Readers of this space know that I have no patience for Pierre Poilievre. I took a break recently, thinking that I had obsessed too much about the man, and that I needed to regain some perspective. But this morning the newspapers are full of Poilievre's refusal to meet with David Johnston. Susan Delacourt writes:
For a couple of hours on Wednesday, Conservatives mumbled that Pierre Poilievre had turned down a chance to meet with Johnston on the foreign-interference issue because of an, ahem, scheduling issue — not enough notice to make the get-together possible.
But clearly some decision was made to be more discourteously candid as the day wound down, when the Conservative leader’s office clarified what it really thought of Mr. Johnston and his position as “special rapporteur” weighing next steps in investigating foreign interference in Canada’s democracy.
This was the hastily scrawled statement about fake jobs, cosy friendships with Trudeau and so on. Then, when Poilievre met with reporters on Thursday morning, he doubled down, saying he deliberately chose not to meet Johnston. “No. He is Justin Trudeau’s ski buddy, his cottage neighbour, his family friend, and a member of the Trudeau Foundation, which got $140,000 from Beijing. He has a fake job and he’s unable to do it impartially, he needs to simply hand it over and allow an independent public inquiry into Beijing’s interference.”
Prime Ministers don't talk like that. The G7 is meeting this weekend. Do we want Mr. Poilievre to represent us on the international stage? The man is temperamentally -- as well as intellectually -- incapable of doing the job.
Image: Radio Canada.ca
24 comments:
PP is a pathological liar in the mold of Trump and BoJo. He's also an incredibly weak leader. If he had a principled objection to meeting Johnston, he would have said so right from the start. Instead, we're treated to an utterly unbelievable excuse about schedules. When that didn't fly, we got a gish gallop of nonsense about Johnston, a man Harper saw fit to appoint as GG.
I can only conclude that PP's hiding something, and there are questions about foreign election interference he doesn't want to answer. With PP, every accusation is a confession.
Pierre obviously puts his mouth in gear before he starts his brain, Cap.
Such an angry young man. I can only conclude that he must have been dropped on his head at birth. Life is too short to start off as a disgruntled fool. Leave that for the rest us curmudgeons who have seen it all. I'm reminded of H.L. Mencken, "a cynic is one who when smelling flowers looks for the coffin". Skippy should wake up and smell the coffee.You are right Owen, it does get tiresome.
Poilievre is a man who lives in darkness, zoombats.
"Prime Ministers don't talk like that"
Welcome to the age of tRump, young man! ;-)
Decorum is soooo 20th century.
Yesterday in Alberta, a law-breaking-conflict-of-interest finding, that would have caused any 20th century PM/Premier to resign was spun into a victory for the guilty one.
(Because the same report could not find evidence for a minor part of the accusations.)
Alas, Lil'PP's 'ski buddy' quip will resonate far beyond the brainless base of CDN CONs.
Unfortunately, that's quite true, PoV.
pp is lousy at politics because it’s all he’s ever done. He has little other worldly experiences to shape him and his opinions.
He went from the debating team and the reform party youth brigade to politics. He has a child’s view of how it all works. He’s like Danielle Smith looking at Trudeau’s outstretched hand wondering how she can shake it and retain credibility with her base.
I would prefer we have someone better than JT leading us but pp isn’t the one. I don’t think a politician steeped in reform ideology is going to be the one.
I don't either, Graham.
And we don't have to guess who "anointed" him before the vote of existing Con MPs was taken.
He already has his script written for him and will continue to make his marginal comments.
Well Owen the Cons fail to look at other actions of David Johnson if it does not suit their biases. Johnson provided the recommendation that Brian Mulroney would not be charged for accepting cash in brown envelopes during the Airbus fiasco. Mulroney escaped with a million dollar payment from the RCMP, which he didn't pay back, and Karl Heinz Schreiber was fined and went to jail in Germany. RG
He's cast himself in Harper's image, Lulymay. We've been here before.
The Conservatives have highly selective memories, RG -- not a good sign.
"The man is temperamentally -- as well as intellectually -- incapable of doing the job."
Intellectually? You are seriously comparing the relative intelligence of Poilievre and Trudeau? Wow.
Poilievre's problem is that his intellect is narrowly focused, Fred. The world is more complicated than he believes.
The narrow mindedness goes with their dominating ideology. We saw the same thing in Harper. But at least he had some shred of experience that helped him moderate the presentation, while this guy has none. That personal freedom is in any way associated with the objectives that the cult of market-libertarianism seeks to advance is the fantasy of a disturbed teenager.
PP most likely refused to meet with the other person because he doesn't want to know the truth. Its so much easier for PP to just have his version. He didn't act in a professional manner at all. He simply comes across as a nasty piece of business. When Trump went to international meetings with other world leaders, he usally looked like a boor with no manners or any knowledge of how to conduct himself. PP will do the same, all the while thinking he is doing a great job.
Don't want him to P.M. It will be a disaster for Canada. If you didn't like Harper, you're going to hate PP. PP is an attack dog who doesn't know when to be polite. He will have an agenda just as Harper did and it won't go well for the citizens of te country if he becomes P.M.
Poilievre's problem is that his intellect is narrowly focused,
I think you've hit it, Owen though, like the US Admiral Ernie (Jesus) King, I think he was born angry.
The thought of Poilievre on the international stage is horrifying. Our recent performance at the G& was bad enough. With Skippy we would be in a shooting war with someone, probably Andorra.
The teenager reference is accurate, John. In many ways, Poilievre is still an adolescent.
Poilievre is simply very dislikeable, e.a.f. That's not an asset when it comes to international diplomacy.
Poilievre knows how to make war, jrk. I doubt he knows anything about making peace.
going to war against Andorra, omg that is funny. no one goes to war with them. They're too small to go to war with, ok. that woud work for PP Do you think PP would know where Andorra is? It does have good skiing and being an Andorran citizen is a good job all unto itself.
If he can't fimd Andorra on a map and the military refuses to, perhaps he could make war on The Vatican City, Monacco, Luxumberg is probably too big for him to attack, there might be other very small countries he could try to invade. I think there maybe some in the South Pacific. Perhaps we could find PP a tiny island in te South Pacific where he can establish his own kingdom and declare himself King and be done with it. I'm sure there would be enough small animals and such who he could command as his subjects.
Unfortunately, e.a.f, Pierre has much bigger dreams.
I have been reading David Johnson's report. He has taken a real dislike to Skippy.
The other interesting thing is that while he says the danger of foreign interference is very real, he says that the media frenzy got just about everything wrong.
A lovely excerpt:
One of the most inflammatory of the allegations is the suggestion that the PRC filtered $250,000 to candidates (sometimes identified as Liberal candidates) in the 2019 Election.....
......
There is uncertainty about whether there was money, if it actually went to staff or the provincial MPP, and there is no intelligence suggesting any federal candidates received these funds.
The media reporting later stated that there was no evidence of covert funding, although this was largely overlooked, so the public narrative persisted that candidates (sometimes identified as only Liberal candidates) received these funds.
This whole situation feeds a national paranoia, jrk.
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