Poilievre’s Visit

Look, I’m gonna call him PP for the purposes of this.Not to make fun of him - It’s just easier to type out. 

I want to start with a few positive things. He’s an incredible public speaker. A lifetime as a politician will do that. Super engaging, quick on his feet, and naturally funny. He had a few really genuine off-the-cuff moments where you could see through the rehearsed and polished platform and stump catchphrases. His entrance was genuinely great. No dimming lights, no announcement. He simply walked through the door and waved, and the small crowd went wild. People immediately leapt to their feet. 

Aaron Fleming from the Chamber started with a few administrative things, and then introduced MP Motz, who spoke briefly and recited a few Conservative talking points that PP repeated later. 

PP came up to a rousing applause, and launched right into what I call a greatest hits tour where he plays all the classics. After pumping Motz’s tires for a bit, he played Liberals Doubled Housing, Open Borders Ruined Everything, Liberals are Soft on Crime, Trudeau Printed Money, and Billions are Going to Fake Refugees. Everyone in the crowd of ~250 knew the words and sang along. 

The night was not without good ideas. Because PP is so polished and experienced, he’s extremely good at taking you along while he bounces around on topics. It doesn’t feel disjointed at all, and he seamlessly sets up premises and uses them as a basis for an argument later. He’s good at bundling things with only partial truth together with objective fact and using that combo as a foundation. As an example, he said that “The Liberals doubled housing costs” (Motz said it too, but his comments were brief) and that the purchasing power of the Canadian dollar was down. The former is a stretch at best, and the latter is objectively true. Then he followed it up with the old 2021 “Liberals printed money” trope, which 1. lacks an awful lot of context, 2. Isn’t actually true, and 3. Ignores profit and inflation at the consumer / end user level entirely. But, it’s got a good beat and it’s easy to dance to (yes, I’m going to overplay this metaphor).

Next up was railing on “fake refugees getting billions”. In a crowd like this, he doesn’t need to explain, contextualize, or prove this claim. People nodded and clapped and he was able to move on to ending corporate welfare and cancelling large infrastructure projects. That last one was super interesting. He was very adamant that the proposed Toronto-Quebec high-speed rail project be cancelled, calling it a “boondoggle” (Barnes’ ears must have been burning) and saying very explicitly that these kinds of multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects were wasteful Liberal spending. But then, he immediately launched into a diatribe about oil pipelines. This was an opportunity to bemoan “red tape” (another conservative favourite) and talk about how long the approval process is. His promise was that a Conservative government would “support any pipeline project that came along”. Great, but aren’t those also inter-provincial, multi-billion dollar, large infrastructure projects (which remember from the last song, should be immediately cancelled)?

He moved swiftly on to “soft on crime Liberal policies”. Is there an argument that bail needs to be reformed? Absolutely! But jail and prison are extremely expensive forms of social housing, and this isn’t a room that traditionally loves social anything. Fortunately he didn’t hesitate to give us a solution: a Three Strikes Law. California and something like 27 other states have famously failed miserably at this for decades. Crime rates have not meaningfully dropped, people sit in jail for sometimes years waiting for trials, and thousands of people are serving extremely long and/or life sentences for things like minor drug possession. Like the rest of the night, there was no time to spend on the nuance of any of this. PP moved immediately to mandatory drug treatment, telling a story about drones smuggling drugs into Drumheller Institution (true) by having inmates stick their hands out the window and the drugs drop into it (I can’t find anything to corroborate this). I’ve never been to jail or prison, but I suspect there isn’t fenestration in most cells to just stick your hand out and collect drugs.

Obviously no talk about crime can be complete without open borders, unvetted mass migration, and the Bishnoi gang (that’s more of a recent single, but it’s doing very well in the charts). PP’s solution Is hilariously called “One Law For All” - which would impose an automatic maximum sentence for immigrant criminals. I should note this ISN’T what the Conservative Party’s website says about “One Law For All”, but it is very much what PP said. So, one law for immigrants would be more accurate.

He made some good arguments, as I said before. One was a “blue seal” program akin to the already existing red seal one which would allow professionals of many stripes to practice in any province. Actually, it was around this point in the night where he made several very strong federalist arguments. These were also generally well-received by people despite contradicting the independence / strong Alberta vibe that a room like this typically brings. A national professional licence, food products not needing CFIA approval to be sold inter-provincially, national infrastructure projects that don’t require dual (ie Provincial) approval, and general labour mobility all require a strong federal government with centralized decision making. 

If you’re following along with referendum questions, PP made arguments (intentionally or not) against several of them.

• He wants the federal government to drastically reduce immigration approvals (this is basically a “no” vote on Q1)

• If we strengthen inter-provincial trade and labour mobility, it’s extremely hard to argue that Q8 & Q9 are valid. Opting out of federal funding for various programs and provincial paramountcy are incongruent with these goals. So was his completely ridiculous idea of using Canada Post to deliver alcohol inter-provincially direct from manufacturers to customers. This one had to be off the cuff - a jam if you will. There’s no way it was in the setlist.

• He addressed the “elephant in the room” and said “Conservatives believe in a stronger Alberta within a united Canada”. Like Smith, this is a fairly soft way of saying no to separation, but it is still explicit. This is one of the only times the crowd didn’t feel like trained seals clapping at applause lines. 

He talked a lot about “fixing what’s broken and repairing what needs fixing” which is kind of a nonsense phrase. I think he had good intent but got tripped up on the contexture. He was also hyper-focused near the end on quick approvals. Shovel-ready zones, looking over and stamping paperwork, time limits on approvals, the fastest approvals anywhere in the world! 

After his prepared remarks, he took questions (pre-submitted) from the crowd. These weren’t terribly original, and really just gave him a chance to reiterate things he had already said. 

Overall, my takeaway was that I heard pretty much exactly what I thought I would. Everything is the Liberals’ fault, and only a Conservative government can fix it by lowering taxes, closing borders, and approving things fast. Because of how engaging he is, and because he does this kind of thing for a living, it all sounded very good. As many others have already said, “he made a lot of sense”. Provided you don’t think too deeply on any of the details, that’s objectively correct. 

I can’t help but wonder though, if he’s making so much sense and his platform is so obvious and easy, why didn’t he win the 2025 election? Or his riding for that matter? Why can’t he draw more than 300 people for a free event in one of the most conservative corners of the country? Why ios Carney the most popular politician (statistically) in Alberta?

Shocked that it wasn’t a sellout,

- Adam