It’s not unusual for politicians to sit down with friendly journalists for end-of-year interviews. But Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s 40-minute chat with Rex Murphy on the National Post’s podcast was anything but ordinary.
It was also anything but journalism. Here’s a verbatim question about Trudeau’s plans to mitigate climate change: “This is not a sarcastic question, but it is a real one: Does he understand — does he have the intellectual competence to understand — the effect of these policies? Or is it something that just lodged in his brain as a younger person?”
Good question, Rex!
And here’s how Poilievre answered: “To understand Justin Trudeau, you have to understand his only two objectives: one is that the government should control everything; and two, that he should control the government. Those are his only two principles.”
Fair point, Pierre!
When he wasn’t making up stuff about the prime minister, Poilievre made some actual points about Canada’s energy policy. For instance, he’s right that the world will continue to need to burn fossil fuels for decades to come; and he’s right that sourcing crude oil from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland would be infinitely more ethical than importing it from authoritarian regimes.
But here’s the thing: Canada already produces far more crude than it consumes. Only refineries in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick import any at all — and Ontario and Quebec get 100% of their non-domestic supply from the United States. That’s hardly, as Poilievre put it to Murphy, “dollars for dictators” (at least until the next U.S. election).
Only New Brunswick imported any crude oil from an authoritarian regime last year — and it was from Saudi Arabia, Canada’s nominal friend. And even still, less than a third of that province’s imports came from the Saudis compared to more than half from the United States, Canada’s actual friend (at least until the next U.S. election).
Yes, it’s true that Trudeau is very vocal about Canada’s need to phase out fossil fuels. But the inconvenient truth is that Canada’s oil and gas sector has thrived under the Liberals. Not only has production increased in the eight years since Trudeau took office, it has grown twice as fast as it did during the preceding decade when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were in charge — and faster than any other country in the world besides the United States.
And yes, it’s also true that Trudeau has made historic investments in renewable energy. But that’s hardly a “very radical ideology,” as Poilievre claimed in the interview. It isn’t even a particularly progressive policy position in 2023. Even Alberta’s United Conservative premier Danielle Smith has committed to transforming that province’s energy grid to emit net-zero carbon by 2050.
In fact, when Murphy asked Poilievre why Canada should have a “special obligation” to reduce emissions, “even if you buy the theories of global warming,” the Conservative leader replied: “I don’t take issue with the idea of trying to reduce emissions in order to combat climate change.”
So pretty much everybody now accepts that Canada needs to phase out fossil fuels (except Rex), just as pretty much everybody now accepts that climate change is real (except Rex). But that’s beside the point: Poilievre wasn’t there to try to deny the threat posed by a warming world; he was there to try to convince Canadians that Trudeau isn’t the good guy he portrays himself to be.
At another point in the podcast Murphy asked (I’m paraphrasing) “Why does Justin hate Canada?” and Poilievre replied (I’m not paraphrasing): “It serves his ideological objective of wanting the government to control everything…. By doing that — by saying that Canada either has a wretched history or no history at all — he’s left to control the future. And that’s right out of Orwell.”
If you haven’t had a chance to read 1984 yet, spoiler alert: Trudeau isn’t right out of Orwell. Canada isn’t a totalitarian state; the prime minister isn’t trying to destroy Canada so that he can rebuild the country in his own awful image; and Canadians aren’t brainwashed into absolute obedience. If they were, Trudeau wouldn’t be losing so badly to Poilievre in the polls, and those “Fuck Trudeau” bumper stickers wouldn’t be quite so popular.
But something tells me that Poilievre losing the plot doesn’t matter too much to his supporters… because something tells me they aren’t the biggest of readers. Though they certainly do enjoy a simple narrative about good and evil. And they clearly don’t mind if it’s less science than fiction. Plus there’s no denying that Poilievre is a good storyteller: he’s well-versed and articulate… and more importantly, he doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.