One attracts crowds in his crusade against inflation and temple guardians, the other has recruited an army of activists and donors outraged against health extremism.
One wants to lead the Conservative Party of Canada, the other imposed the Conservative Party of Quebec.
Pierre Poilievre and Éric Duhaime are not in the lace.
They arouse mistrust and reprobation. Are they changing the political landscape?
Trump light ?
This is the accusation heard a thousand times.
By their opposition to health measures and their support for truckers, Éric Duhaime and Pierre Poilievre would try to import Trumpism into Canada.
It’s easy. It hits. It demonizes.
Admittedly, like Donald Trump, these Canadian and Quebec populists are fed up with a section of society that is at odds with the dominant evangelicalism.
However, they did not adopt the toxic faults of the former American president.
We are a thousand leagues from « drain the swamp »xenophobia, corruption and the frontal attack on democracy.
Moreover, neither question the constitutional order or our charters of rights and freedoms.
No. Éric Duhaime and Pierre Poilievre disturb because they tackle the sacred cows in an uninhibited way.
Legacy of COVID
Does Quebec’s COVID record justify having imposed the strictest health measures for so long?
Was it reasonable to impose compulsory vaccination on teleworking civil servants and truck drivers?
It is enlightening that suddenly asking these questions is no longer heresy, as it was nine months ago.
Faced with the repeated failures of the pandemic, should we dare to rethink the place of private healthcare?
Didn’t the Trudeau government and the policies of the Bank of Canada contribute to the scourge of inflation?
Is city bureaucracy complicit in the lack of new housing built each year?
These are the issues raised by our populists of the day.
We are far from the call for the insurrection of January 6, 2021 by Donald Trump and the identity extremism of Marine Le Pen.
Simplism
Go for the bottom. As for the form, it is something else.
It is there, the risk of Poilievre and Duhaime.
Criticizing the Bank of Canada’s timid response to inflation is one thing.
Blaming it for being led by financial illiterates, as Pierre Poilievre does, is another.
To be indignant against confinements and the extension of the wearing of the mask is one thing.
Recruiting a “star candidate” for whom the “vaccine is shit”, as Éric Duhaime did, is another.
Indignation mobilizes. Simplistic solutions are reassuring. This is the easy part of the equation.
Denouncing the failures of governing elites is absolutely legitimate in a democracy.
It is still necessary to do it without undermining its foundations. Therein lies the challenge.
It’s a bit like playing with fire.
Now that they have lit the flame, Pierre Poilievre and Éric Duhaime must demonstrate that they are capable of handling it without getting burned and setting it on fire.