Thoughts on the emergence of Pierre Poilievre from political writer Paul Wells

Posted with permission from author Paul Wells

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What Poilievre is up to

We’re in an odd world where most of the journalistic coverage of Pierre Poilievre is critical, but he might yet become Prime Minister. The week’s big Abacus poll suggests this may simply be because more and more people are done with Justin Trudeau. But we’re still missing a theory of Pierre Poilievre. Since Shannon Proudfoot’s profile of him for a prominent food magazine last year (note: Shannon didn’t write or like the headline), there’ve actually been fewer attempts to figure the guy out as he gets closer to an election.

Here’s one thing to chew on. In early 2022, two weeks after Poilievre announced his candidacy for the Conservative leadership, this essay appeared in The Hub, a good online journal of mostly conservative-leaning opinion. It was by Ben Woodfinden, “a doctoral candidate and political theorist at McGill University.” Woodfinden has since got hired as Poilievre’s communications director, which suggests that if there’s anyone who thought Woodfinden had Poilievre figured out, it’s Poilievre.

What did he write? Woodfinden’s essay noted that Poilievre had already been talking about “gatekeepers” who make the rules that stifle initiative and progress for ordinary people. He encouraged Poilievre to keep going. The “gatekeeper” talk could appeal to a few different corners of today’s conservative movement — small-government conservatives, populists and new Canadians who feel frustrated in their attempts to get ahead. Woodfinden writes:

“The elites in this message are essentially political elites whose actions hold back the so-called ‘little guy’—ordinary Canadians who just want to own a home and make a living. There is undoubtedly something of a populist moment in the Canadian right at the moment, and this is a particular framing that can resonate with the Tory base whilst not giving in to the darker and more sinister populist temptation.

And:

“Put all this together, and Poilievre may have the makings of a perfect storm message. It scratches the itch of different parts of the conservative coalition, and it has the potential makings of a winning electoral coalition that could propel the Poilievre-led Conservatives to government. Whilst appealing to both small government and populist types in the conservative movement, it also potentially offers a populist message that appeals to people who feel left behind or screwed over in Canada today, with ire aimed at a clique of gatekeepers who frustrate the goals and aspirations of ordinary Canadians.”

I’ll let you read the rest if you like. Woodfinden’s essay is here. Not having written it I offer no warranty for it. But I’ve always found it worthwhile to consider what politicians think they’re doing, rather than just what their worst critics think they’re doing. Maybe this piece will be illuminating.

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Virtue-signalling devotion to reconciliation will not end well

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Virtue-signalling devotion to reconciliation will not end well

Published on January 4, 2026

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Bruce Pardy

In September, the British Columbia Supreme Court threw private property into turmoil. Aboriginal title in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, is “prior and senior” to fee simple interests, the court said. That means it trumps the property you have in your house, farm or factory. If the decision holds up on appeal, it would mean private property is not secure anywhere a claim for Aboriginal title is made out.

If you thought things couldn’t get worse, you thought wrong. On Dec. 5, the B.C. Court of Appeal delivered a different kind of upheaval. Gitxaala and Ehattesaht First Nations claimed that B.C.’s mining regime was unlawful because it allowed miners to register claims on Crown land without consulting with them. In a 2-to-1 split decision, the court agreed. The mining permitting regime is inconsistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP). And B.C. legislation, the court said, has made UNDRIP the law of B.C.

UNDRIP is a declaration of the United Nations General Assembly. It consists of pages and pages of Indigenous rights and entitlements. If UNDRIP is the law in B.C., then Indigenous peoples are entitled to everything—and to have other people pay for it. If you suspect that is an exaggeration, take a spin through UNDRIP for yourself.

Indigenous peoples, it says, “have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired… to own, use, develop and control, as well as the right to “redress” for these lands, through either “restitution” or “just, fair and equitable compensation.” It says that states “shall consult and cooperate in good faith” in order to “obtain free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources,” and that they have the right to “autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.”

The General Assembly adopted UNDRIP in 2007. At the time, Canada sensibly voted “no,” along with New Zealand, the United States and Australia. Eleven countries abstained. But in 2016, the newly elected Trudeau government reversed Canada’s objection.

UN General Assembly resolutions are not binding in international law. Nor are they enforceable in Canadian courts. But in 2019, NDP Premier John Horgan and his Attorney General David Eby, now the Premier, introduced Bill 41, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). DRIPA proposed to require the B.C. government to “take all measures necessary to ensure the laws of British Columbia are consistent with the Declaration.” The B.C. Legislature unanimously passed the bill. (The Canadian Parliament passed a similar bill in 2021.)

