Back on February 7, Catherine Tait, the head of the CBC, was interviewed by the Globe and Mail. You know, the CBC, that left wing, woke, in Justin’s back pocket organization that the Conservative Party of Canada loves to hate?
In the interview, she criticized the Conservatives call to defund the CBC as a “slogan”. From the interview:
Ms. Tait hit back at the Conservative campaign to strip the CBC of public subsidy, saying its “defund the CBC” campaign was a tactic to solicit donations. “They have an online fundraising campaign, which very specifically says ‘We’ll save you a billion dollars, please send in $20.’ ”
Pierre Poilievre, the leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, was hurt, dismayed, shattered and otherwise grumpy over Ms. Tait’s claims. He accused her of launching a partisan attack on him, that she was “not even pretending to be unbiased” based on her remarks in the Globe.
Well, duh. Attack the president of any organization, crown corporation or otherwise and it behooves said president to fight back. Mr. Poilievre should know that if he yells, “Defund the CBC”, the CBC is going to make a claim of blatant political pandering.
What else did he do? He tweeted that the CBC, a “$1.2-billion corporation is a mouthpiece for Justin Trudeau,”, and linked the tweet to a Conservative Party fundraising drive. In other words, he did exactly what Ms. Tait says he does when it comes to the CBC.
Mr. Poilievre practices "followship". "Leadership" is having a vision and policies for the direction of the country. "Followship" is finding wedge issues for his base (e.g. CBC is a waste of taxpayer money), craft a story around that issue, (defund the CBC), then fundraise based on that issue. It's a page right out of U.S. Republican politics. There's no vision here, and there's no policy for the country. Just an issue that can make his base angry. The base sets the agenda, not the leader. The leader follows.
I’m not sure how seriously anyone can take Mr. Poilievre. It would likely be a mistake to underestimate him. He’s learned a few things over the years. He’s been a professional politician since 2004. One to watch, and not in a good way.
Winter's not over yet.
