Spencer Fernando is a writer, commentator, podcast host and former political insider. His career has included spells working for the Conservative Party and Manitoba Progressive Conservatives. He is now a campaign fellow with the National Citizens Coalition. His work can be found here.
In their efforts to brand him as a scary populist, the establishment media has been increasingly pushing a narrative that Pierre Poilievre is running a simplistic campaign based on "easy" answers to complex issues.
This is then contrasted with his supposedly more "serious" opponents.
Aside from the fact that "simple" solutions are sometimes the best solutions (eliminating the carbon tax would be easy and would immediately lower the cost-of-living for example), Poilievre is actually running an incredibly complex, and idea-focused campaign.
Consider this recent video:
When they built the Big Nickel in Sudbury in 1964, the total cost was ~$35,000. Today, thanks to inflation, that would be $319,723 — or 6,394,460 nickels.
Bring back 'common cents' and sound money. Stop #JustinFlation. Make your nickels go further.
Join: https://t.co/d9I1ky9w2t pic.twitter.com/GbIGFiFDrx
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) May 7, 2022
Look at the issues Poilievre addresses in the video:
- Technological deflation
- The dematerialization of the economy
- The "Cantillon Effect" – how newly printed money benefits those with wealth and assets while hurting working class people
- Returning to Sound Money
- The link between deficits and inflation
Further, Poilievre’s video is over five minutes long, which is itself a departure from the "soundbite era" in which we live.
Whether people agree or disagree with Poilievre’s ideas, it is disingenuous to say his campaign is "simplistic."
Rather, it is far more idea-oriented than any political campaign we’ve seen in some time, as politicians rarely address the core issues behind the problems we face as a country.
Poilievre vs Singh
If you want to see what a truly "simplistic" message looks like, just take a look at Jagmeet Singh talking about rising prices:
Again today, Canadian families woke up to inflation at a record high
Their cost of living is skyrocketing while CEOs & Mega-Corporations make record profits
The system is rigged because Liberals & Conservatives set it up that way — where the rich thrive & families are abandoned pic.twitter.com/w3ceTtSHzq
— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) April 20, 2022
- No mention of the money supply
- No mention of technology
- No mention of the Bank of Canada
- No mention of government policy
- Just "corporate greed"
Compared to Singh’s message, Poilievre looks like a professor of economics.
Amazingly, the establishment media won’t attack Singh for being a "populist," even though Singh’s simplistic approach is far more "populist" than Poilievre’s in-depth discussion of what is causing inflation.
A question of credibility
Now that we’ve established that Poilievre’s campaign is heavily idea-based and complex, we can get a better sense of why so many people are flocking to his events.
Poilievre has built up credibility over time because he has been proven correct.
For a few years now Poilievre has been warning that the actions of the Trudeau government and Bank of Canada would lead to higher and higher inflation.
When Poilievre made those claims in the past, the Trudeau government and the Bank of Canada both claimed those fears were overblown, and that inflation would be minimal and short-term.
Time has proven the Bank of Canada and Trudeau government wrong, and Poilievre right.
So, a growing number of Canadians see that Poilievre has built up the credibility to discuss the causes of inflation, and he does so in a way that shows respect for the intelligence of Canadian voters.
Canadians are ready for complexity
After years of the simplistic politics of Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh, where virtue-signalling and endless government spending replaces restraint and long-term thinking, Canadians are seeing the consequences of that approach.
The cost of living has surged out of control, and Canadians are looking to see who has the intellectual heft to turn things around and bring Canada back to some fiscal and monetary policy.
Clearly, more and more Canadians are ready for the complex, idea-focused campaign of Pierre Poilievre.