Two years later, the legislature passed an amendment to the B.C. Interpretation Act. Eby, still B.C.’s Attorney General, sponsored the bill. The amendment read, “Every Act and regulation must be construed as being consistent with the Declaration.”

Eby has expressed dismay about the Court of Appeal decision. It “invites further and endless litigation,” he said. “It looked at the clear statements of intent in the legislature and the law, and yet reached dramatically different conclusions about what legislators did when we voted unanimously across party lines” to pass DRIPA. He has promised to amend the legislation.

These are crocodile tears. The majority judgment from the Court of Appeal is not a rogue decision from activist judges making things up and ignoring the law. Not this time, anyway. The court said that B.C. law must be construed as being consistent with UNDRIP—which is what Eby’s 2021 amendment to the Interpretation Act says.

In fact, Eby’s government has been doing everything in its power to champion Aboriginal interests. DRIPA is its mandate. It’s been making covert agreements with specific Aboriginal groups over specific territories. These agreements promise Aboriginal title and/or grant Aboriginal management rights over land use. In April 2024, an agreement with the Haida Council recognized Haida title and jurisdiction over Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off the B.C. coast formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. Eby has said that the agreement is a template for what’s possible “in other places in British Columbia, and also in Canada.” He is putting title and control of B.C. into Aboriginal hands.

But it’s not just David Eby. The Richmond decision from the B.C. Supreme Court had nothing to do with B.C. legislation. It was a predictable result of years of Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) jurisprudence under Section 35 of the Constitution. That section guarantees “existing” Aboriginal and treaty rights as of 1982. But the SCC has since championed, evolved and enlarged those rights. Legislatures can fix their own statutes, but they cannot amend Section 35 or override judicial interpretation, even using the “notwithstanding clause.”

Meanwhile, on yet another track, Aboriginal rights are expanding under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. On the same day as the B.C. Court of Appeal decision on UNDRIP, the Federal Court released two judgments. The federal government has an actionable duty to Aboriginal groups to provide housing and drinking water, the court declared. Taxpayer funded, of course.

One week later, at the other end of the country, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal weighed in. In a claim made by Wolastoqey First Nation for the western half of the province, the court said that Aboriginal title should not displace fee simple title of private owners. Yet it confirmed that a successful claim would require compensation in lieu of land. Private property owners or taxpayers, take your pick.

Like the proverb says, make yourself into a doormat and someone will walk all over you. Obsequious devotion to reconciliation has become a pathology of Canadian character. It won’t end well.

Bruce Dowbiggin

The Rise Of The System Engineer: Has Canada Got A Prayer in 2026?

Published on January 2, 2026

Bruce Dowbiggin

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.” C.S. Lewis

One of the aims of logical positivism has been Boomers’ quest to kill Western religion and the pursuit of faith in order to make room for the state. Symbols are banned. Churches are burned. Infidels are rewarded. Esoteric faith systems applauded. Yet, as 2026 dawns, it appears that, not only is traditional religion not dead, it might just be making a comeback with younger generations who’ve grown skeptical of their parents’ faux religion of self.

How? In an age of victim status, traditional religion is suddenly a cuddly TikTok puppy. Hard to imagine that the force that spread imperialism and war across the globe for centuries being a victim. But yes. Only Christians and Jews are singled out for censure In Carney’s Canada The zeal to repeal God has backfired. Faith is off the canvas and punching back. (And we are NOT talking about the Woke pope.)

The purveyors of “old-time religion” will still find themselves facing a determined opponent well on the way to moral inversion. And a compliant population. As blogger Melanie in Saskatchewan points out, “Canadians were sold a calm, competent adult in the room. What they got was an unelected system engineer quietly converting moral claims into financial constraints. This is not leadership. It is non-consensual governance.

The freedoms that make dissent possible are being used to hollow out dissent. The protections meant to guard against abuse are being used to avoid scrutiny. And the law—stripped of its moral imagination—is asked to do what it cannot: resolve psychic conflict through paperwork.”

The sophistry of the superior class demands submission. C.S. Lewis warned of this inversion in God In The Dock. “To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

In Canada that compliant class has embraced Mark Carney as the great stabilizer. “Canadians keep asking the wrong question about Mark Carney,” says blogger Melanie in Saskatchewan. “They keep asking whether he is a good politician. That is like asking whether a locksmith is a good interior decorator.

