What's The Worst Thing You Can Say About Pierre Poilievre?
And Are You Sure It's Right?
The meanest and least true meme or online criticism of Pierre Poilievre likely falls into the category of intentional mischaracterization of his core beliefs, especially when it crosses the line from critique to vilification.
Example:
“Pierre Poilievre wants to outlaw abortion, roll back women’s rights, and turn Canada into a Christian nationalist theocracy.”
This meme - and many variations on it - circulates widely, especially in progressive echo chambers. It's often paired with dark, red-tinted photos of Poilievre looking stern, sometimes with overlays of Trump, American flags, or Handmaid’s Tale iconography.
Why It’s Mean (and dumb):
Because it doesn’t attack his policies—it attacks his humanity and his motives, implying he harbors a secret, sinister agenda to dismantle civil rights. It attempts to place him in the company of tyrants and religious extremists, which primes people to fear him, not just disagree with him.
Why It’s False (or wildly misleading):
Abortion: Poilievre has explicitly stated that a government led by him would not legislate on abortion. He knows it’s a political landmine and has taken the same pragmatic stance as Stephen Harper did before him.
Religious rule: There’s no evidence Poilievre wants to impose religious law or align Canada with any theocratic model. He’s not known for invoking religion in speeches or policy.
Women’s rights: There’s no platform proposal or serious indication he intends to revoke rights. His critics may disagree with him on gender policy or language, but that’s not the same as attacking women’s fundamental rights.
MAGA: He’s reacting to Trump-ism, the tariffs, and the calculated chaos of America the same as everyone else. And like all Canadians, he’s working to figure out our best strategy to brace Canada against all this… stuff.
Why It Sticks Anyway:
Because it activates emotional contagion. The meme doesn’t need to be true - it just needs to feel possible to someone already uneasy about Conservative politics. It's meme-as-moral-panic, designed to shift the Overton window by fear, not reason.
Why It Matters:
Memes like this don’t just poison the well of debate - they make it impossible for moderate or curious citizens to explore legitimate Conservative positions without guilt or shame. They close the conversation before it can begin.
If you’re regularly reading The Bee, you’ve been exploring our discussion of how fear-based framing, even when false, shapes public perception more than policy or history ever could. It works in all political directions but with significant differences. (see below). And it shows how good people can be manipulated by bad faith actors into believing Canada is one election away from dystopia. It’s not.
I’ve argued that in the social information age, even more than in the past, politicians and parties are more defined by their critics, who have easy access to the tools of meme-making, than by any understanding of who they actually are or want to be.
I put together a little excel spreadsheet to compare the criticisms of each candidate that I think illustrates this. By the nature and complexity of the criticism itself you can kind of tell where it’s coming from.
The criticisms of Poilievre tend to be long and complicated, while still packing the punch and intellectual engine of meme-ism.
Here’s one that most of us have seen:
It would take a long time to go through all this. But they are all the same basically. I want to dig into one recurring Meme from this Reddit thread hitting my social media - that Poilievre and the CPC oppose abortion. That is factually not true.
The Meme:
Voted to ban abortions - TRUE
Poilievre voted for Bill C-225 (2006) and supported motions like Motion 312 (2012), which aimed to revisit abortion laws. He’s since said he wouldn’t legislate on it as leader, but his past votes align with pro-life motions. True.
Pierre Poilievre has publicly stated his support for abortion rights and access in Canada. He has assured that, under his leadership, the government would neither introduce nor pass legislation restricting abortion access. However, he would permit free votes among his caucus members on related matters. Remember, these are representatives elected in a district by Canadians in a simple majority system.
Examining his parliamentary record:
2010: Poilievre supported a bill aimed at criminalizing coercion into abortion and endorsed a motion to study when a fetus should be considered a human being.
2021: He opposed a private member's bill that sought to prohibit sex-selective abortions.
While Poilievre's recent statements affirm his pro-choice stance, his earlier parliamentary actions indicate a more complex position. This evolution reflects a broader trend within the Conservative Party and Canada, which comprises both pro-choice and anti-abortion members. The Conservative Party's policy declaration states it "will not support any legislation to regulate abortion" while in government.
Based on his current statements and the party's official position, it would not be accurate to characterize Pierre Poilievre as opposing a woman's right to choose. However, his historical parliamentary votes suggest nuanced views that have evolved over time. Just like the rest of us and Canada as a whole.
A 2022 poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that 52% of Canadians describe themselves as being completely pro-choice, while 8% describe themselves as being completely pro-life, and 41% describe themselves as being somewhere in between these two positions. You can shop for different results as you like among polls, but they get there by using different methods and are not comparable to this most often cited poll.
There are 117 CPC MPs. In Canada, only a little over half of all citizens are completely pro-choice. And a full 8% are fully pro-life.
That means, as reasonable math, we would expect there to be about 47 CPC MPs with complicated ‘in between’ views and about 9 who were Pro Life, if they represented the mainstream of Canadian opinion.
I've done as much research as I can find on each of the 117 CPC MPs and searched their historical public record. Only two have spoken about being pro-life, and possibly one other has been reported but not confirmed to have made public statements about being pro-life. That doesn’t mean they can’t represent their electoral district. It just is a statement of their personal beliefs at that point in time.
Therefore, adding this up, the CPC is likely far more pro-choice than the Canadian population overall.
I will add to this that, to help understand your friend, family, neighbours or politicians who are either pro-life, or have more complex views, it's worth taking the time to understand why they think what they do. Understanding their perspective on the world and how it works goes a long way in this particular debate to softening the often difficult differences between us all.
If you are having any struggles with this at home or in other relationships, I recommend the book Difficult Conversations. It is a life changer in helping with some of life’s most critical conversations.
