Pierre Poilievre – A Political Life
By Andrew Lawton
Sutherland House, Toronto, 2024.
HC, 232 pgs. C$35.95
ISBN: 1-9908-2380-7
A timely and fair biography of Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Opposition leader in Canada
By Mark Wegierski
web posted October 28, 2024
Andrew Lawton is one of only a few highly successful right-leaning journalists in Canada, working mainly for the online outfit, True North. He was thus especially suited to write Pierre Poilievre – A Political Life, a biography of Pierre Poilievre. The book is quite fairly balanced, and cites some of the biggest critics of Poilievre. It's clear from the book that Mr. Lawton did a lot of hard digging journalistic work, to come up with some keen insights about Poilievre.
The book is an excellent introduction to Canadian politics since 1979. One is able to learn a lot about various levels of Canadian politics, such as the politics of riding associations, or what a Parliamentary Secretary does.
The book includes an "Introduction" (pp. ix – xi), "Notes" (pp. 197-208) (217 notes), and "Index" (pp. 209-212).
There are also about a dozen photographs from different times in Poilievre's life.
Part I of the book, Early Years, is divided into six chapters, "The Beginning" (pp. 3-11), "The Keener" (pp. 12-22), "Ottawa Calls" (pp. 23-31), "As Prime Minister, I Would…" (pp. 32-36),
"Back to Ottawa" (pp, 37-45) and "He's Running" (pp. 46-54).
Pierre Poilievre was born on June 3, 1979, the last day in office of the Trudeau government (after their loss to Joe Clark's Progressive Conservatives).
His teenage mother gave him up for adoption. When he was twelve, his adoptive father came out as gay and divorced his adoptive mother. However, Pierre maintains friendly relations with his father and his father's partner.
Already in his teen years, Poilievre stood out when doing phone bank work for Jason Kenney.
In 1999, Pierre Poilievre participated in an essay contest sponsored by Magna International. The title of his essay was "Building Canada through freedom." He wrote there,
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. (p. 32)
Poilievre was involved in politics at an early age, joining the Reform Party at the age of fourteen.
The book traces what could be called the cursus honorum by which Pierre Poilievre reached the position of Opposition Leader, and possible Prime Minister.
In September 2002, Stockwell Day hired Poilievre to work in his Parliament Hill office. Day had always been impressed with Poilievre's work ethic – "rolling up the sleeves and getting down to it with no pretensions" (p. 42).
Despite his connections to Calgary, Poilievre chose to run for the Conservative nomination in the riding of Nepean-Carleton, a suburb of Ottawa. Through dint of hard work, going around the riding knocking on doors, he won the nomination and the election.
Part II of the book, Into the House, consists of seven chapters – "Baby of the House" (pp. 57-66),
"Into Government" (pp. 67-79), "Harper's Guy" (pp. 80-90), "Into Cabinet" (pp. 91-105), "Back to Opposition" (pp. 106-117), "The Critic" (pp. 118-126), and "The Troubles" (pp. 127-136).
Some of the people who have worked for Poilievre see him as a tough boss to please.
"The most charitable way of looking at Poilievre's high standards and expectations is to understand that he has them of himself as well. He wants to be fully prepared for every situation and he expects those around him to perform at the same level. He hates to be wrong or caught on a detail… Poilievre expected staff to move mountains. To him, it was always a matter of trying harder.
He values few things more than persistence." (p. 101)
Referring to Pierre Poilievre's campaign style and sharp memory, his former aide, Heather Tessier says he had a
"'memory like a steel trap.' He'd spend his weekends hitting coffee shops, ice rinks, and community events in his riding, greeting seemingly everyone by name, even folks he'd only met once before while campaigning… 'it was unbelievable.'" (p. 64).
Pierre Poilievre has built up the reputation of being in debate a ferocious pit-bull attack dog.
"Poilievre's supporters defend these tactics and credit him with giving his opponents a taste of their own medicine. 'Pierre understands how the other parties operate,' says Andrew Scheer. 'He sees how the Liberals or the NDP or the left in general can get away with outrageous attacks or viciousness or all kinds of double standards. So his attitude is that we can't bring a knife to a gunfight. We'll read the Marquess of Queensbury rules and we'll get credit from who? Whereas the other guys are throwing sucker punches.'" (pp. 112-113).
