Political bar must be set much higher

“It can be easy to forget the lessons of history, including the tragedies of war, and ramp up divisive and destructive rhetoric without concern for the consequences.” ― Gudjon Bergmann, author

In the video, Pierre Poilievre is walking through an airport, delivering a message, kind of like a Rick Mercer rant minus the wit and charm, his face disconcertingly close to the screen.

For most of the 2:52 minutes, Poilievre speaks directly to Justin Trudeau, his intense monologue a strange, sometimes breathless performance that simmers with anger.

It was posted to his Twitter feed last weekend and is a study in what not to do if you’re a politician hoping to be embraced by Canadians of all political stripes who might be ready for a new prime minister.

BIZARRE ARGUMENTS

His opening salvo — “Hey Justin, I see that you’re desperate again. You know how I know? Because when you get desperate you divide and distract.” — could easily be turned around on Poilievre himself.

It’s unsettling to see a politician at this level resorting to such an immature diatribe. Rather than advancing better policies or offering solutions to our problems, Poilievre imparts bile and self-righteousness in equal measure, dismissing the Toronto Star newspaper as a “L/ liberal pamphlet” and deriding the prime minister as a racist, a fearmonger, a bully, a delayer-of-planes, a creator of general chaos and as someone who demonizes hunters.

Instead of pinpointing actual flaws in federal government policy — such as firearms reform that is so ambiguous as to snag some lawabiding hunters in its wide net — Poilievre pulls the outrage strings. He uses the bizarre argument that Trudeau wants “people to be fearful so that they forget that crime has gone up” and then attacks the PM for trying to address gun violence.

“So what have you done?” Poilievre says. “You’ve tried to make people afraid of hunters by saying that it’s Indigenous and rural people who are hunting that are causing all of the inner-city crime, and not the many repeat violent offenders that you’re releasing into the street.”

Huh?

HUNTING TRADITION

Here’s what Trudeau actually said about hunters and firearms legislation in an interview with CTV in December 2022.

“Our focus now is on saying OK, there are some guns, yes, that we’re going to have to take away from people who were using them to hunt.

“But, we’re going to also make sure that you’re able to buy other guns from a long list of guns that are accepted that are fine for hunting, whether it’s rifles or shotguns. We’re not going at the right to hunt in this country. We are going at some of the guns used to do it that are too dangerous in other contexts.”

He added: “We need to consult more and work with Indigenous communities on it to make sure they understand we’re not going after any of their traditional rights to hunt. Because obviously hunting is a huge part of life for many, many Canadians … and we fully respect that and we’re going to protect that.”

For the record, I have no allegiance to the Liberals or any other political party, and I fully support people’s right to vote for whichever group matches their own values and their vision of the best country that Canada can be.

It would be refreshing to see strong contenders emerge who could effectively challenge Trudeau on some of his administration’s missteps and shortcomings.

But if leaders are going to spar in the political arena — in this case, on a national stage — they should be able to offer sound policies and solutions without having to resort to ad hominem attacks, exaggeration and fabrication.

Anyone who bases their election strategy on fomenting mistrust, spreading misinformation and appealing to the things that divide us rather than those that unite us, is not going to have any hope in hell of bringing people together in this country.

We need to set the bar higher — much higher — than this.

“We will unite for hope,” Poilievre says in the video, as he makes his way through the airport, sewing his angry seeds.