ADAMS: Poilievre is not the safe bet Canada wants, and he certainly isn't what we need

Canadians do not need another lecture from Justin Trudeau to know that his leadership has failed. Even Liberal voters admit it. A recent CTV News poll shows that the majority of voters who still plan to vote Liberal in 2025 are doing so for one reason only: fear. Not enthusiasm. Not hope. Fear of Pierre Poilievre.

That should tell Canadians everything they need to know.

It is an indictment of the Conservative leader and the divisive, unserious politics he has imported into Canada. Instead of offering a principled, liberty-focused alternative to a tired Liberal government, Pierre Poilievre has chosen culture-war theatrics borrowed straight from his friends in the PPC.

Take his latest fixation: transgender Canadians. Poilievre has leaned into the dangerous and deliberately misleading language of “biological males,” suggesting that transgender women should be barred from women's washrooms and sports. This is not policy. It is provocation. And it puts real people at risk.

“Female spaces should be exclusively for females... Female sports, female change rooms, female bathrooms should be for females, not for biological males.” Poilievre told reporters at a news conference Wednesday

If Poilievre is merely posturing, then he is recklessly playing with public fear for political gain. If he is serious, then Canadians are entitled to ask a very basic question: how exactly does he intend to enforce this? Identity checks at washrooms? Government-mandated inspections? Papers to exist in public?

This is authoritarian nonsense.

Canadians should also be deeply alarmed by the irony of a career politician—who has never lived outside politics—claiming authority over women's spaces. Women do not need paternalistic protection from the state. They need freedom, autonomy, and equal treatment under the law. The same political movement that claims to “protect women” is often the first to police their bodies, their clothing, their relationships, and their reproductive choices.

This pattern is not accidental. Poilievre has never reckoned with his own history of misogynistic rhetoric. He has never apologized. And now, he is doubling down.

The hypocrisy does not end there. Poilievre, who spent years grandstanding about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms during the pandemic, now supports internet ID requirements to view legal adult content. This is a direct assault on privacy and free expression. Either the Charter matters, or it doesn't. You cannot defend it when it suits you and abandon it when it becomes inconvenient.

Canadians have seen this playbook before. In the United States, similar “protect the children” rhetoric has been used to justify censorship, surveillance, and state intrusion into private life, while doing nothing to actually protect anyone.

Poilievre's record is one of half-truths, evasions, and manufactured outrage. From dismissing Ukraine as a “far away foreign land,” to alienating LGBTQ Canadians, to offering no meaningful accomplishments from nearly two decades as Carleton's MP, Canadians are left with a simple question: what has Pierre Poilievre actually done besides collect a taxpayer-funded salary, pension, and residence?

When controversy arises, he hedges. When leadership is required, he postures. And when principle is demanded, he defaults to slogans.

Canadians deserve better than Justin Trudeau. But they also deserve better than Pierre Poilievre.

If history is any guide, the Conservative Party will eventually realize this. And when it does, it will move on from Poilievre faster than it did from Scheer or O'Toole. Unfortunately, the damage to the party—and to public trust—will take years to undo.

Canada does not need more division. It needs leadership grounded in liberty, responsibility, and equal treatment under the law.

Right now, neither major party is offering that.

This piece is an archival work of the author, originally published elsewhere, and is presented here for historical record. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of the Provincial Times. Read our Content Policy here.