By Karen Moe.
I had no choice.
I don’t like to have ‘have to-s’ in my life and always work to convert them into ‘want to-s’, and this task was a tricky combination of the two. Even though I would never have watched this interview if I didn’t have to, I wanted to get to the guts of what’s going on with Canadian conservative party leader, Pierre Poilievre, the very possible new Prime Minister of Canada with a majority in the polls,[1] and what better way to do that than watch his interview with Jordan Peterson. Ugh. The things I do to find some truth. And truth I found. Even better, I found the best kind when critiquing a conservative party and their corresponding neoliberal ideology decked out in save-the-people clothing: I found some ridiculous.
First, in case you are one of the lucky people who haven’t crossed paths with anything Jordan Peterson yet, I’m sorry but I need to fill you in (just a little bit) so you can get the full picture of the normalized madness that ensues. First, I readily admit that Peterson has a worthy mission of re-empowering the disempowered young men of the so-called first world who blame the empowerment of women for the fact that they can’t get a girlfriend (or even worse have sex) and spend most of their lives in dark messy bedrooms playing video games. Yes, they need help that’s for sure and their level of resentment that can become semi-automatic-wielding-anger is undeniably dangerous. Peterson’s first piece of advice to his unfortunately cult-level of followers is: “clean up your room.” Yes, indeed, good idea. But the thing is that Peterson strives to re-masculate these emasculated young men by re-enforcing the patriarchal hierarchy, the very oppressive social structure that resulted in feminism in the first place, women gaining some rights (in the so-called first world anyway) and the reason why we don’t want to date these angry fallen patriarchs when they emerge from their dark rooms. To point out a couple of highlights: Peterson claims that it’s a young woman’s fault if she over-drinks and passes out at a university party and a young man rapes her (the young man/rapist is let off the hook because of his raging hormones and isn’t encouraged to have any empathy whatsoever or take responsibility for committing rape, not to mention the fact that male college students drink too much and pass out at parties too). After cleaning up their rooms, Peterson then advises young men to think like predatorial snakes. You know: re-instilling “the way things have always been.” Read: empathy is not a part of or even a possibility for humanity, violence is innate and women secretly want to submit to men. Naturally, Peterson is against women’s right to choose. So, yes, I thought if I wanted to get to the guts of what is going on in the world of the rabidly accelerated right, watching Peterson interview his conservative comrade Poilievre was going to prove fruitful.
I’m Canadian. I can no longer afford to live in Canada. Living most of the time in Mexico City and the fact that my apartment is there—and I don’t have one in my home-city of Vancouver anymore—makes me a bit of an economic exile. When I moved to Mexico City in 2015, it was for adventure, learning about revolution from a more international perspective and my understanding of power abuse and resistance have thoroughly enriched by my experiences here. The fact that it was less expensive was a welcome perk. However, now, even if I wanted to move back to Canada full-time (and I do think about it sometimes), I can’t. That said, during the beginning of the interview, a lot of what Poilievre was saying was making sense to me. He’s charismatic and confident and I do agree with some of what he says—on the surface, that is. Cutting the bureaucratic fat. Good idea. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did that in the first month of his administration in 2018 and used the money saved to create much-needed social programs (socialists do that, unlike conservatives who cut them). Building more homes so that the supply is closer to the demand, or need, and the prices go down! Yes! Returning manufacturing to Canada and becoming more self-sufficient. I am a protectionist and anti-global corporate rule so, yes, agreed. Developing Canada’s economy by taking full advantage of our abundant natural resources … Oh wait! I stopped myself before I got too giddy on the idea of an affordable home. These are Conservatives plotting. That means absolute exploitation of the earth through more oil drilling, more gas fracking, more mining, more deforestation. That means an absolute unregulated free market. At one point during the interview, Peterson chanted: “Drill Baby Drill.” Ick.
