Paul Tuns, Review:
Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life (Sutherland Books, $35.95, 212 pages)
Former Interim columnist Andrew Lawton has written a biography about Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a book which will help readers understand how an adopted, middle class, politically obsessed kid from Calgary rose to become leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Lawton’s book is a well-researched, based on newspaper stories and interviews with people who know Poilievre and, perhaps surprising for an author well-known for being outspokenly opinionated, almost entirely fact-based. There is very little of Lawton or his opinions in these 200 pages.
Lawton tells the stories of Poilievre’s activities in high school and university Reform and Alberta Progressive Conservative politics. He wrote an essay for Magna International’s “As prime minister I would…” contest and was a 1995 finalist with his thoughts on “Building Canada through freedom.” Poilievre dropped out of the University of Calgary to work for Stockwell Day. He once made an appearance at a convention donning a Jean Chretien mask to emphasize his point that “a vote against the United Alternative” being pushed by then Canadian Alliance leader Preston Manning “was a vote for the Liberty Party of Canada.” Poilievre came to the same conclusion that many other conservatives upset with being on the losing side of three elections to Jean Chretien’s Liberals, that (in the words of Poilievre’s friend Adam Daifallah) “we had to create the old coalition in a new party.” (Full disclosure: I was a guest at Daifallah’s victory party when Poilievre became an MP in 2004.)
That new party, the Conservative Party of Canada sans the adjective Progressive, was the result of not just the negotiations between Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay but the work of grassroots conservatives in both parties, people like Poilievre.
But how did a rank-and-file, somewhat mischievous teen and young adult make the rise through the ranks of the new Conservative Party. Two phrases: hard work and fierce partisanship. Lawton shows how Poilievre mastered not only his file but other issues to both attack the Liberal government as an opposition MP and later as a parliamentary secretary in the early Harper governments. Ian Brodie, a Harper chief of staff, said Poilievre preferred to go on the attack rather than play defense. That style won him points with the leadership.
Eventually, Poilievre was named secretary of state for democratic reform, a “junior minister” job but one that gave the young MP “a seat in cabinet.” He used the platform to push election law reform and introduced the Fair Elections Act, “one of the Harper government’s most contentious pieces of legislation,” designed to reduce election fraud and depoliticize Elections Canada. His success there led to a promotion to Minister of Employment and Social Development, “direct recognition,” Lawton says, of Poilievre’s “capabilities by Harper, who appreciated his loyalty to the Conservative agenda and his performance with the Fair Elections Act.”
Lawton shows that Poilievre sometimes blurred the line between government official and Conservative partisan, a sign of his determination to promote the party brand. Promoting the universal child benefit in Halifax, Poilievre wore a “vibrant blue golf shirt with the Conservative Party of Canada’s logo on it” and referenced the benefit payments as coming from “our Conservative government.”
Lawton tells the stories of Poilievre’s romantic relationships, marriage, activities in opposition to Justin Trudeau, and winning the Conservative leadership. Poilievre is a master tactician and strategist, and a hard-working one, too. The most illuminating chapter, however, is Lawton’s delving into Poilievre’s Magna finalist essay. Lawton quotes from it extensively, including Poilievre’s view that “Although we Canadians seldom recognize it, the most important guardian of our living standards is freedom: the freedom to earn a living and share the fruits of our labour with loved ones, the freedom to build personal prosperity through risk taking and a strong work ethic, the freedom of thought and speech, the freedom to make personal choices, and the collective freedom of citizens to govern their own affairs democratically.” Sound familiar? It is a theme that nearly three decades later, he still hammers relentlessly as leader of the Conservatives. Whether the specific policies he advocated in 1995 become the polices he would, if elected prime minister, be actually implemented, only time will tell. Twenty-nine years ago, he wanted to abolish the capital gains tax and increase the basic personal income tax exemption. It seems unlikely that he would implement the Triple-E Senate he (and the Reform Party) advocated in the 1990s, a Senate that is equal, elected, and effective.
What has not been consistent is Poilievre’s social conservatism. He voted against same-sex “marriage” in 2004 and voted to reopen the issue in 2006, but would later call same-sex “marriage” a success and often invokes the fact that his father came out as homosexual. As a teen he was involved in pro-life activism with his parents; I met him when he was still in high school and we talked about pro-life at a conservative conference. But, Lawton argues, “abortion has never been a motivating issue for him.” Lawton does not report this but when Poilievre first ran for political office in the Ottawa area in 2004, he told Campaign Life Coalition he was pro-life. In 2020, when Poilievre was contemplating running for the Conservative leadership, CLC rated him with a green light “subject to change.” It changed. Despite having a pro-life and pro-family voting record, he would come out as supportive of the abortion status quo and voted against pro-life private member’s bills. Running for leader not in 2020 but two years later in 2022 after the failed Erin O’Toole leadership, Poilievre said he would not reopen the abortion issue and told Lawton in an interview that if he formed government he would not pass legislation to restrict abortion.
Lawton says the best insight into Poilievre’s handling of the issue was an interview he gave to journalist Paul Wells as reported in his book Right Side Up. Poilievre said that Harper did not win by seducing the centre but rather by taming the right. Lawton says that Poilievre was possibly “making an observational point rather than an explicitly laudatory one,” but “on social issues, he has very much continued the tradition of non-engagement that frustrated social conservatives during the Harper era.” Yet it is notable that as “outspoken as he is on many issues, he keeps his cards close to his chest on matters of morality.”
If polls are to be believed, Pierre Poilievre is going to be the next prime minister. To understand who he is and how he rose to be in a position to fulfill his essay “As prime minister I would …” there is no better source that Lawton’s Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life.
