For the last two decades, we have watched American politics get dark and ugly. The ill wind that emanates from there has blown across our border. Susan Delacourt writes:
The fight between Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre was never going to be pretty, but this week both politicians fired off some words that could define not just their own fates, but the state of future Canadian political debate.
Poilievre, the Conservative leader, has gone where few, if any, opposition leaders have gone before, accusing the prime minister and his government of collaborating with a hostile foreign power — China, in this case.
“They must be very worried about how the prime minister is working against the interests of his own country and his own people,” Poilievre said Tuesday. “They’ve been warning him for years about this, and what has he done? He’s covered it up, even encouraged it to continue. And so, they (CSIS) are so concerned about how the prime minister is acting against Canada’s interest and in favour of a foreign dictatorship’s interest that they are actually releasing this information publicly.”
Poilievre's accusations appear to be picking up traction:
A new poll from Abacus Data, shared with the Star in advance of its wider release on Friday, shows that some doubt is flickering out there — not huge, but there nonetheless.
About 13 per cent of respondents believe Chinese interference changed the outcome of the 2021 election; another 12 per cent were unsure. That’s one in four Canadians who are open to the idea that Poilievre and his Conservatives are feeding — that Trudeau and the Liberals owe their power to Beijing.
To be clear, no evidence has surfaced that any collusion happened or that interference had an impact on the outcome of either the 2019 or 2021 votes. But public trust is a fragile thing, and these Abacus results show how the mere unproven suggestion can damage the body politic.
The poll was conducted among 2,600 respondents last weekend — before Trudeau announced measures Monday to address the escalating questions, and before Poilievre was throwing darts directly at the prime minister’s loyalty. The results are considered accurate within two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
With all the oxygen being pumped into the debate this week, there’s a real danger the next election campaign will be fought on the grounds of democratic legitimacy itself, with Conservatives and Liberals trading accusations about which is more un-Canadian. There was some flavour of that in the great free-trade debate of the 1988 campaign, with Brian Mulroney accused of selling out to the Americans.
If we let this genie out of the bottle, we will be in real trouble.
Image: Quotefancy