The thing is, like so many Canadians,
I really wanted to believe in the possibility of an affordable home in my home country. (And we must remember that, post-Covid, inflation is an international phenomenon along with the greed of corporate profiteering during and after the pandemic[2]). As Poilievre spoke in his deep, authoritative voice, I did feel myself floating on that possibility as I was momentarily, unwittingly, being seduced. Lucky for me, I know how an unbridled free market works. I know what it means. It means self-interest, individualism and greed as something to be aspired to. It means the normalized mentality of dog-eat-dog. It means thinking everyone is born with the same opportunities and stop whining when you weren’t. It means making money no matter what the other costs to others and the environment. I quickly came back to my senses.
However, because I am economically vulnerable, for the first few minutes of the interview, even though I can’t stand Peterson, I was falling for Poilievre’s surface, and I completely understand why especially young Canadians are having that experience as well. Life is tough in Canada. Rents are obscene. Young adults stay at home well into their twenties because moving out is untenable. One tomato often costs $1.50. Yet, and this is the big YET, despite the fact that the situation in Canada needs to improve, we need more rent control (where there is a percentage as to how much landlords can raise the rent when a person moves out so that the next tenant isn’t gouged, for example), more social housing; we need to protect public health care from privatization and improve it) to name a few. Even though we have a lot of work to do, even though we’ve lost a lot because of the slashing by previous conservative governments, what’s happening right now is beyond the campaign promise of cheaper rent: this is about losing everything Canada has fought to be, every shred of social net we still have.
Cutting government spending should not include cutting the well-being of the underprivileged and paradoxically the prosperity for the very Canadian families that Poilievre is reaching out to. What would happen without EI (Employment Insurance)? Even if there are more jobs (as he claims through unrelentingly exploiting our ‘cornucopia’ of resources) unemployment is not going to disappear. Poilievre has made it clear that he is anti-public health care and promotes private to the point where he has stated the new public healthcare is a threat to private profits. Of course it is. And why should that matter? Why should private profit be the priority over public health? Poilievre says that many Canadians already have private extended healthcare through their employers, implying that public isn’t necessary anyway. This “many” he refers to is approximately 50%.[3]
And this begs the question: if Poilievre cuts public healthcare,
will he legislate that all employers have to provide healthcare to all their employees? I doubt it. Conservatism is all about the least amount of government intervention of private business and the least amount of protection for the employees possible. What would happen without universal health care, I ask? When a member of a Canadian family without the privilege of having a job that provides healthcare is terminally ill, all the money that the family made through Poilievre’s campaign promises of prosperity for all working people will be used to pay for their care—and most likely more because there will be no regulations on how much private companies can charge—just like what happens in the US. This, to simultaneously tout and undermine another Poilievre slogan, is “common sense.” We cannot forget the fact that, despite his charm and populist style, Poilievre is a conservative and conservatism means cutting social programs and ending government regulation of how businesses and corporations generate profit. This is what the free market is all about. There is nothing else in the business plan. All Canadians need to be wary of these facts—especially those of us who have never voted conservative before and are seriously considering doing so.
If one analyzes Poilievre’s rhetorical style—
although he has a much broader vocabulary, that’s for sure—Poilievre is of the same school of sensationalism as Donald Trump and manipulates the Canadian workers and disgruntled voters in the same way. Poilievre has been described as a tame right-wing populist; yet, regardless of being ‘tame,’ he uses the same tactic of misinformation to build fear. What lost me 100% after my brief seduction of being able to afford a house in my homeland is when Poilievre called Trudeau a ‘radical socialist’ and that he's even more ‘socialist’ than the NDP. Really? It’s even debatable as to how socialist the NDP are anymore as, at least in my province of BC where they pander to corporations and okay the logging of our last remaining old growth against the will of the majority of citizens and don’t make any moves to heal the ravages on public healthcare made by the BC Liberals (read conservatives) during their twelve-year reign before them. And in the one-hundred and fifty-seven years of Canada, there has never been a federal NDP government so who knows how socialist they really would be if they ever form government. It sure would be nice to try for once though!