Interestingly, the bill cited in this thread above is not about abortion at all, it’s a bill to reduce the use of pest control sprays unless they are necessary. This stuff is all wrong. But who looks this stuff up when they see the meme… well, er, I do.
https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/en/bill/39-1/c-225
It's also written into the party's rules that "will not support any legislation to regulate abortion".
See item 86 in their declaration of policies.
https://cpcassets.conservative.ca/.../990863517f7a575.pdf
Now, for a few among us, none of this will matter. You can show them the party platform, the vote record, and a notarized promise from God himself — and still, they’ll say it’s all lies. That’s not debate. That’s a kind of theology of disbelief. Bad faith certainty, Apocalyptic thinking, Rage-fueled nihilism. Or simply: mistrust that has metastasized.
It's something we have to push back against that comes from a bunch of causes amplified by social media without boundaries or community standards. It is a kind of motivated disbelief — a refusal to update beliefs even when confronted with clear, contradictory evidence. In more formal terms, this behavior can fall under a few overlapping concepts:
1. Belief Perseverance
This is the psychological tendency to cling to a belief even after the original evidence for it has been refuted. You could drop the party platform in their lap, read the leader’s statements aloud, show the voting record - and still, they’ll say: “It’s all lies. They’re just hiding it.”
2. Confirmation Bias (with a twist)
They’re only accepting evidence that supports their suspicion and rejecting everything else as part of the conspiracy. It's not just cherry-picking - it's salt-the-earth disbelief in the face of documentation.
3. Cynical Essentialism
This is more philosophical - it’s the belief that a person or institution has an unchanging corrupt core, no matter what they say or do. So even if the CPC passed pro-choice legislation, some would still say, “That’s just a trick.” The Liberal party is suffering on this front too. Folks who said it was all Justin Trudeau’s fault, may now say, it’s actually the party and people themselves who supported Justin Trudeau.
4. Conspiratorial Thinking
At its extreme, this becomes indistinguishable from conspiracy theory logic: any disconfirming evidence is simply proof of how deep the deception goes.
To Know Him Is To Know Him
I think anyone interested in opening themselves up to who Mr. Poilievre is, his priorities and his vision for Canada can not do better than watching his long-form interview/discussion with Jordan Peterson.
Along the way, you can also pick up a better understanding of where Conservative supporters, most all of them good and decent Canadians, who you would be proud and lucky to have neighbours, are coming from too. And maybe even get a better understanding of Peterson himself.
Give the title a break. In January any reasonable observer would have taken it as a statement of fact about the likely outcome if an election were held then. And I get that Peterson is a bit much. I think he would be among the first to admit that himself. His style is off-putting to some. But is there anything in this discussion that is factually wrong?
Here’s my summary of important points if you just can’t watch… though again I challenge you to do it.
They're saying IP, intellectual property, is important. That Canada should make its own stuff in some important and thought-through sectors. That we should own the intellectual rights to what we make. We should strategically move away from globalist dependency in key sectors, products, and services that mean a lot to us. That data, AI and new mediums of exchange beyond traditional money and credit are an important part of the future. And that future is different than the past. That Canada's GDP/Per capita and productivity are behind... I can't argue with that after spending a week looking at the numbers in my spare time.
They're saying the government over the past ten years, which happens to be Liberal, has not had its focus on the things that now seem to matter the most, and the things they thought mattered probably don't matter very much.
And, like all of us, they're saying Trump is strategically sowing chaos, but if we're smart, it's actually an opportunity for us to refocus and do better for ourselves and Canada.
This all sounds right to me. I hope to you too.
America Should Be So Lucky
Canada stands at a crossroads that demands both principled disruption and institutional competence - qualities embodied in Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney, respectively. Poilievre, with his sharp skepticism of government overreach and his appeal to working Canadians squeezed by inflation and bureaucracy, represents the populist corrective to a bloated, unresponsive state. Carney, a seasoned global economist with credibility in financial markets, offers the steady hand needed to navigate international uncertainty and restore faith in public institutions. For Canada to thrive—not just survive—it must harness Poilievre’s capacity to challenge entrenched inefficiencies and Carney’s expertise in rebuilding trust and economic resilience. The next government doesn’t need one or the other; it needs a synthesis of both - a Canada that can cut through red tape without losing the blueprint.
I think it's interesting to imagine how quickly and completely Canada has settled collectively on this team. Maybe it's because we're a small country. Maybe because there is a Canadian culture and Canadian dream after all. But imagine how different things would be and how lucky America would be if the US democratic party could have organized a team like Carney, Poilievre, Sean Fraser, and the like this quickly - with support from everyone from Mike Myers and Jon Stewart to the King of England and President of France. How different would things be then! And how lucky we are to find this in ourselves.
I'm pretty sure this is right:
He has often made questionable and irresponsible statements that call into question his fitness for the post of Prime Minister.
Here are two examples:
1) his unwavering support for the "Freedom Convoy" despite its organisation by some rather unsavory people;
2) his perpetually alarmist economic rhetoric about Canada being broken.
I watched both Jordan Peterson interviews, his performance at the CPC leadership debates, along with some interviews he did for what I believe is now renamed Juno News. I have a sourced and cited post on my Substack page about point #2.
For what it's worth, I absolutely believe he's sincere in his convictions and I think he's been a good opposition leader in bringing some important issues to light, but I do worry that he is naive about the dangers of polarization and populism.
seems to me the Conservative leader threw the first over-the-top punches, now hoisted by his own petard, methinks.
looks from the stats like elderly wealthy educated women are carrying the ball for the Liberals.
taking mud seriously is akin to wrestling with pigs, you get dirty and they like it.