

There may be many challenges facing our country, including the bite taken out of our wallets by rising inflation, but it is pretty hard to absorb the notion that we live in a country replete with political prisoners.

That claim has zero credibility.

As we celebrated our real freedoms on Canada Day last week, let’s not fall into the trap of legitimizing the goal of those who use illegal means to make their message heard.

Shutting down communities, blocking roads with bouncy castles and hot tubs, lionizing illegal occupiers has nothing to do with freedom.

Instead, it is an attempt to overthrow the social compact that Canada was built on.

Living in society comes with collective responsibilities.

Happy and Free Canada Day!

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.