To get things straight:
Socialism is: “An equitable distribution of wealth among citizens, as well as public ownership of the means of production, though not necessarily all of them…. socialist programs and policies can exist alongside capitalism in a society.”[4]
Do you see much “equitable distribution of wealth” in Canada today? Yes, we do have a broader-based middle class than, say, third-world countries and, sure, with Liberal leadership in Canada, we certainly have more than in the US—with EI, a pittance of social assistance, still not enough social housing and our damaged public healthcare from previous privatisation prioritizing Conservatives hacking away at it. We definitely have more equitable distribution of wealth than we would under another Conservative government where the private sector would provide most services resulting in a revamped hacking at the public ones.
Yes, it’s true: a liberal administration favours a larger government and taxes more; however, this is (ideally) in order to spend more to provide services for its citizens, like in Nordic countries which have some of the highest standards of living in the world because citizens pay higher tax to support a strong social net that builds a nation as a community. This hasn’t been fully achieved in past Canadian liberal governments, that’s for sure—that’s because there is still significant unregulated capitalism involved. However, technically, that is the intention of liberalism. And, beneath all the Trudeau-hatred, let’s remember that his government did expand the CPP and create Fair Pharmacare, two developments for a more equitable society that a Poilievre government would immediately reverse because, Gee, everyone has the same opportunities to take care of themselves, there are no disabled people, mentally ill, low-income seniors in need of assistance,[5] single mothers in need of daycare and, yes, of course, the epidemic of drug-addicted youth on the streets the majority of whom certainly didn’t end up there on their own “free will”—free will bereft of the reality of context a pillar of conservative over-simplification.
What liberal governments have in common with socialist ones is regulation of the free market and investing in the well-being of all citizens through public programs; however, where liberalism implements these policies maybe 40-50%, socialism could be estimated at 80-90%. Yet, for those who—understandably—want so desperately to believe Poilievre, such misinformation and fear-mongering that Trudeau is a ‘radical socialist’ stated with his authoritative demeanour serves to build his following. Indeed, in comparison to the savage conservatism of Trump, Poilievre doesn’t have any claims to Manifest Destiny and expanding our territory, this is not a part of Canadian history. However, when it gets right down to it, except for annexing Canada, Poilievre agrees with everything Trump is doing. Poilievre is a Trumper. If Poilievre becomes the next Prime Minster, Canada will be governed in a similar manner with privatized healthcare and complete disregard for the natural environment, which will generate more profit for the rich while it is supposed to somehow trickle—read trickle—down to the workers, guarantees complete disregard for the future of the planet and ourselves.
During the interview, as if stating emphatically that Trudeau is a radical socialist wasn’t ridiculous enough, Poilievre continues:
“[i]t is classic for socialists to try to change their names and move on to have everyone forget their past. First, they were communist, then they became socialists, and then they became social democrat, and then they stole the word liberal, then they ruined that word, so they changed their names to progressive, then they changed their name to ‘woke’, and now they claim they don’t want to be called woke anymore. The socialists always try to disown the things they’ve done because it’s manifestly disastrous.”
Okay, let’s unpack this stream of dangerously misleading reductionism.
First, communism and socialism have things in common, but they are certainly not the same. Both systems share wealth equity, public control of the means of production and economic power for the working class; however, communism rejects capitalism absolutely in favour of an equitable distribution of wealth among a nation’s citizens and common ownership of all property; whereas socialism has public ownership of though not necessarily all means of production and, as we have seen above, socialist programs and policies can exist alongside capitalism[6] —like what has been happening in Mexico since the election of Obrador's socialist government, Morena, in 2018 and now after another landslide victory, being successfully built upon by his predecessor, Claudia Sheinbaum.[7]
As we move across the spectrum of Poilievre’s bizarre rush of equivalence, conflating communism with liberalism is part of the ridiculousness I mentioned at the beginning of this essay. And then, punctuating his torrent with ‘woke’; well, I must admit woke has become an empty signifier over the last few years especially having been appropriated by, yes, the free market with corporations like Bud Light, Target and Nike dunking their consumer capitalist feet into the progressive pond. Yet, let us not forget the real contents of woke as a decades-old racial justice term meant to raise awareness for racism in the US that, regardless of Poilievre, Peterson, Trump and Elon Musk’s mission to erase the reality of racial hierarchy (and any hierarchy or difference at all for that matter which is typical of many privileged heterosexual white men) in a society built with the colonial capitalist mindset of mine vs yours, one cannot deny.[8] In a Forbes article entitled, “What does woke even mean: how a decades-old racial justice term became co-opted by politics,” as the term was appropriated by politics, it was also appropriated by capitalism. Ironically, it ends up that the term ‘woke’ that Poilievre turns against his adversaries is his ally after all when it became yet another product to be exploited on the free market. Ironically, maybe now, as the term has come full circle from social justice to corporate exploitation, Poilievre is ‘woke.’
