Tom Mulcair: The one place in Canada where Poilievre can't break through is Quebec

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Pierre Poilievre doesn’t give a whole lot of interviews.

Why would he? He’s riding high in the polls and he can’t resist being facetious whenever he does lower himself to speaking with journalists. His epic slapdown of a local reporter, while munching on an apple in an orchard, has become the stuff of legend among his followers.

• Sign up for breaking news alerts from CTV News, right at your fingertips

The one place in Canada where Poilievre can’t break through is in Quebec. People just find him too off-putting. He knows French but it’s not only about language.

Quebec politics can be a very rough and tumble, full-contact sport. But after the jousting, there is usually a visor-up respect for the adversary. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Poilievre.

On Monday night, he brought his schtick to the panel show “Le Bilan” on the private French news network LCN. Full disclosure, I regularly appear on that show, although I was not part of the panel on Monday night.

As background, it’s worth noting that the interviewer was one of Quebec’s most respected journalists, Paul Larocque. I’ve known Larocque for decades, both during my career in politics and now as a colleague. He’s the crème de la crème. Deeply knowledgeable and highly respectful (and respected). To put it in simple terms, I have no inkling of his personal political leanings even after knowing him for so long and I’ve never seen him lose his cool or be less than perfectly professional with anyone.

Larocque asked Poilievre about his characterization of Justin Trudeau as weak when talking about his recent visit with Donald Trump.

In his French-language statement to the press Poilievre had also evoked Trudeau’s “weakness” and even included an additional slight about Trudeau’s intelligence: “We need a prime minister who is strong enough and intelligent enough to face up to Donald Trump, to defend our interests.”

Larocque’s full question was: “In what way was passing three hours with Trump, making him smile, (well) intentioned towards the Prime Minister of Canada, in what way was that a sign of weakness?”

The question was clear; the interviewer was giving Poilievre a chance to explain his characterization of Trudeau as being “weak” in his dealings with Trump.

Poilievre appears to have seen it another way. His one-word answer, without the slightest explanation, was “nothing” (“rien.”)

Laroque returned to his question twice more and kept getting the same one-word answer from Poilievre: “nothing.”

Poilievre finally accused Larocque of mischaracterizing his statement and started backfilling an explanation that, unfortunately for him, he had never given on Sunday.

In his lengthy self-serving retelling Poilievre went after the journeyman journalist: “I never said that there was a weakness because two people met…It’s not about what happened at Mar-a-Lago. It’s the fact that after nine years and three presidents, Justin Trudeau is unable to obtain or even try to obtain any gains for Canada.”

Poilievre goes on to say: “Each time Justin Trudeau would meet Biden, Obama or Trump, it’s to minimize his losses.” He then proceeds to enumerate what he says were the good moves of Stephen Harper, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Brian Mulroney.

These are perhaps the types of things that Poilievre wishes he’d said to the press on Sunday, so he would appear less churlish. Unfortunately, that’s not what he said.

What viewers saw on Monday was a bizarre Poilievre who was about to explode. He resembled Peter Sellers’ classic character Dr. Strangelove, listening to himself and showing a very dark side to his character. Closed and dismissive, his first reflex was to show disdain for the journalist because he’d dared ask his own reasonable question. A question that was an open invitation, and opportunity, to give a fuller explanation as to why he was calling the prime minister “weak.”

Poilievre is nothing if not an experienced communicator. He knows and fully understands that words are understood in their context. When you hold a Sunday news conference about Trudeau’s visit to Trump and call out the prime minister’s “weakness,” you know bloody well that that’s the one word that’s guaranteed to make the headlines.

It was indeed a missed opportunity for Poilievre to show a smidgen of class and underscore that, despite their differences, he can acknowledge that Trudeau’s resolve to have good relations with the president-elect is in Canada’s best interests.

I’ve spent more years in opposition than I have in government and I know the job well. Yes, tough language can be a part of the recipe for holding a government to account.

Unfortunately for him, though, Poilievre seems singularly incapable of modulating his reflex to constantly insult his opponents.  Everyone’s incompetent except himself. He is also showing a disquieting tendency to try to rationalize and even deny when he gets questioned about his name calling.

• Capital Dispatch: Sign up for the latest in federal politics and why it matters

Poilievre has only himself to blame for his poor performance in the polls in Quebec, where the vast majority of voters seem impervious to the charms of his constant vilification of mayors, journalists and political opponents.

I sat opposite Poilievre in the House of Commons for over 10 years and I know THAT Poilievre well. It’s the one his handlers have been trying to keep under wraps, and it’s been working.

If the Poilievre who showed up on television on Monday is the one who shows up for the election, the Conservatives may be in for a nasty surprise.