Back in November, on the occasion of what would have been Winston Churchill’s 149th birthday, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre posted the following video tribute:
Being a bit obsessed with Second World War history myself (as readers of my columns will know), his post got me thinking: what if Pierre Poilievre had been Canadian prime minister back then? I’ve been musing on the subject ever since, most recently after finishing Erik Larson’s gripping book The Splendid and the Vile about Churchill’s first year of premiership during the Blitz. Larson chronicles the kind of leadership it took to rally the British public during the months of aerial bombardment; what was needed to steel people’s morale and press them into collective service as thousands of lives were lost and homes destroyed, and facing a likely invasion.
Back then in Canada, we had a majority Liberal government, with the Conservative Party serving as the official Opposition. In that role, the Conservatives critiqued the government and sought to hold it to account. They did not, however, critique the government for engaging in the war, but rather, for failing to sufficiently prosecute the fight.
So, consider this thought experiment: as another existential and civilizational threat barrels down upon us, what would Conservative leadership look and sound like? Poilievre’s Conservative Party is a far different beast than your grandparents’ Conservatives, and Poilievre is no Winston Churchill.
If today’s Conservatives had been leading Canada at the outbreak of the Second World War, and judging from their response to the climate crisis, their languid reaction to the dominoes of falling countries in Europe might have sounded something like this: “Yes, we agree the Nazis are bad guys, but the situation is not an emergency. Nor is this really Canada’s fight — we are only a small country, after all. If people want to volunteer to fight, go ahead; we won’t block you (except, like Danielle Smith’s war on renewables, when we do). But we don’t intend to spend ‘taxpayers’ money on this, nor do we think individual households should be required to do their bit, nor do we have plans to mass produce what is needed to meet this threat, nor for that matter will we regulate any kind of action. But if you want to equip yourself with what is needed to protect your family, we will approve it. We do, of course, accept that the threat is real, even if exaggerated and its cause in dispute.”
(We got a taste of how such an approach would have gone a few years before the Second World War because that’s pretty much how the Canadian government dealt with the volunteer Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion — the Canadians who went to fight the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. They lost.)
In the face of today’s emergency — as fire, floods, drought and deadly heat waves become the norm and food and water systems wrestle with escalating disruptions — Poilievre insists he does have a plan: “Technology, not taxes.” And who doesn’t love a catchy alliteration?
But let’s be clear — slogans are not going to win the battle for our lives. We need it all! The mass production and deployment of the technology required to rapidly decarbonize and electrify our society; taxes on pollution, wealth and windfall profits to finance the transition; strong and near-term regulations that will require the conversion to renewables and prohibit the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure; mammoth support for our allies abroad to aid them in the just transition ahead (borders on a map won’t stop deadly pollution); and audacious new public programs that will invite this generation to rally in our collective defence. None of which is gonna happen through the putative prime minister’s best wishes. Poilievre’s policy-by-sound-bite will doom decisive action.
Much ink has been spilled about Poilievre’s campaign to “axe the [carbon] tax.” But let there be no doubt: he’s not just gunning for carbon pricing (ironically, a small-c conservative, market-based approach to climate policy). He’s going after the whole package — the oil and gas emissions cap, zero-emission vehicle regulations, clean electricity regulations, the Sustainable Jobs Act — effectively every piece of climate policy won over the last 10 years will be out the window under a Poilievre government, taking with it any progress that has been made to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Poilievre is telling us who he is — a servant of the oil and gas industry. Just when it is finally clear to most Canadians that the continued burning of fossil fuels is threatening all we hold dear, he is declaring himself a handmaiden to the arsonists, proclaiming his intention to expand oilsands and liquified natural gas (LNG) production, and to build pipelines in every direction, free from regulatory restrictions.
Poilievre is a populist, but a phoney defender of ordinary people. In truth, Poilievre is running interference for the most profitable corporations in human history. Already, the oil company executives are choosing to rag the puck on emission reduction investments in anticipation of their man being elected PM. He doesn’t care about workers; his wilful rejection of just transition in the face of a global energy shift means he is content to consign fossil fuel workers to the tumult of the market and the scrap heap of history. His rejection of a windfall profits tax on multinational fossil fuel corporations and their wealthy shareholders tells you whose side he’s really on (although on this score, he shares an ignominious distinction with the Liberals).
Far from being a protector of our kids (back in the day, a foundational conservative value), Poilievre is a danger to them. His approach to this crisis would condemn our children and grandchildren to a hellscape. He is a tool of a fossil fuel industry that has spent millions denying and delaying the urgent need for climate action — an industry that wishes ill for our children in the name of grotesque profits for a wealthy few.
The federal Conservative leader is a parent of two young children. As a parent myself, I feel a little sorry for the guy. A couple decades from now, when his kids ask how he used his national platform during this vital decade, he is going to feel great shame.
There are modern-day Conservative leaders who have understood the climate crisis. Brian Mulroney did. As CNO columnist Barry Saxifrage recently wrote, since 1990, both the U.K. and Germany have dramatically outperformed Canada in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and much of that happened under conservative governments in those countries.
But, alas, Poilievre’s Conservatives are another matter. Today’s Conservatives are not the kind of people you want leading in an emergency. They are a death cult.
Comments
Pierre Poilievre is nothing short of a snake oil salesman. Pierre talks an awful lot, but has no real policies, is disruptive, narcissistic in ways and really has nothing to offer Canadians. Pierre's groupie followers are in for a real surprise when they find out he really has no interest in Canadians and will behave in the same destructive way as seen with Danielle Smith.