“Here is your socialist dream,” Poilievre exclaims, his sensationalism punctuated by smug chuckles from Peterson. “We were told everything was going to be free and just, there would be unicorns and butterflies and rainbows, this would be utopia.” As both Poilievre and Peterson are dead set against pride parades, Peterson interjects smugly:
“We have had quite a few rainbows.”
“All the NDP socialist agenda is implemented," Poilievre continues, "and people look around and it’s a hell-scape.” Sure, yes, I agree. The amount of homelessness and drug-addicted young people in Canada is horrifying. The same travesty exists in the US. The amount of mental illness and dysfunctional families is also atrocious. Familial estrangement is an epidemic. Is this really all Trudeau’s ridiculously deemed radical socialist's fault? Is it as simple as that?
So as not to fall into the trap of ahistorical thinking,
the extreme homelessness that we see now on the streets of Canada and the US in the 2020s began in the 1980s under the Conservative regimes of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney. As the always wise Rebecca Solnit contextualizes: “Few remember that there was no significant US homeless population before the 1980s.”[9] As outlined in the Canadian Encyclopedia:
"The word “homelessness” was not used to describe a social problem in Canada until the early to mid-1980s. Some Canadians lived through periods of homelessness prior to that time. However, the experience was not as common as it is today, and there were different government policies and programs in place to address it."[10] Italics mine.
The rise of the ideological primacy of the unregulated free market and the cutting of social programs occurred in tandem with homelessness in Canada and the US. The latter is a product of the former. In the 1980s, Thatcher, Reagan and Mulroney put into place what we now call neoliberalism, which is:
“An ideology that embraces privatization or marketization of public assets and services, reductions of the tax burden for the wealthy and corporations whenever feasible (or in some cases, not so feasible), and (at least ostensibly) minimal government intervention in the workings of the economy.”[11]
Besides uncontrolled greed and everyone out for themselves, neoliberalism—along with the rabid taking of resources from so-called third would countries internationally—presumes everyone comes from an even playing field and simply have to, in Poilievre’s words: “Grow up.” During the Peterson interview, he mocks all political parties from the center to the left: “Vote for us and you can be a kid forever. We’ll give you free stuff. Help is the sunny side of control.” Flip over this glib statement and we find zero respect for the reality of differing levels of privilege in a world where it is a unregulated free market where personal profit is king, one bereft of empathy for others, that is the real reason for Poilievre’s hell-scape.
Poilievre tosses out superlatives in true Trumpian grandiosity.
He exclaims that Canada could be the richest and most prosperous country in the world if we exploit our ‘cornucopia’ of resources—which, rotting beneath his metaphorical horn of plenty, means no restrictions on how we extract the resources that would result in a further environmental hell-scape; however, as Poilievre is an Elon Musk admirer and vice versa, the privileged can move to Mars once the US has stuck its manifest destiny flag into it.
