It’s clear that Canada’s conservatives are anxious to criticize Mark Carney‘s track record: his Undergrad degree at Harvard; his Masters and PhD theses at Oxford. They even question his time at Goldman Sachs or the Bank Of Canada, of which he eventually became Governor — later serving the same role with the Bank of England.
This week, the Conservative Party of Canada – Parti conservateur du Canada have been all over Mark Carney’s fully-costed election platform: this means a set of policies and promises for which Carney and his team have literally done the math, determining how to pay for them. He published this less than 40 days after winning the leadership race for his party.
… and of course, these are all fair game for criticism.
Here’s the problem: It’s impossible to levy the same sort of criticism toward Mr. Poilievre. Despite having been the leader of his own party for more than two years, Poilievre has NOT published a costed platform of any sort in his bid for Prime Minister. In fact, they have offered no budgetary figures to underpin their campaign promises at all.
As for his track record? Mr. Poilievre has served in Parliament for more than 20 years without authoring or whipping a single piece of legislation. And his undergraduate degree from the University of Calgary? That required no thesis or defence. Those are literally the only two entries on his curriculum vitae.
Mr. Poilievre promises change, of that vague sort that doesn’t seem to connect to specific legislative or policy initiatives that he might entertain, and if you believe that this is what he represents then you are making a clear leap of faith. But let’s not pretend that this party is following the practises and conventions of an apples-to-apples contest of policies.
In my view, Mr. Poilievre wants to be Prime Minister far more than he wants to put in the work and thought that is required for that job. Instead, he thinks that simply by assembling a creche of malcontents he can skate his way into office.
… only unlike Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre can’t actually skate.