The problem facing the Conservatives is as obvious as it is intractable — unless real change is made. The form of neoconservativism ushered in by Stephen Harper has morphed into angry authoritarianism under Pierre Poilievre. It will not sell in Canada and the electoral record proves it.
I guess that really depends on your definition of interference. Conservatives lost because Canadians took one look at the reality of Trump and decided “fuck that…we don’t want a politician who acts like him, even in any small way.”
Poppingfresh was leading only because the only person we were more sick off than him was Trudeau. Once Trudeau was out of the picture, voters basically said “Oh thank Christ…we don’t have to vote for Maple Maga.”
Trump being an ass doesn’t count as interference. And it’s ultimately Poppinfresh’s fault that he refused to pivot away from Trump-style rhetoric and polemics when even his own advisors were telling him it was a losing strategy.
That still doesn’t account for the roughly 40% of votes that went to him during the election.
I think foreign interference was real and quite pervasive, but people didn’t realise it was foreign interference because it was so blatant. I mean, most of the big social media companies are owned by far right US companies, and all private Canadian news outlets are owned by far rights as well. And every single one of those touted far right rhetoric constantly with almost no left representation.
Hell, just ask the average Canadian where they get their Canadian news, and I’ll bet a third will say Facebook, despite Meta banning Canadian news from the platform because they didn’t want to pay taxes.
Yeah. I get what you’re saying now. Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that the only reason Liberals won was because of foreign interference on their behalf.
Yes, I know very well how pervasive right wing misinformation is. I live in a part of Canada that is surrounded by it. (Saskatchewan).
The ballot question didn’t come down to PPs similarities to Trump. That was a factor, but ultimately the Liberal win was driven by Trump threatening Canadian sovereignty, which qualifies as foreign interference.
While I agree that that was definitely a big part of it.
I’ll have to disagree when you say that PP’s similarity to Trump didn’t factor in. It most certainly did. In fact it’s the primary reason that PP wanted DESPERATELY to get an election done before Trump’s inauguration. because even before that he had been getting comparisons between his brand of populist rhetoric and Trumps.
He badly needed an election before the idea of a Trump presidency became the reality of a Trump presidency. And he knew it. He knew Trump’s stink on him would sink him, and he was right.
I said that it was a factor. But he likely would have still won even with those comparisons based on polling in December and January. There are many in Canada thwt are accepting towards MAGA and nearly everyone else was tired of the Liberals. Ultimately, it was Trump threatening repeatedly to annex Canada that tipped the election.