KINSELLA: Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney both have pluses and minuses aplenty
With election day just over a week away, let's take a look at what's good and bad about the two main party leaders
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The debates are done. The candidates are finalized. The vote happens in just over a week.
So, who to vote for?
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KINSELLA: Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney both have pluses and minuses aplenty Back to video
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As before, this writer sat down and listed what’s good and bad about the two main party leaders. Both Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney have pluses and minuses aplenty.
I even rendered it in a cartoon, because why not.
Hereupon and herewith, what I came up with. Negatives first:
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PIERRE POILIEVRE
He can be Trumpy. Sorry, Tory partisans, but it’s true.
It’s the main reason he’s losing, too.
He’s never really worked in the real world. He’s a professional politician. He was fully-pensioned in his thirties. He’s never had to meet a payroll. Those things matter.
He wastes time on culture war stuff. Poilievre rails against woke-ism and whatnot, which his base loves. But it tends to alienate the gettable vote – women in particular.
He’s made mistakes. The dalliances with the convoy crowd. The anti-WEF conspiracy theory stuff. The hostility towards vaccines. All those things are in the rearview, true, but they still show up in Google searches.
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MARK CARNEY
He’s really bad on Israel and China.
He’s got a couple dozen candidates who openly detest the Jewish state. He has been unfair to Israel, which, remember, didn’t start the war, and was the victim on Oct. 7, 2023. He is unclear on what should be a crystal-clear moral question.
And, on China, he too often sounds indifferent to the manifest threat posed by that autocratic regime.
His Justin Trudeau links. He advised Trudeau – and Trudeau’s advisers advise him. He says “Trudeau is gone,” which is true. But are Trudeau’s circle and key policies gone? Not really.
He’s got no political experience. Carney’s tried to turn this into an asset, but when facing off against the likes of Trump, political experience matters. It helps.
He leads a party that’s been too long in power. The Liberal party desperately needs new blood, new ideas, new approaches. They (and we) need a time out.
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Both men have many positives, however. Here’s some I came up with:
PIERRE POILIEVRE
He’s great on Israel and foreign interference. Much more than Carney, the Tory leader lets you know where he stands on important moral questions. And he’s on the right side – he’s for democracy, for civilization, for our national interest. Good.
He’s great on energy. We are a natural resource country. Poilievre doesn’t want to leave our natural resources in the ground. Given the Trumpian threat to our economy, we need to get our commodities to new markets – and energy must be part of that.
He’s got a reasonable plan. We in the media too often get sucked into horserace and strategy coverage. We don’t pay close enough attention to what the parties’ platforms say. For those who check, they’ll see Poilievre has a smart, balanced plan. It isn’t radical, at all.
He’s actually anti-elite. The party with the policies that are friendliest to workers and the little guy, in this campaign, is Poilievre’s. That’s why so many trade unions have endorsed him. Boots before suits, as he says.
MARK CARNEY
He’s smart. On the economy, unsurprisingly, he is arguably the best candidate for prime minister since my former boss, Jean Chretien. Given that we face a major economic existential threat from the U.S., that’s a major asset. He towers over his competition on economics.
He’s a blue Grit. If you listen to him carefully, you’ll agree Carney is the most fiscally-conservative Liberal leader since the aforementioned Chretien.
He wants to move his party closer to the ideological center, which is desperately needed. He’s a stinker on energy, but he’s otherwise an economic centrist. Hallelujah.
He’s boring in a good way. Trudeau was obviously despised by Trump – 51st state, etc. Carney, somehow, has calmed Trump down since assuming the title of prime minister.
At any other time, being a boring, bland banker would be a political negative. But now that Canada is the political equivalent of your grandmother’s apartment atop a meth lab, bland and boring is welcome.
He likes the Clash. Sorry, everyone, but it’s my list, not yours.
When I watch Carney interviewed by Nardwuar the Human Serviette, and Carney knows the name of the first Clash drummer off the top of his head? Well, that’s reason enough to vote for him right there.
But I don’t vote for Pierre Poilievre or Mark Carney: like most of you, I vote for the local candidates in my locality. I check them out, and I carefully check out what they say. You should, too.
And, while you’re at it, do up a list of your own.
If nothing else, it’ll make for a good cartoon.
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