In an interview with Pierre Poilievre during the 2021 election campaign, Andrew Lawton captured these prescient words:
"The current deficit is driving inflation. Whenever you create cash you inflate the price of things. The government had created $400 billion of M2 money supply – which is to say coins, bills, and bank deposits in just over a year – which is the biggest increase in money supply ever. In percentage terms, it's the biggest since 1974. And we remember what happened in the late '70s: we had hyperinflation in the double digits followed by massive interest rate hikes to nearly twenty percent. We don't know exactly what the future will bring, but we know that the history of money printing has been runaway inflation, so whoever forms government is going to have to rein that in unless we want to continue to see out of control price increases that destroy the middle class, drive the poor deeper into poverty, and inflate the wealth of the super rich." (pp. 128-129)
In his extensive research, Mr. Lawton was able to find out that Pierre Poilievre had completed a fiscally hawkish book manuscript, titled Debtonation. He managed to obtain a copy of it, and offers the reader a choice quote:
"By removing the gatekeepers (and knocking down their gates for good), living within our means, rewarding work and enterprise and getting better for less, we can again avoid debtonation and secure our future… Taken together, the solution is quite simple: to return people's freedom to create, earn, invest, take risks and produce abundance for themselves, their businesses, their customers, and their families." (p. 129).
Part III of the book, Leadership, consists of six chapters, "The Right Moment" (pp. 139-150), "The Race" (pp. 151-159), "Pierre for Prime Minister" (pp. 160-169), "Glasses and Apples" (pp. 170-182), "The Balancing Act" (pp. 183-188), and "The Future" (pp. 189-196).
In his digitized announcement seeking the leadership of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre said:
Trudeau thinks he's your boss. He's got it backwards. You are the boss. That why I'm running for prime minister, to put you back in charge of your life. Together, we will make Canadians the freest people on earth, with freedom to build a business without red tape or heavy tax, freedom to keep the fruits of your labour and share them with loved ones and neighbours, freedom from the invisible thief of inflation, freedom to raise your kids with your values, freedom to make your own health and vaccine choices, freedom to speak without fear, and freedom to worship God in your own way. (p. 140)
Answering a journalist's question during his leadership campaign, Pierre Poilievre said:
"Let's focus on the principle that unites all the different groups that you listed, and that principle is freedom. Progressive Conservatives want women, gays, minorities, immigrants, First Nations to have the freedom to pursue their own path and achieve their potential, free from discrimination. Fiscal conservatives want economic freedom, that is control over your own money, the ability to start a business unimpeded by government gatekeepers. Social conservatives want religious freedom to raise their kids with their own traditional values and preach their faith without censorship. Rural and firearms conservatives want the freedom to own their property legally without undue government confiscation, or penalties like when Jean Charest supported the long gun registry that wasted a billion dollars. If you look across the board at all of the different branches of conservatism, they disagree on many things but they all agree on one thing, and that is that we need more freedom." (p. 145)
During a speech at the Calgary Stampede in 2022, Poilievre re-iterated this theme:
"The great way to unite us all is through freedom. Your freedom is someone else's freedom. If your Muslim friend has religious freedom, you, as a Christian, will have religious freedom. If your local small businessman has more economic freedom from red tape and tax, your son might have more economic freedom to go get a job there working at his business and you might have more economic freedom buying ore affordable goods from him. One person's freedom is another person's freedom. That's why instead of divide and conquer we should unite for freedom in this country, and that's what we will do." (pp. 145-146).
For many decades in Canada, liberals and progressives have characterized conservatism as hateful.
Andrew Scheer, the current Conservative House leader, says:
"The Liberals, NDP, and the mainstream media try to create these terrible binary choices where you either break faith with your party base and your core values and your party policy or you do this terrible thing that they can brand you as being nasty or whatever… What Pierre is so good at is the third option, flipping it right back and saying, 'No, it's actually the Liberal policies that are causing this or that problem.' He's got this ability to do judo and frame the debate back on better terrain for us so that we're note constantly being defensive or led around by the mainstream media narrative." (p. 193)
Mr. Lawton concludes the book judiciously,
"Whether his elevation to the Conservative leadership is testament to the Canadian dream, as Poilievre so often says, or a reflection of a dogged pursuit of power and two decades of relentless ladder climbing, or (more likely) some combination of the two, he now faces the greatest challenge of his political life. As he says at the end of his speeches: 'This is our country. This is our home. Your home, my home, our home, let's bring it home.' (p. 193)
The book offers numerous insights about Poilievre's political and personal life, including his relationships with Jenni Byrne, a savvy political operator, and his wife, Anaida
(Ana) Galindo, who certainly adds a great luster to her husband. Some have said that Ana is his "secret weapon".
One of the flaws of conservative leaders in Canada is that their policies tend to become tepid after winning the Prime Ministership. However, just recently (June 11, 2024) Poilievre and the Conservative Party voted against the proposed increase of the capital gains tax to two-thirds (after $250,000). They did this although this increase was introduced as a baited trap by the Liberals, who tried to convince the public that Poilievre favoured the "super-rich". Poilievre denounced the increase as "job-killing". So this might suggest that Poilievre will stick to his guns, and genuinely try to change things in Canada, should he become Prime Minister.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether what is basically a Reagan/Thatcher type of conservatism, can meet the exigencies of this critical moment in history. 
Mark Wegierski is a Toronto-based, Canadian writer and historical researcher, published in Alberta Report, Calgary Herald, Ottawa Citizen, and The Hill Times (Ottawa), among others.
