Poilievre, Jivani, And Our Increasingly Disloyal Opposition

It’s been a hell of a weekend, eh?

In the spirit of my critics, I’ve not written about Friday night’s collapse in trade talks till today for a reason - I wanted to give theAmericans to see if they could agree on a strategy, or at least a press line. Now that we seem to have it - Canada wants the benefits of statehood without the obligations - we can know the story pretty well.

There’s an interesting story in how long it took Trump to come out and be fiesty, and how much approval Lutnick had from Trump before he seemingly fucked the deal on Friday night is unclear. There’s also the fact that there are byelections next week that this weekend’s events probably helped with - especially in Chicoutimi, where the LPC narrowly lead in my model and where Standing Up To Attacks On French will play well. All of this is, to some extent, relevant. But I keep coming back to one thing as we see the events of the last weekend unfold.

Jamil Jivani wants to be the next Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and yet I don’t think there’s a less apt word for the soon-to-be ex-MP for Bowmanville-Oshawa North is acting these days. Jivani is selling out his country, and every day Poilievre lets him sit in caucus is a day he enables treachery.

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There are plenty of people who have acted, in my view, in an unhelpful way the last week or so. I think Wab Kinew’s characterization of Carney as begging the Premiers - later contradicted - was dickish, and I think those arguing for the release of the draft text are morons whose idea would dramatically undermine any negotiations, whenever they restart in whatever form that may be. I disagree vehemently with the idea that counter tariffs should be avoided due to the economic pain, as Trevor Tombe has suggested, nor am I quite there with others saying we need to dump US Treasuries today. But I don’t think anybody in the above is anti-Canada, or fighting against our best interest. And yet, I do with Jivani, for a simple reason; every other person in this saga can make a case in good faith that they’re advocating what they believe is the best thing for Canada. I think they’re wrong, but I think they’re acting in good faith.

Jivani is clearly not putting Canada’s interests first. He never has, from when he gave an interview to Breitbart about how Canadians are throwing a hissy fit over the 51st State comments and tariffs to now, when he had a self aggrandizing statement out and a media interview ready within 24 hours of the talks collapsing after months of quiet. His argument - that America’s allowed to attack us but we shouldn’t hit back because it’ll “accelerate” their efforts to attack again - belongs in a textbook outlining various methods of psychological abuse, not an actual proposal for Canadian governance.

It would be a bad enough argument in a vacuum, but Jivani’s history with Vance makes it unacceptable. Assuming Democrats flip North Carolina, they have 47 Senate seats that can pretty safely be placed on their side of the ledger. Arguably their next four best chances of victory? Michigan, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska - four states highly integrated with the Canadian economy and for whom these tariffs will continue to be a disaster, at least in the short term. Canada refusing to retaliate would be great for the political fortunes of Dan Sullivan and Susan Collins, which is in turn great for the political fortunes of the Trump/Vance administration. Is he doing it because of Vance? I don’t know what’s in his heart, but he has more anger for Canadians being attacked than our attackers and his fantasy football buddy called Poilievre a nobody and Canada a state in the last 96 hours.

Poilievre’s tolerance of this is cowardice, even if we know why he’s doing it. Poilievre knows his base is psychotically pro-Trump, so standing up for his country and not getting fired becomes a hard puzzle to juggle. So he lets the MP for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue get away with whatever he wants, because he doesn’t have the courage to do what everybody knows is right and fight back against his critics. If I were an asshole, I’d suggest that if Poilievre is too much of a coward to push back on Jivani he is certainly not the right person to push back on Trump.

Oh wait, I am, and Poilievre’s cowardice is disqualifying from ever being PM.

But this has to be about Jivani, because at the end of the day being in Opposition, or opposition, to the sitting government is one of the deepest and most sacrosanct acts you can do in a democracy. It is about caring about your country enough to stand up against its government, to passionately argue for what they believe their people need. It is one of the most noble and important roles, and we have long had a tradition of protecting the importance of that tradition. When we had an actual, unabashed traitor in the job of Opposition Leader, Jean Chretien made sure to give Preston Manning all of the trappings of Opposition in the House, and to include him when appropriate, despite the technical lack of legal requirement. But right now we don’t have an Opposition based around Canada’s best interests.

This is not that. Jivani is acting in a way seemingly designed to protect the interests of the American Administration, while leaving Canadians high and dry. Whether he is actively seeking to do their bidding or just a useful idiot, I neither know nor care. Jivani cannot continue to be a Conservative in good standing, or the Conservatives will have disgraced themselves to the status of a disloyal opposition.