Poilievre then tosses out one of his many equally Trumpian vacuous “facts” claiming that Canada has “the best system of government in the history of the world.” It is highly debatable that free-pass-the-post (the government system used in Canada) is the best, especially when the top ten quality of life countries in the world use proportional voting where not only income, but also health, freedom, unemployment, family life, climate, political stability and security, gender equality, and family and community life are the determining factors of quality. [12] Moreover, they are the countries with proportional representation that have the highest percentage of women in government and it has also been found that said countries most reliably outperform others with regard to population health.[13]
Another empty fact lobbed and gobbled up by Peterson
is that real estate is significantly cheaper in the US. This is completely untrue. With a quick Google search, one finds that the average price of a condo in downtown Toronto in 2024 was $713,801 CDN and, during the same period, the median price of a condo in Manhattan was $1.632 million USD. To make Poilievre’s misinformation more shameless, the average price of a condo in Toronto is in Canadian dollars and Manhattan is in American. Therefore, the average price of a condo in Manhattan is 2,336,117.81 Canadian dollars, over three times more expensive than the price of the average condo in Canada’s biggest city. When one checks out some of Poilievre’s facts, his credibility becomes increasingly flaccid.
He then sends out another rapid-fire of numbers when he proclaims that not only is real estate cheaper in the US, people also have hirer wages. Again, quick Google-search: the US federal minimum wage in 2024 was $7.25 US per hour. In Canada: $17.30 CDN per hour. $7.25 US is approximately (depending on the conversion rate of the day) $10.40 CDN, what the minimum wage in Canada was between 2010 and 2013. Such readily available statistics that completely undermine the veracity of what a political candidate is telling you is a blatant reason why educating ourselves before we vote (and not just believing everything because it is said with such confidence-instilling panache) is integral to any possibility of a functioning democracy.
Connected to Poilievre’s promise of houses for all is the further fear-mongering that young women’s biological clocks are ticking and they will have nowhere to have their babies and raise a family if they can’t afford a house. (Obsessed with the return of the traditional Christian family and the subjugation of women that we all desire, Peterson was on the edge of his seat for this part). Apparently, women can’t have babies unless they own a house. Yes, owning a house would be wonderful, but why does a woman have to own a house to have a child? Poilievre makes it sound like, if you don’t vote for him, if you don’t get this promised house, procreation in Canada will end! (Sound like evangelical America to you?) However, affordable rental housing is just as important; obviously, a government-subsidized condominium or house can also be a home for a woman to have a child and raise a family in, services that governments with substantial social nets provide for all their citizens even if they don’t live up to the dog-eat-dog world of the unregulated free market—and not all of us do or even want to.
Okay, I must ask most likely very controversially
within the context of Poilievre’s Axe the Carbon Tax hysteria: what’s wrong with a carbon tax, anyway!? Yes, it pisses off drivers and industry polluters at the moment of buying gas, but aren’t we supposed to be cutting down on the use of fossil fuels and transitioning to a more sustainable, clean energy future for the sake of everything beyond ourselves? Poilievre’s mantra of "Axe the Carbon Tax" as another tool to discredit Trudeau. Carbon taxes are being successfully used in many nations that are doing their part in fulfilling the Paris Agreement with its 1.5°C global surface warming threshold—which we cannot forget Canada signed, by the way.
Let’s give the floor to the sage David Suzuki:
“Pricing carbon emissions through a carbon tax is one of the most powerful incentives that governments have to encourage companies and households to pollute less by investing in cleaner technologies and adopting greener practices ….” Suzuki continues to explain that because industry pollutes more than individuals, they pay more. However, he points out how “much media focus has been on the consumer side of carbon pricing, the system in place for large emitting industries (such as steel) is projected to play a larger role in reducing emissions.” Hence, the hysteria against the carbon tax is a product of both the media and Poilievre leaving out important information. Moreover, Poilievre doesn’t bring up that fact that, through Canada Carbon Rebate payments, most Canadians get money back and sometimes even more. Suzuki continues:
“The federal government returns about 90 percent of the money it collects to families through “Canada Carbon Rebate” payments — mailed or deposited four times a year. Rebates are based on family size. Around 80 percent of households get more back than they spend on the levy. Rural residents receive an additional 20 percent rebate. This helps address economic hardships for lower-income households.”
