Carson Jerema: Trudeau Liberals settle on campaign tactics — lies

Liberal backbenchers who tried to stage a coup against Justin Trudeau’s leadership have been demanding a clear plan on how to stop the party’s collapse in the polls and prevent Pierre Poilievre’s ascension to government. It is something they’ve been clamouring for since the Liberals lost two byelections and the NDP tore up the confidence agreement it had with the party. And now we know what that plan looks like: lies. Lies of omission, distortion and complete fabrication about the Conservative leader.

The tone has gone beyond simple Liberal self-righteousness, and into the realm of alternate reality, even by the standards of this chronically truth-allergic government.

Speaking to reporters after a caucus meeting Wednesday, backbench MP Adam van Koeverden showed that Liberal party messaging was indeed heading towards the absurd.

“What I am focused on is beating Pierre Poilievre in the next federal election,” he said, reiterating a common deflection, before, adding, “He poses an existential threat to Canada’s democracy in my view.”

Come again?

What evidence would there be that Poilievre “poses an existential threat” to democracy? Koeverden didn’t offer any. Liberals are so desperate to be Americans that they are borrowing language directly from the U.S. Democratic party about Donald Trump.

Now, such language might make sense south of the border, as Trump did try to overturn an election he clearly lost, and his supporters rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

But against Poilievre? What evidence is there? That he wants to cut taxes and get inflation under control?

The Liberals have tried for months to tie Poilievre to Trump, or to imply he is some sort of dictator in waiting, but rarely have they so directly said he will overturn democracy.

It is a complete fabrication, but one that plays into the Liberal belief that any vote for a different party is by nature undemocratic. They are what economist Thomas Sowell calls the “annointed,” or as the National Review put it, “promoters of a worldview concocted out of fantasy impervious to any real-world considerations.”

Liberals, and progressives more generally, can’t seem to fathom that there would be people out there who think differently.

Koeverden’s comment expressing a fantasy about standing against fascism was merely among the latest examples of what is clearly how the Liberals think they can chip away at Poilievre’s support.

The day before, Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks posted on X, that: “Without a doubt the Leader of the Conservatives will use the Notwithstanding Clause to take away women’s reproductive rights.”

Pardon? “Without a doubt” Polievre would “take away” “reproductive rights” using the notwithstanding clause? Again, there is no evidence for this. Poilievre has said his government would not bring legislation restricting abortion, and he certainly hasn’t said he’d use the notwithstanding clause to do something he already doesn’t want to.

If Saks has information the rest of us don’t, she should release it. But, of course, like Koeverden, she is just making it up.

She did include in her post that Poilievre has “voted to restrict women’s abortion rights time and time again,” but she did not explain exactly what those times were or what legislation she is referring to.

Usually, when those in favour of unrestricted access to abortion claim that Conservatives will take away those rights, the only evidence they cite to support their claims is that Poilievre has voted for legislation that acknowledged that pregnant women were in fact pregnant. One private member’s bill he supported would have ensured that knowingly assaulting a pregnant woman would be “considered aggravating circumstances for sentencing purposes.” Poilievre also voted for a bill that would have made it a crime to cause “the death of an unborn child while committing an offence” against a pregnant woman.

Twisting proposed bills like these to suggest support for them means support for restricting abortion is not based in truth. Perhaps there is a bill I’ve missed from the past 20 years, but if there is, the Liberals are free to remind us about it.

In any case, a government wouldn’t even need to use the notwithstanding clause to regulate abortion. When the previous abortion law was struck down, the Supreme Court did not rule that no abortion law would be constitutional, only that the specific law in front of it was not. In fact, the court acknowledged that legislating protections for the fetus was an entirely appropriate role for the House of Commons.

But facts, history and logic, do not matter in politics, especially among Liberals.

This elevated attack on the Conservatives comes after the government began embracing conspiracy theories being spread online from Trudeau supporters, which claim, without evidence, that the reason that Poilievre has not received a security clearance to be briefed about foreign interference is because he would not be able to pass.

While there is nothing to back up this claim, it is being peddled daily by Liberal MPs. For example, MP Ryan Turnbull said in the House, Thursday: “You know what else is spooky is that the Conservative leader refuses to get his security clearance to protect Canadians against foreign interference. I can only speculate, he must be concerned about the ghosts in his closet.”

The Conservative lead in the polls has been as high as 20 points in recent weeks, and without assured support from the NDP, it is possible there could be an election soon.

Panic has set it and whatever principles Liberals had left have been tossed out.

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