Monday, Stephen Harper proudly descended from his Olympus of former Prime Minister eternally in reserve of the Republic. On Twitter, he published a video where he supports his dolphin Pierre Poilievre in the leadership campaign of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).
In doing so, he voluntarily torpedoed Jean Charest’s already faltering campaign. Like Jarnac’s blow to the former Premier of Quebec, it is difficult to do more devious.
It must be said that Mr. Harper has never done in lace. We also knew that he prefers Poilievre, his protege from the same Alberta hard right. His output is none the less spectacularly inelegant.
For Jean Charest, it’s the coup de grace. He therefore limited himself to saying that Stephen Harper was making a “personal” choice. The reality is that Mr. Charest knows very well that this choice is political and ideological.
Just as he knows that for a substantial part of the Conservative troops, this papal bull of Mr. Harper, the former founder of the PCC – fusion between the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party – automatically becomes a word of gospel.
Pitbull hyper-partisan
Obviously, on form, the dominant “Harperian” wing is also looking for a hyper-partisan Poilievre-style pit bull who, according to it, would be able to politically undress the Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.
Pierre Poilievre, a mock-Trumpian, easily swaps debates of ideas for invective once morest his opponents. Starting with Jean Charest, his main rival for the leadership.
For Mr. Poilievre and his followers – including the truckers of the so-called “freedom convoy” – Jean Charest’s mortal sin is to have been leader of the former Conservative “progressives”, and leader of the Liberals in Quebec.
Jean Charest would thus lean too much to the “left” of the ideological chessboard. Like what the ridiculous does not kill.
In his video, Stephen Harper praises his ex-minister Pierre Poilieve. He presents him as “the most eloquent and effective Liberal critic of Justin Trudeau in our party”. His “conservative values”, he insists as an implicit point to Jean Charest, are “solid”.
A coming schism
“That’s why,” said Mr. Harper [Poilievre] garnered strong support within the caucus and among current party members. […] This is how we will win the next federal election.”
But unless Pierre Poilievre, upon his predictable leadership victory, transforms into a purring kitten and a new centrist convert, what will await the CCP first is a schism.
Slow or fast, he will expel the remaining crumbs of the Progressive Conservative wing from the PCC, leaving all the ground to the Harperian hard right, Poilievre’s version.
Like the “back to the future” of the Canadian Alliance, but even more radicalized.
If that happens, the Liberals can rest easy. Because nothing will be further from the political reflexes of a large majority of Canadians than the aggressiveness and Trump-style populism of a Pierre Poilievre.
The election of Pierre Poilievre as head of the CCP would nonetheless confirm that Canada is not immune either to the disturbing rise of the ultra-right across the West.