As one of many examples of carbon tax success, Suzuki mentions Sweden, which was the first country to implement a carbon tax in 1991 and, since then, along with other carbon emission regulations, the carbon tax in itself has cut emissions by 20% while introducing energy alternatives and far from bankrupting the Swedish citizens.[14] On the contrary, Sweden is one of the countries with the highest quality of life (for all citizens).
Can we stop already comparing ourselves to the US
and start looking at the quality of life and environmental success stories of other nations? Should we really, now, as the far right is grabbing hold of Canada, be risking becoming—even if Poilievre maintains his current firm stance of Canada not becoming the fifty-first state—more like them? I ask again: what’s wrong with the carbon tax? The only way a person could throw up their arms and answer: “Everything” as Poilievre, his supporters, Trump, Musk, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Peterson do is if they have absolutely no regard for the planet beyond the planet of themselves.
Another one of Poilievre’s tax-cut slogans is the "Big, Bold Bring It Home Tax Cut." Sounds great (again)! But remember, even though Poilievre is charming, well-spoken and—like Trump—a hyper-conservative populist who appeals to the working man, politicians always make campaign promises that they cannot or do not fulfill once elected. Even if we want to, how far can we believe him? Katrina Miller, the executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness, surfaces Poilievre’s history as a classic conservative politician who, when it gets right down to it, prioritizes the elite. She reminds us:
“It seems no amount of wealth disparity or empirical evidence can sidetrack Poilievre from his mission to make tax a four-letter word. From his entry into Reform Party politics as a teenager in the 1990s, to his support for Harper’s huge and controversial corporate tax cuts, to his vote against a wealth tax, Poilievre has at least been consistent.”[15] During the Peterson interview, Poilievre stated that he will return to the mandates of the Conservative government of Stephen Harper when, to cite one off the long list of negatives, it was tougher for Canadians to find jobs at any time since the Second World War.[16] Serving in Harper’s cabinet from 2013-2915, Poilievre speaks of Stephen Harper as a hero—remember how we hated Harper? The Walrus warns:
“Poilievre has … committed to creating a “bring it home tax cut” that will “bring home production and paycheques with lower taxes on work, hiring, and making stuff.” What does that mean exactly, and will we know more before the election? The Hill Times asked his office those questions and was told simply that, if elected, Poilievre would “immediately” eliminate the carbon tax, without any further details on what his government’s approach to [other] tax policy might be. The thing with tax reform is that if someone pays less, someone else must pay more; otherwise, services must be cut. We’ll find out who will pay less, who will pay more, and whose services will be cut only if he wins the election. That’s a big gamble.”[17]
Defund the CBC? Why?
What on earth is wrong with a National Public Radio and TV Network that has been a Canadian tradition since 1936?! Gee whiz. What does the right have against art, culture and Adrienne Arsenault? It appears that, just like in the US, the likes of Fox News right-wing propaganda will be Canada’s news source of (non)information and culture will be UFC, Monster Trucks and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Forget about art, literature and having a soul. However, I think I’ve answered my question as I write: this is another thing that Trump and Poilievre share. They both hate the media, especially the media they can’t control; both rely heavily on self-directed social media to get their ‘truths’ out; both believe that the media is controlled by their loathed progressives and lash out when they are criticized.[18]
And then there are the ads.
Yes, the nothing short of creepy Jordan Peterson podcast ads, the first advertising a US Christian anti-abortion charity where a woman who already has eight children and is in an unhealthy marriage is convinced (read manipulated or brainwashed) into having a ninth child “by the grace of god.” Barf. Regardless of Poilievre’s statements in the media that he is pro-choice—unlike the fifteen Conservative MPs who are not[19]—why indeed would he be on a podcast that blatantly promotes the end of women’s right to choose and, even worse, God having a say in the matter? Moreover, considering Poilievre (and Peterson’s) alignment with Trumpism and the extreme right, if Poilievre wins the 2025 Canadian election, abortion, which became legal in 1969 under certain circumstances and then extended to all women’s right to choose regardless of circumstances in 1988, will be threatened. Canadians live in a country where all women’s right to “life, liberty and security of person” has been a part of the constitution for thirty-seven years.[20] Even if Poilievre claims during his campaign that he is pro-choice, there are more odds against his veracity than for it.
