Date of publication: 29 Apr 2022 • 2 hours ago • 3 minutes reading • 134 Comments Pierre Poilier’s hope for the Conservative Party leadership was photographed this week before an appearance at the Centennial Youth Arena in Brockville. Photo by RONALD ZAJAC / The Recorder and Times
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As Pierre Poilievre’s star continues to rise in the Conservative leadership race, there are rumors among Canada’s non-conservative circles that the only way to stop the 42-year-old’s momentum may be to respond to his “loud” messages about affordability. “Without the electoral imagination to understand why people would vote for Poilievre, it would be difficult for the Liberals to convince people why they should not,” veteran Liberal General Andrew Tumilty wrote in a recent column for the Toronto Star. “Beyond the rhetoric, Poilievre is talking about housing, affordable prices, inflation and freedom,” Tumilty added. An Abacus poll conducted after the start of Poilievre’s campaign found that his general messages about affordable prices resonated with both NDP and Liberal voters – especially young people. In particular, 51 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 said they would consider voting for a Conservative Party led by Poilievre.
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A recent poll of conservative students in BC similarly found Poilievre to be the clear favorite for the under-40s. Among the new Conservatives at BC’s four largest universities, 77.6 percent supported Poilievre. OFFICIAL: Results of our BC student vote on Conservative leadership. Students at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Simon Fraser University (SFU) and the University of Victoria (UVic). I’m glad to see such enthusiasm from our young conservatives on campus! pic.twitter.com/054r3nH2qI – Connor Hollingshead (@ connorh2001) April 19, 2022
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Earlier this month, Poilievre gained widespread attention for a viral video condemning the rising cost of real estate in Vancouver and blaming “guardians” such as civil governments for stunting growth and increasing construction costs. TVO columnist John Michael McGrath, for one, reacted to the video by saying that progressives could either create an “imperative alternative message of their own” or prepare for a “Prime Minister Polyevre”. That’s probably why Poilievre has doubled the message in recent weeks. His campaign then presented proposals to suspend federal funding in municipalities “that hinder housing construction.” With so much land and so few people, owning a home in Canada should be possible, but it is far and away. As Prime Minister, I warn the guardians of the big cities: if they want all their federal funding, they have to build houses. Register, vote: pic.twitter.com/hiDFuLWv83 – Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 25, 2022
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Colin Horgan, who has worked on Liberal campaigns, wrote in a post in Medium that Poilievre’s “populist proposal” on affordable prices seemed to work, and even compared it to Justin Trudeau’s 2015 messages about the rise of the “middle class”. “The affordable price is the new middle class. And Pierre Poilievre speaks in a way that makes people want to hear. “Attention,” Horgan wrote. Poilievre’s housing proposals have won praise among liberal circles in the United States. In a recent column in the Washington Post, center-left writer Matthew Iglesias said anti-NIMBY sentiments promoted by Poilievre and others should serve as role models for US Republicans. “If federal action to discourage municipal over-regulation is good enough for the Canadian right, then it should be good enough for the American right as well,” he wrote.
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Poilievre has been at the top of every Conservative leadership poll since the start of the race and has garnered an extremely disproportionate share of official approvals. Invite all sexually active gay men: Canadian Blood Services needs you. For the first time since the AIDS crisis, “men who have sex with men” are now allowed to donate blood and plasma without the required period of celibacy. While gay men remain Canada’s disproportionately more HIV-infected population, the organization will now look at risky sexual behaviors instead of sexual orientation. Photo: The Canadian Press / Ryan Remiorz According to an Ipsos poll last week, 37 percent of Conservative voters expected Poilievre to take their party’s crown. Only 14 percent predicted victory for Poilievre’s closest rival, former Quebec Prime Minister Jean Charest. All of this is happening as the Conservative Party itself sees growing popularity. A Nanos Research poll last week found that the Conservative Party enjoys 35.6 percent support compared to 30 percent for the Liberals. This is not only one of the highest appearances for the Tories since the start of COVID-19, but it is more than enough to win the government in case the numbers endure in a general election. Even Gerald Butch, the hard-line former adviser to Prime Minister Trinto, praised the Conservative leader in a tweet on Thursday. His cryptographies are crazy banana muffins, but Poilievre’s French are fantastic. Guess which of these two things matters most in a general election. – Gerald Butts (@gmbutts) April 28, 2022
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Butts criticized Puliev’s proposals for cryptocurrencies as “crazy banana muffins”, but praised his excellent French (Pulievre grew up in a French-Albanian household). “Guess which of these two things matters most in a general election,” Butch wrote. The Ontario College of Family Physicians has launched a new advertising campaign aimed at forcing the Ontario government to address the province’s chronic shortage of GPs. Or, as this ad puts it, “your GP has no doctor there to help you grow.” Photo by Ontario College of Family Physicians Receive all this information and more in your inbox every day at 6 p.m. ET, sign up for the First Reading newsletter here.
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