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