The second ad promotes Peterson’s new bible study series. Okay, for the millions of you who follow and adore him, why? Don’t you think it’s strange he’s announcing “In the beginning, there was the Word!” dressed like a country squire and flinging his arms around in a hocus-pocus attitude and then, the video cuts to what may as well be an evangelist séance featuring yet another old-boys' club speaking biblical mumbo-jumbo and laughing affectionately around a candle-lit boardroom table? Even though Peterson and Poilievre are buddies, is it not only bizarre, but also horrifying that being associated with Peterson is considered politically beneficial and, even worse, voters don’t seem to be thinking this is nothing short of f**cked up?
Don’t get me wrong,
I’m certainly not saying Trudeau is or was ever perfect. He still favours corporations which was evident when he bought the Trans Mountain pipeline from the American oil corporation Kinder Morgan with Canadian taxpayers’ money despite the extreme opposition from Indigenous peoples and environmentalists—the reason Kinder Morgan jumped ship in the first place. Like the majority of Prime Ministers (excluding Justin's father, Pierre Trudeau, that is), the Trudeau government shamefully follows America's lead and supports Israel in the genocide against Palestine. The Liberal government exploits internationally (like the conservative)—especially our rarely discussed international mining corporations (to cite two examples: the majority of mining corporations in Mexico are Canadian and, currently, Canadian mining speculation is rampant in the Amazon basin beginning to destroy the eco-systems and the lives of the Indigenous there).[20] I think it's safe to say that a conservative government will continue to support the Palestinian genocide and certainly won't cease Canada's history of exploiting resources internationally as well as our own. We are a so-called first-world country for a reason after all.
I personally have never voted liberal, nor have I ever voted conservative and never will. As I'm sure you can tell by the tone of this essay, I am definitely on the left; I am literally one of the so-called ‘radical socialists’ Poilievre ridiculously accuses Trudeau of being. That said, if the Trudeau government really did expand the bureaucracy unnecessarily to such a degree as Poilievre accuses, if they really did take on masses of consultants whom the Canadian taxpayer pays $600 per hour to do what the government employees should be doing as Poilievre claims, I’m all for investigating and cutting those expenses, the same way I’m for eliminating the superfluous Canadian senate. However, I am not for reducing the size of government to the extent that releasing the full power of the free market means giving free rein for the rich to get richer instead of investing money saved into much needed social programs for—yes, they exist Peterson, Poilievre and Musk —the less privileged. I am definitely not for reducing an ostensibly democratically elected government to the point where it becomes an oligarchy as is happening in the US. And, when it gets right down it it, I am definitely not for having a Prime Minster who has anything in common with Peterson, Musk and Trump (let’s not forget Poilievre’s support from far-right radio show host conspiracy theorist Alex Jones). Let's face it: when people like and support you, it is because you are like them. Big Red Flag.
This is the worst time in the history of Canada to vote Conservative.
Even if you hate Trudeau, even if you’re angry that Canada shut its borders during Covid (don’t forget, the US did as well) and that you had to have a vaccine passport to go into closed public spaces or travel abroad from October 2021 to April 2022; even if you’re a trucker and chose not to be vaccinated and couldn’t cross the US border (don’t forget the US didn’t allow unvaccinated people to enter either); even if you blame the Trudeau government 100% for inflation (remember: inflation post-covid is an international phenomenon, it’s more expensive everywhere, even in Mexico and there is the factor of corporate profiteering, the very reason why corporations need to be regulated); even if you don’t agree with the pronouns, vote anything else: Green, NDP, or the very possible new leader of the Liberal party, Mark Carney (who has stated that he would abandon the carbon tax, not because it's ineffective, but because it's become too divisive for Canadians due to the hysteria stirred up by Poilievre).
