Poilievre won’t back down on memorial

Why consider the facts when you’re always right?

Pierre Poilievre in full flight is a wonder of politics. Tie tightly knotted, dark, thick hair parted on a knife edge, he has the poise and bearing of an éminence grise.

At 36 — Wednesday is his birthday — Poilievre has more lessons to learn than impart, but that’s created no self-doubt.

To high office, Poilievre brings little experience and little empathy. Every party has its upstarts.

None is encumbered by personal misgiving. Poilievre, for example, dismisses serious reservations over the Fair Elections Act from current and former chief electoral officers and the former auditor general. He brazenly denies his use of “vanity videos.”

There is nothing Poilievre won’t do or say in support of this government, which seems to be why he’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s designated hitter, responsible, curiously, for “democratic reform.”

His view is always right. Oh, he has apologized — once for foul language and bad behaviour in a parliamentary committee — but remorse isn’t his way.

After all, when you’re 36, you think you’ve been everywhere and done everything. Historically, at that age, some have. At 36, Jack Kennedy was a senator, a congressman, a decorated veteran and a bestselling author. At 36, Winston Churchill was a soldier, minister, renowned journalist and international celebrity.

Amid achievement, there was self-confidence but humility. Poilievre is all self-confidence.

Consider his fanatical defence of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. Amid evidence (a raft of urban plans and architectural studies), amid public opposition (a poll showing overwhelming resistance), amid official appeals (city council’s motion against the location of the memorial), Poilievre gives no quarter.

He’ll fight in the benches of Parliament. He’ll fight on the fairgrounds of Nepean-Carleton. He’ll never reconsider.

“I have talked to many people in my constituency,” he says. “I haven’t found anyone who wants yet another government building full of lawyers to destroy beautiful green space in downtown Ottawa.” Let us pause here, for a moment. He hasn’t found “anyone” who wants “yet another government building.” Did he take a poll? A scientific measure of public opinion, accurate 19 times out of 20, within a narrow margin of error? May we have the numbers, minister? And that building, did you describe its purpose? Did you pronounce “government” dripping with the contempt you reserve for labour unions?

Did you say — and this is critical — that “the building” was to be the new home of the Federal Court of Canada, near the Supreme Court of Canada and the Department of Justice. And that as well as lawyers — an easy target these days, along with senators — there would be judges working there, too?

And, minister, did you mention the building was to be named after Pierre Elliott Trudeau? Did you know he was a lawyer, a professor of law and architect of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which your government refused to celebrate on its 30th anniversary?

The Conservatives don’t like the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, which has ruled against their ill-considered legislation.

Of course, the overwhelming case against a flawed memorial doesn’t matter. Nor do arguments in defence of national institutions or against a selective reading of Canadian history.

For Poilievre, it’s just another day in our low, dishonest decade of politics.