By Kevin Guo
Amidst the confusion, disruption, and calamities produced by the American administration, the helm of Canada deserves safe and steady hands. In the upcoming federal parliamentary election, Canadians will decide between qualifications and rhetorics; success and mediocrity; glorious sovereignty and wretched annexation.
This election is presidential in all but name
This election is presidential in all but name: the popular focus rests not on local candidates, nor parties, nor specific platforms and principles, but on the fitness of two candidates for the chief executive. Who do we find in Mark Carney? He is an intellectual who, by sheer talent and diligence, earned prestige and respect at Harvard, Oxford, and the wider academia; an economist who, having emerged as the most perspicacious Central Banker during the 2008 Financial Crisis, became the first foreigner to lead the Bank of England and weathered the Brexit storm; an entrepreneur whose successful career is made more admirable by an unwavering commitment to progressivism.
On the other hand, Mr. Poilievre, though an honorable man, first acquired recognition as the “attack dog” of Stephen Harper’s government, and emerged as one of the fiercest defenders of all the corruption, deceit, and cruelty of which that government was accused; having ever since remained a Member of Parliament, his has devoted his considerable ability to the debased dealing of politics, the meaningless maneuvers in the hollow Commons halls, and the manipulation of popular opinion through bombastic rhetorics. His unfortunate record is only compounded by a compromising attitude towards the reactionary ideologies of American Republicans, the harm of whose foolish beliefs the world has lately experienced.
We are in no ordinary times.
In ordinary times, the proper functioning of democracy would have necessitated a change of government, and excused Mr. Poilievre’s failing. But we are in no ordinary times. While division and poverty besiege us at home, the Americans conspire unimaginable menace abroad. Our miserable productivity and growth demand exceptional economic expertise, to the command of which Mark Carney’s governorship and entrepreneurial accomplishments lay the most convincing claim. The wild designs of a treacherous ally, who has traded the integrity of liberal democracy for mercenary gains, can only be shattered by credible leadership incompatible with the inflammatory rhetorics of Mr. Poilievre. The leadership of one would bring knowledge and experience to the reinvigoration of the national spirit; the election of another would taint the office with ambition and cynicism.
Mr. Poilievre has bathed himself in the violent wave of populism that has dominated the Western world. On immigration, diversity, and taxation, he had sat on the bandwagon that stormed Donald Trump to the White House. The most ardent adherents of conservative dogma appear in his list of acquaintances. Only recently, the electoral backlash has forced him to denounce his past friends, and sever cherished ties both personal and political. But can we be sure? Can any reasonable man assert that Mr. Poilievre, if elected, would not immediately unveil the thin disguise of patriotism, resume his previously obvious admiration for Donald Trump, and, together with the separatists in Alberta, embark on the disintegration of Canada as we know it? I concede that this is no probable scenario; but Mr. Poilievre’s records make it possible. The mere possibility of annexation into an insignificant and submissive province, under the racist, backward, and crude yoke of Donald Trump, must alarm us to the most consequential decision of our times.