Please don’t support Pierre Poilievre’s absolute unleashing of the free market onto our forests, rivers, lakes and oceans; don’t vote for the further privatization attack onto our already floundering social net; don’t vote for the very real possibility of damaging women’s right to choose; don’t vote for the defunding of Canadian culture like the CBC that unites us from coast to coast; don’t vote for the very possible dissolution of what Canada is. Even if we are not annexed by the US, we will, with a Conservative government under Pierre Poilievre, become more like them and, as the majority of we Canadians know, one of the many good things about being Canadian is not being American.
Notes:
[1] I’m happy to say that, as of the publishing of this essay, Poilievre’s popularity has been decreasing paradoxically because of Canada’s hatred for Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty and Poilievre’s ideological connection to him. https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/01/30/Trumping-Canada-Politics-Poilievre-Lead-Evaporated
[2] https://www.taxfairness.ca/en/resources/reports/report-rise-corporate-profits-time-covid; https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/pierre-poilievre-vs-the-elites-unless-they-re-rich/article_8811a771-463c-5722-b2a8-10c6aa27284d.html
[4] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100214/what-difference-between-communism-and-socialism.asp
[5] In 2021, Pierre voted against a 10% increase to the Old Age Security pension for those aged 75 and above, a measure that was passed despite his objection and that helped more than 3.5 million seniors across Canada that year alone. Where will we be if Pierre’s Conservatives are elected? Last time they were in power, they brought in the biggest cut to Canada’s public pension system in history — a cut they never campaigned on. There’s no reason to expect anything different next time around. Pierre has already committed to replacing public sector pensions with defined contribution plans that favour employers and shortchange workers. If they had their way, we would all be retiring years later, with weaker CPP and OAS, and employers would be allowed to walk away from their pension promises to workers. https://cupe.ca/pierre-poilievre-will-take-wrecking-ball-your-pension
[6] Ibid.
[7] See my articles on the socialist revolution in Mexico: https://www.vigilancemagazine.com/post/and-this-is-a-good-thing-contextualizing-the-2024-mexico-election; https://www.vigilancemagazine.com/post/mexico-election-2024; https://www.vigilancemagazine.com/post/and-this-is-a-good-thing-contextualizing-the-mexico-2024-election-part-3-el-poder-del-paso-a-paso-t
[8] https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/06/06/what-does-woke-even-mean-how-a-decades-old-racial-justice-term-became-co-opted-by-politics/
[9] Solnit Hope in the Dark 114
[15] https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/pierre-poilievre-vs-the-elites-unless-they-re-rich/article_8811a771-463c-5722-b2a8-10c6aa27284d.html
[16] https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/10-reasons-stephen-harper-should-ignore-his-own-economic-advice/; see also: https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/08/01/Harper-Attacks-Workers/
[21] See: Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell Testimonio: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala Toronto: Between the Lines, 2021. And: for current reportage on the activity of Canadian mining corporations in Ecuador, see Cree/Iroquois/French journalist Brandi Morin, most recent connected to the signing of the free trade deal between Ecuador and Canada (January 5th, 2025) and how that will accelerate Canadian mining in the Amazon. @bmorinstories.
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About the Writer:
Karen Moe is an author, art critic, visual and performance artist, and feminist activist. Her work focuses on systemic violence in patriarchy: be it gender, race, class, the environment or speciesism. Her art criticism has been published internationally in magazines, anthologies and artist catalogues in English and Spanish, she has exhibited and performed across Canada, the US and Mexico and has spoken on sexual violence internationally. She is the author of Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor Vigilance Press (2022). During her North American Tour, she was presented with the “Ellie Liston Hero of the Year Award” by the DA of Ventura County for being instrumental in the life sentence given to a serial rapist. Karen speaks internationally on sexual violence sharing her lived experiences of "trauma & triumph." Victim has recently been translated into Spanish. Her second book, The Quest for the Good Whore (with the golden heart), will be released in September 2025 and she is currently collaborating on the life story and legacy of Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones, the spiritual leader of the Fairy Creek Blockades. Karen lives in Mexico City and in Lantzville BC, Canada.
IG: @karenmoeart
Well presented - we can only hope the events unfolding in the US do indeed make Canadians more wary of Poilievre’s rhetoric.