Less than a month after winning the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre is leading the polls as Canada’s choice for prime minister.Yes, and this was a real poll conducted by Global News, not one of those online surveys that are about as informative as calling up your friends and family to take the pulse of the nation. .The poll says Poilievre is the choice of 35% of Canadians for prime minister while Justin Trudeau, who currently holds that position, came in second with 31%. These latest results come as another poll put the CPC five points ahead of the governing Liberals. .It's been an effective month for Poilievre and a dismal period for Trudeau. Since Parliament resumed, Trudeau spent much of his time abroad — auditioning as a piano bar singer in London — and meeting with foreign leaders. When he bothered to attend Question Period, he appeared sluggish, been tethered to dust-laden talking points that seem glaringly out of sync with reality and been bested by Poilievre House exchanges. .There was a famous incident in 1979 when Sen. Ted Keddy (D-MA) was gearing up his presidential campaign to bring down his fellow Democratic president, Jimmy Carter. Carter of course was knee-deep in inflation, urban crime and bad hair days and Kennedy was the heir apparent to brothers John and Robert — just biding his time to take the White House back. In an overall tough interview, veteran CBS journalist Roger Mudd threw Kennedy what should have been an easy, softball question, asking him why he wanted to be president. You’d think Kennedy would have been rehearsing that one for a decade or more. But there was a long pregnant pause, before Kennedy could even begin to respond and not answer the question..From that moment on, the campaign was over for Kennedy. .I’m not sure if any of Trudeau’s uber-friendly journalists on Parliament Hill asked him that same question, the prime minister wouldn’t stutter and stammer with his answer. It’s clear, he’s lost his way, heading a desultory government that seems intent upon bringing back the good old days of COVID-19 lockdowns when everything made sense for these Liberals. .So should we be surprised Poilievre is no longer scary to Canadians and is now their first choice to lead them? What about all that blather from the Toronto Star and CBC during the CPC leadership campaign that Poilievre might be acceptable to the backwards party grassroots, but enlightened voters would mark him as a dangerous politician who was going to take the country in a horrible direction that might just shock the Ottawa and Toronto elite. .Looks like the legacy media were lying to us — as usual.First, they told us he was the wrong choice for leader when you had someone like former Quebec Premier Jean Charest to keep the CPC operating like a Liberal clone. I don’t know how many columns I saw or tried to read about how Poilievre was going to ensure another Liberal dynasty — especially from those Red Tories who are now sycophantically praising Poilievre as a political gift from God. .Only one-third of Canadians think Trudeau should stay in office, according to another poll. I’m betting that probably reflects the number of MPs in the Liberal caucus who think he should stay on and propose policies that are difficult-to-impossible to sell at the constituency level. .As September comes to a close today, it's becoming unlikely Trudeau will call an autumn election. He never stays in Canada long enough to do so.However, as the walls continue to close in, expect him to get desperate because he might not know what he wants to do as prime minister, but he sure likes the perks of the job.