Carney is not here to govern. He is here to re-engineer the operating system of the country while the Liberal Party provides the helpful stage props and applause track. And judging by how little scrutiny this government receives, the audience seems perfectly content to clap at whatever is placed in front of them, provided it comes with soothing words like “stability,” “resilience,” and “the experts agree”.

Adds Dr. Andrea Wagner, Canadians “hide behind procedure. Behind policy. Behind institutions. Behind NDAs. Behind committees, processes, protocols. Behind phrases like “we’re reviewing this internally” and “that’s beyond my authority.” They hide behind the pretense of empathy while quietly perpetuating injustice. They hide behind performative busy-ness: “I wish I had time,” “I’m swamped,” “I’ve been unwell.” There is enormous power in powerlessness—and Canadians wield it masterfully.”

The problem, says Melanie in Saskatchewan, is not that Mark Carney in full power is incompetent. The problem is that he is extremely competent at something Canadians never actually consented to. Technocrats redesign the machinery so that the outcome becomes inevitable. No messy debate. No inconvenient voters. No public reckoning. Just “the framework,” “the model,” “the standard,” and eventually the quiet conclusion that there is “no alternative.”

And this is precisely the world Mark Carney comes from. ”He did not rise through grassroots politics or party service. He rose through central banks, global finance institutions, and elite climate-finance bodies that speak fluent acronym and consider democracy an optional inconvenience. The man does not campaign. He architects.”

While the Conservative Party of Canada still polls evenly with the Liberals they are playing a different game, one they— with their traditional tactics— are not wired to win in a battle of systems with Carney. This cringeworthy “Keep It Up” endorsement of Carney by former CPC leader Erin O’Toole speaks to why they are further from power than ever.

The manufactured crisis over indigenous Rez school graves illustrates the method. “To call out intimidation or dehumanization is to risk being reframed as the aggressor. The person who names harm becomes the disturbance; the one who weaponizes grievance becomes the protected party. Justice no longer asks what happened, only who claims injury first. This is not accidental. It is the logical endpoint of a culture that has confused victimhood with virtue and pain with authority.

Suffering, once something to be alleviated, has become something to be curated. Identity now precedes evidence; accusation outruns inquiry. The system does not ask whether harm is real or proportional—only whether it can be procedurally contained. And containment, I am learning, is often preferred to truth.”

There are still some who believe there remains a way out of this. Here’s Paul Wells on Substack with a valid conclusion— which most sentient people reached by the end of Trudeau’s first term. “Canada has spent too long thinking of itself as a warehouse for the world instead of designing and building for itself. It’s time for a shared mindset of ambition quality and real investment in physical and human capital so Canadians become Canada’s designers and builders of livable cities rather than bystanders to our own future.”

But it’s hard to square that with the gap Carney’s already has. “The tragedy is that the Liberal Party is perfectly happy to hand (Carney) the country and then scold the public for noticing. If Canadians want a future where choices are still made by voters instead of algorithms and advisory panels, they are going to have to stop applauding this performance and start asking the one question that truly terrifies technocrats and their obedient political enablers.”

This system monolith taking over life is why the abrasive, defiant Donald Trump emerged. Vast segments of America employ him to defy the EU scolds with their censorship regimes. His defiance is categorical— which is why it frightens Canadians. The man from Mitch & Murray delivered a few truths to them and they soiled themselves. Paradise will never be the same!. Bad Trump! But an almost-octogenarian has little runway left himself. Who can continue the resistance to the Carney system engineers?

In the past organized religion was a refuge from the maelstrom of the secular storm. There was comfort in the message. Thus, the Liberals’ current need to destroy faith. So the epidemic of churches burned is ignored. The intrusive demonstrations of militant Islam are tolerated. (Carney says Muslim virtues are Canadian virtues.) History is re-written. Heroes debunked.

If Soviet Russia is any indication, the traditional faiths can survive and act as a bulwark against the technocrats— if they find their Pope John Paul II.. The Catholic and Orthodox faiths furnished a way out from behind the Iron Curtain. As organizations not co-opted by the state in the West religions can provide a moral backbone to expose and defeat the secular globalists.

Whether you are a believer or not they provide a pushback to restore the moral clarity C.S. described. It’s not too late as 2026 dawns. But if nothing is done in the West — if Canada accepts EU censorship and global ID— then writing this column in 2027 could well be defined as a criminal act.

“That which you most need will be found where you least want to look.” Carl Jung

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his 2025 book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books at https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1069802700