When he visited Alberta this week to “liberate Canada,” American right-wing star Tucker Carlson shared the stage with Prime Minister Danielle Smith. A large crowd that Pierre Poilievre carefully avoided, an expert notes.
The former Fox News host is one of the most influential voices on the American right, but also one of the most controversial. He told the public who would listen that Justin Trudeau was a “fascist” who “hates you” and that “all your media is controlled by the state.”
Unlike Danielle Smith, Pierre Poilievre did not “fall for it,” analyzes Frédéric Boily, a political scientist at the University of Alberta.
“Given the consequences this has for the national discourse against the federal conservatives, I am not surprised that Pierre Poilievre continues to distance himself from all this. There are other ways to move the Conservatives a little further to the right.”
Mr. Poilievre did not appear on site, did not comment on the visit, and in short stayed away from the matter like the plague.
It was probably a wise decision: in the middle of the day of the national caucus on Thursday, a group of Liberal ministers seized the opportunity and prepared an outing to denounce the cronyism of one of the figures of the “American far right” with the Conservative premier of Alberta.
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“We no longer wonder if American far-right politics is coming to us: it is here,” Pablo Rodriguez said Thursday. Quebec's lieutenant also called on Pierre Poilievre to condemn Tucker Carlson's comments.
“It was telegraphed in advance that we would try to associate Pierre Poilievre with this American right, especially in the context of a presidential election. Tucker Carlson's visit was the perfect opportunity to do this. If the liberals had wanted to organize it, they couldn't have done it better!” starts the expert on conservative movements.
But since he refused to play the game, the impact of the star's remarkable visit to Canada will likely be limited to Alberta's borders.
If the Liberals continue to lag in the polls, they will be tempted to pursue this strategy.
“It gives the Liberals ammunition to try to push the idea that the Alberta Conservatives, who are part of the federal Conservative stronghold, are people who look to the American right, and the American right, we might say, maybe “least respectable,” analyzes Mr. Boily.
The one who could suffer is Danielle Smith. “It seems like she didn’t think about all the consequences this could have outside of Alberta. It appears she was thinking exclusively in terms of the most radical currents of the Alberta right.”
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