Klein: "Much ink has been spilled about Poilievre’s campaign to 'axe the [carbon] tax.' But let there be no doubt: he’s not just gunning for carbon pricing. He’s going after the whole package — the oil and gas emissions cap, zero-emission vehicle regulations, clean electricity regulations, the Sustainable Jobs Act — effectively every piece of climate policy won over the last 10 years will be out the window under a Poilievre government."
Tell it to Max Fawcett, Jagmeet Singh, Liberal/NDP premiers, and AB NDP leadership candidates who are abandoning the carbon "tax" ship.
If you hand Conservatives the victory on carbon pricing, do you think they will stop there? No, they will just proceed to attack the next climate policy, and the one after that. Opening the door to total defeat on climate policy in Canada.
"Terence Corcoran: After the carbon tax, axe Ottawa's tree plan" (Financial Post, Apr 03, 2024)
If we do not price carbon, essentially we are making it free to pollute. Giving the competitive edge to climate-disrupting and highly polluting fossil fuels. Which means renewables will not be playing on a level playing field.
Climate change is the biggest market failure in history. Producers and consumers externalize or download the health and environmental costs of goods and services to the public purse, the environment, and future generations. Fossil fuel producers and consumers use the sky as a free dump.
To solve climate change and other environmental problems (e.g., urban sprawl), we need to address the market failure. Under full-cost accounting, all health and environmental costs are internalized in the item's ticket price. Unsustainable goods and services are priced out of existence.
We need to pay the true, real, full cost of the goods and services we consume, including energy.
Until we price in the full environmental, climate, and health costs of fossil fuels, we subsidize our own destruction.
Hence, carbon pricing.
Klein: "Poilievre is telling us who he is — a servant of the oil and gas industry."
And Trudeau's Liberals, Notley's NDP, Horgan's and Eby's NDP are not?
Klein: "Just when it is finally clear to most Canadians that the continued burning of fossil fuels is threatening all we hold dear, [Poilievre] is declaring himself a handmaiden to the arsonists, proclaiming his intention to expand oilsands and liquified natural gas (LNG) production, and to build pipelines in every direction, free from regulatory restrictions."
Trudeau (2016): "There is growth to be had in the oilsands. They will be developing more fossil fuels while there's a market for it, while we transition off fossil fuels."
Trudeau (2016): "Our challenge is to use today's wealth to create tomorrow's opportunity."
Trudeau (2017): "No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there."
Trudeau (2024): "Buying the Trans Mountain pipeline wasn't about hoping to turn a profit for the government. It was about making sure that Alberta crude was not landlocked and was not prisoner to one single customer in the United States.
"I took a lot of grief across the country for buying a pipeline. But I knew that if we want to be able to pay for the innovation, the transformation of our economy to be greener, to be cleaner, we need to get the best possible price for our oil products now, and that means getting out across the Pacific. That meant twinning the Trans Mountain pipeline.
"That's why we bought the pipeline, because it was good for Alberta and it's good for the country."
"Braid: Trudeau doesn't look like a Prime Minister who's ready to quit" (Calgary Herald, 21-Feb-24)
Klein's implied thesis fails.
The Conservatives are not our only climate threat. It's a fatal error to portray the Liberals as some sort of antithesis or antidote. They both plan to fail on climate.
On climate, the Liberals and Conservatives are dance partners. They both support fossil fuel expansion. One openly defies the science; the other pays lip service. One party says exactly what it thinks; the other deals in double talk and deception.
Liberal failure and backsliding allows the "conservatives" to shift even further right, doubling down on denial and fossil fuel intransigence.
Implicit climate change denial with a Liberal stamp is no better than the Conservatives's brand of explicit denial. In many ways, it is worse.
The new denialism. Just as delusional as the old kind but more insidious. And far more dangerous.
No one knows this better than Seth Klein. Author of
"The New Climate Denialism: Time for an Intervention" (The Narwhal)
https://thenarwhal.ca/new-climate-denialism-time-intervention
It's not just the Conservatives. It's not just the Liberals and provincial NDP. Our political system has failed us. All sides are unable or unwilling to confront our climate peril.
The petro-progressive plan to fail on climate is more insidious, more difficult to combat, and it leads progressives astray.
Why can't Canadians see through Pierre Poilievre's dangerous rhetoric? And how can we get the truth out about him?
Agreed, but you could have left off the last three words of the title. Then it covers any situation.
Good article with historical perspective on the need for a war footing with the climate crisis, and how impossible it is to imagine Poilievre EVER collaborating on that or ANY little thing regardless of the circumstances when it's so much easier to lead a cult that denies reality; conservatism has truly become a cult since the religious Reform Party takeover. And the new extreme rogue element of late it's a good example of politics making strange bedfellows, as with the GOP.
So when PP cites Churchill as his "hero" he's floating his own growing fever dream of power while throwing a bone to the usual base Harper called "old stock Canadians," the historical/traditional wing who stand stoically on guard against change. Hard to imagine how these kind of guys embrace the rogues, but they ARE a group who unduly favours their boys, even when in their forties apparently....
It's sad that people still think that the older conservative parties were any different, when all they did was leech off the success of New Deal America at the time up until Reaganomics took its toll.
It's a little remembered fact that when Churchill created his unity government, so as to have a unified war effort, he basically put Labour in charge of running the country itself, while the Tories ran the war effort. It was the fact that Labour did a pretty good job both mustering a wartime economy and helping people get by during the tough times of the war, which allowed them to win the election after the war ended.
Pierre Poilievre would be utterly incapable of fostering unity in any way for any reason, and certainly not for the purpose of pursuing some major goal for the benefit of the country as a whole. He doesn't give a damn about the country as a whole and has no conception of shared social goals.
Back the Tax
Jack the Tax
&
Max the Tax
(Even though it's not a real tax)
Let's do t-shirts.