Watching the CBC’s Power and Politics recently, provided a good example of how Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre uses language to manipulate and convince the uninformed. It is not just his playing fast and loose with the truth, it is the use of inflammatory words, as well linking other parties to bad outcomes.
The specific dialogue was when Poilievre was speaking on a panel with Liberal MP Rachel Pendayen from Montreal and NDP MP Daniel Blaikie from Winnipeg. Each politician gave a good account of themselves for their political party but I would argue whether they gave a good account for Canadians. They were arguing about inflation in Canada.
Poilievre was still beating the drum that says prime minister Trudeau is responsible for inflation. He even went so far as to blame Trudeau and the liberals for the seriously inflated housing prices in urban Canada. This situation has been increasingly obvious because of the neglect of the problems by both conservative and liberal federal governments since the early 1990s.
The conservative countered the argument that inflation is an international problem by blatantly saying that land prices cannot be influenced internationally because land is stationery in the country where it is located. Obviously, Poilievre was well aware of the increasing pressure on home prices in Toronto and Vancouver because of outside buyers in places such as Hong Kong moving their investments and allegiances to the safe haven of Canada over the past 30 years.
And when you consider that Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou had a choice of three mansions she owned in Vancouver for her extended holiday (fighting extradition to the United States), it was not just Hong Kong buyers contributing to the problem.
The problem with this panel is that the other two politicians were out of their depth trying to deal with Poilievre’s weasel words. The CBC and other television networks like to use Poilievre because they use him to attract viewers. It is like using a poisonous snake to attract patrons to the local zoo.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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