On his Substack, Brian Lilley contrasts what the legacy media are all pushing with the actual conversation among Conservatives:
Pierre and Ana Poilievre at a Conservative leadership rally, 21 April, 2022.
Photo by Wikipageedittor099 via Wikimedia Commons.
Pierre Poilievre stood before his caucus Wednesday morning and was contrite. The Conservative leader has caused himself and his party headaches since his comments about Justin Trudeau and the RCMP on the Northern Perspective podcast last week.
Will it be enough?
Time will tell but his Conservative MPs who are upset will have forgiven him long before the media will. The stories about Conservative MPs or supporters being upset have not abated and hours before Poilievre did his mea culpa, Radio-Canada, the French wing of CBC had a story with MPs sniping at Poilievre.
Of course, none of them were on the record.
Later in the day, the rumour mill started that at least one Conservative MP, most likely a Quebec MP, would cross the floor by the end of the day. I’ll tell you from experience that when rumours start on Parliament Hill, they can take on a life of their own.
Will someone cross the floor?
Perhaps, and I’ve been given names of the potential floor crossers by Liberals, but none of them have done it so far.
We wait.
It’s all part of crafting a larger narrative…
If you only consumed legacy media, you might think the Conservative Party was falling apart, that the Conservatives were falling in the polls and that fundraising had dried up. None of that is true no matter how often they tell you it is while the facts tell a different story.
Were Poilievre’s comments helpful with swing voters? Absolutely not, and while he’s not focussed on them yet, he will need to be one day so he needs to be more careful.
As I’ve stated though, Poilievre was right on the RCMP dropping the ball on SNC-Lavalin and someone should have been charged with obstruction of justice in that case.
But none of this means the Conservatives are falling apart at the seams.
Will you get people grumbling, absolutely. Will some of them turn to the media as anonymous sources, considering many turned to me months ago, sure, it’s going to happen.
I also have my own anonymous sources telling me there is no one in caucus organizing against Poilievre. Speaking to veterans of the Scheer and O’Toole palace coups, they say this is a very different feel.
People are tired, they are tired of losing, but they aren’t looking to replace Poilievre. That’s not just because there is no one waiting in the wings, they genuinely want to give him a second chance.
Given the latest Abacus poll, I’d say he’s doing okay. That poll would show a minority government if an election were held today, one that could go Liberal or Conservative.
