Amy Hamm: Canada needs Poilievre’s confident post-woke nationalism

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Forget about that crunchy apple he ate in an orchard once: Pierre Poilievre’s hyper-nationalist rebranding, unveiled at last weekend’s Canada First Rally in Ottawa, is pitch perfect. Or so Conservatives should hope.  

The biggest uncertainty — and threat — for any potential prime minister who’s riding high in national polls is a lengthy wait for the writ to drop. Anything could go wrong during the interim. 

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For Poilievre and the Conservatives, who’ve been unofficially campaigning for more than a year, many things have. Principally: U.S. President Donald Trump and his decision to play Mean Girl with our country, which stings all the more after a decade of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s divisive, woke rhetoric and claims that Canada is a genocidal post-nation state.

Even before Trump’s tariff and annexation threats, Poilievre was faced with Liberals and left-wingers accusing him of being a “Maple MAGA” or a “mini MAGA,” or some starry-eyed fan and copy-cat of the so-called Orange Man. Any conservative talking point or promise of Poilievre’s was no longer deemed “conservative,” but Trumpian. The comparisons held real potential to turn Canadian politics into a zero-sum game in favour of the Liberal party. 

It was from these equivalences which stemmed the notion that Poilievre is not the leader Canada needs to stare down — and negotiate our way through — the looming American threat. Poilievre’s detractors have been frenzied with these attacks. How could Trump’s wannabe sidekick save our country? Liberal leadership hopeful Chrystia Freeland couldn’t resist, either: “Pierre Poilievre is not the guy who can do it. He is maple syrup MAGA. All he wants to do is imitate Trump. And I don’t think Canadians trust him to stand up to Trump,” she said in a recent CTV interview. 

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Well, Poilievre has now decisively proved that this is not the case. He is the one our country needs during this sovereignty crisis. 

“We are mild mannered and made of steel. So let me be clear: We will never be the 51st state. We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country,” Poilievre avowed at his overfilled rally this past Saturday.   

“In the words of our great first prime minister, Conservatives will fight, and I quote, ‘to give us a great, a united, a rich, an improving, a developing Canada — instead of making us a tributary to American laws, American railways, American bondage, and American tolls.’ That is the rich Conservative legacy to Canada. Deliberately resisting American annexation for hundreds of years. Now more than ever: we owe this country, we love this country, and we will fight every day and every way to pass down to our kids the blessings we inherited from those who came before us,” said Poilievre.  

More than once, Poilievre reminded the crowd that Canada’s founding political party — the party of Confederation — is the Conservative Party. He spoke of a vision for Canada where we are the richest nation, with the most self-reliant economy, on Earth — with or without what Trudeau adorably calls an American friendship. He spoke of building monuments to honour the Fathers of Confederation and the Canadians who fought and died in Afghanistan — and new criminal code provisions to punish those who “tear down or deface” them.  

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It was a lot. Heavy handed, at times. But so is Trump. And so were the failures of the Trudeau government that have led us to our current state — lacking a national identity, with a pitiful economy, and under threat from our closest ally. 

This moment of crisis in Canada calls for a new nationalism, and the one presented by Poilievre fits him like a tailored suit. 

The Liberals, by contrast, are pulling Canadian flags out of the back of their closets like a pair of wide-leg jeans from the 70s that are suddenly back in style. But they’ve put on 20 pounds and the zipper won’t budge. We saw what regard they hold for our flag when they maintained it as a symbol of bigotry — and even fascism — both during and long after the trucker convoy came to Ottawa. They are no patriots.  

During Poilievre’s speech, on the topic of life sentences for fentanyl traffickers, the Conservative leader said: “I’m not doing this for him.” Him, of course, meaning President Trump, who has demanded Canada stem the flow of fentanyl across our shared border. He is doing it for Canada. “For Canada first, always and forever,” he said. 

We won’t know, until future polls close, just how many Canadians believe him. 

Trudeau’s post-nationalism is dead — and a post-woke nationalism is here to replace it, if we’ll allow it.

National Post

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