Our very own ‘deplorables’

I have a low threshold for phony, particularly when it comes to political messages. I never made it through the first Conservative Party of Canada ad that tried to portray Pierre Poilievre as just a regular family man who plays with his kids. This appeared just after they got him to remove his glasses because, presumably, they made his beady eyes seem beadier. I couldn’t tell you whether the new one I saw was actually new, but their appearance suggests that the Conservatives are concerned that his desperate thirst for power, now so near he can almost taste it, has been bringing out the mud-slinging, petulant whiner in him again.

This recent commercial was narrated by his wife, Anaida Poilievre. She also had much to say when Conservative supporters accosted NDP leader Jagmeet Singh outside Parliament Hill. The Conservatives, of course, played innocent and denied any link to the protesters. Plausible deniability is the foundation upon which their culture war is built.

The truth is the Conservative Party needs these people to get elected and they’re not about to alienate a significant portion of their constituency. Pierre Poilievre and Andrew Scheer, the current and former leader of the Conservative Party, were having a fun time cavorting with the truckers who made life in Ottawa a miserable hell for three weeks in 2022. That guy outside Parliament with the F*ck Trudeau flag sure looked like the same guy they were buddies with then.

After briefly commiserating with Singh on X, Anaida Poilievre absolved Conservatives and their supporters of harassing the NDP leader and declared her husband was not “in charge for the last eight years”, thus insinuating that the devil made them do it.

But really, they can’t help themselves because that’s who they are and that’s why they terrify LGBTQ+ people. PP’s statement that he wouldn’t repeal gay marriage – “full stop” – was treated by the press as a great achievement. Because the Conservatives are demonstrably homophobic and transphobic, declaring that you won’t take away one of our rights was considered newsworthy. I found it mildly disturbing to see how inordinately proud he seemed to be of himself when he said it, as if he were saying something meaningful when in fact he was just saying he wouldn’t be mean. This time.

That declaration was not, in any case, aimed at the LGBTQ+ community. The Conservatives don’t give a damn about you. It was directed at Canadians who don’t like to think of themselves as homophobic, but whose commitment to our community is so paper thin that Poilievre’s statement soothes their conscience. We are not fooled, however. We don’t have the privilege of assuming our rights are secure. Since the federal Conservatives have taken up their provincial counterparts’ assault on trans youth, the better question to ask is whether Bill C-16 is safe. The battle to enshrine gender identity or expression in the Canadian Human Rights Act was consistently undermined by Conservative Senators and MPs since a version of it was first introduced in 2009 by NDP MP Bill Siksay.

Lately the Conservatives and their shills at US owned Postmedia have been salivating over the prospect of power. Poilievre will be putting forth a series of non-confidence motions to defeat the Liberals and as these look likely to fail, he’s lashing out like a spoiled brat whose toy has been taken from him. Poilievre suggested Jagmeet Singh will vote against these motions to ensure he becomes eligible for his MP pension in February. Slinging mud is the Conservative way. A more plausible explanation is that Singh fears the Conservatives will cancel the dental care plan that was central to the NDP’s support of the Liberals. This is not entirely unlikely as Andrew Scheer avoided the question when asked directly about it. Poilievre has since shut up when it was pointed out his pension will be three times larger than Singh’s.

Despite the Conservatives’ fondness for the gutter, the polls say this gang of ‘deplorables’ will be in charge of the country after the next election. Fasten your seats belts, LGBTQ+ folk, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.