Canadian Conservative Party Prime Minister candidate Pierre Poilievre managed to reduce a leftist reporter into a Joe Biden-like state of stammering confusion while calmly eating an apple — and presenting in a few sentences his compelling case for being elected to replace Commie PM Justin Trudeau.
Would-be dictator and Chinese Communist Party admirer Justin “Little Castro” Trudeau earned international unpopularity among those who were not radical leftists with his oppressive COVID-19 lockdown and vaccination policies. He also roused ire by celebrating an elderly Ukrainian “freedom fighter” who turned out to be a proud former Nazi — after having compared anti-lockdown trucker protestors to “Nazis.”
In contrast, the Canadian Conservative Party website describes Poilievre as “a life-long conservative, champion of a free market, and fighter for people taking ownership of and responsibility for their own futures.” His write-up specifically criticizes “unscientific” COVID-19 mandates, inflation, and excessive government spending.
A leftist reporter questioning Poilievre did not get off to a particularly articulate start: “On — on the topic, I mean, in terms of your, sort of, strategy currently, you’re obviously taking the populist pathway, um…”
Here Poilievre briefly paused his munching to ask the reporter, “What does that mean?” His interrogator laughed awkwardly. “Uh, well, uh, appealing, appealing to people’s more emotional levels, I would guess, uh, I mean certainly you—” Again Poilievre requested clarification. The reporter asserted, “Certainly you tap very strong ideological language quite frequently.”
“Like what?” asked the PM candidate.
The reporter was clearly searching wildly in his brain. How dare the MP actually ask for proof, am I right? “Uh, ‘left-wing’, you know, this and that, ‘right-wing’, you know, it’s that type of —“ the reporter babbled.
Poilievre glanced past him. “I never really talk about left or right. I don’t really believe in that,” he said.
The now flustered journalist switched to his next tactic for trying to shove Poilievre into a box that leftists hate. “A lot of people would, would say that you’re simply taking a page out of the Donald Trump book.”
“Oh? Like which people would say that?” Poilievre interrupted, taking another bite of apple. Caught, the reporter shrugged. “Well, I’m sure, a great many Canadians, but —”
“Like who?”
The reporter laughed nervously. “I don’t know who, but —”
Poilievre drove his point home. “Well, you’re the one who asked the question, so you must know somebody.”
The reporter returned the exceedingly lame response, “Okay. I’m sure there’s some out there. But anyways, the point of this, the point of this question is, I mean, why should — why should Canadians trust you with their vote given, you know, not, not just the sort of ideological inclination in terms of taking the page of a Donald Trump’s book, but —”
Poilievre, still snacking on his apple, refused to let the reporter simply throw around jargon. “What are you talking about? What page? What page? Can you give me the page?”
By this time, the reporter sounded like Kamala Harris’s speechwriter. “In terms of turning things quite dramatically, in terms of Trudeau, and — and the left-wing, and all of this, I mean, you — you make quite a, you know, it’s quite a play that you make on it, so I’m just—”
Poilievre then said what any sensible person would say, which is, “I’m not sure — I don’t know what your question is.”
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The floundering reporter, who didn’t seem to know what he was asking either, suggested forgetting it and simply asked, “Why should Canadians trust you with their vote?”
The Conservative Party candidate replied immediately: “Common sense. Common sense for a change. We’re going to make common sense common in this country.” He went on, “We don’t have any common sense in the current government, you know.” He claimed that the government under Trudeau printed so much money that he grew “the money eight times faster than the economy. No wonder we have the worst inflation in four decades.”
Poilievre promised, “I’m going to cap spending, cut waste so that we can balance the budget, and bring down inflation and interest rates.” So why should Canadians vote for him? “You all want to be able to pay your mortgage again? You want to be able to afford rent? Then you have to vote for Pierre Poilievre, because I’m the only one with a common sense plan that will bring back the buying power of your paycheck.”
Whether Poilievre can be trusted to fulfill those promises in the hypothetical situation of his replacing Trudeau, I don’t know. But he is certainly making a promising campaign move of standing up to leftist nonsense and calling bluff on leftist jargon.
Enjoy the video of the exchange:
Pierre Poilievre casually smacks down a left wing journalist while munching on an apple. pic.twitter.com/FeAcjCncvw
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 17, 2023
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