Canada Deserves Better Than This
When Politics Becomes Performance Instead of Leadership
I have been watching politics for a long time.
Long enough to know that every government gets criticized.
They should.
That’s part of democracy.
Prime Ministers make mistakes.
Premiers make mistakes.
Political parties make mistakes.
Holding them accountable is healthy.
What isn’t healthy is turning politics into a permanent outrage machine.
Over the past few weeks I’ve watched social media fill up with sensational claims about Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The latest one involved a claim that Carney somehow spent $200,000 on airline meals.
The headline spread like wildfire.
The facts didn’t.
Because the number wasn’t simply a food bill.
It included a long list of operational expenses associated with government aircraft carrying security personnel, flight crews, staff, officials, and accredited media on international trips.
Airport handling fees.
Security requirements.
Aircraft servicing.
Storage.
Cleaning.
Waste disposal.
The kinds of costs that have accompanied official government travel for decades regardless of which party happened to be in power.
But none of that fits neatly into a viral meme.
So context gets removed.
Outrage gets added.
And social media does the rest.
The bigger issue isn’t one misleading claim.
It’s the pattern.
Every morning Canadians wake up to another attack.
Another scandal.
Another accusation.
Another carefully crafted narrative designed to provoke anger before facts can catch up.
The goal often seems less about informing voters and more about keeping them permanently furious.
Current Example:
That should concern every Canadian.
Including Conservatives.
Because once politics becomes a game of outrage, nobody wins.
Not Liberals.
Not Conservatives.
Not the country.
What makes this even more remarkable is where we are politically.
Pierre Poilievre entered the last election with what many believed was a commanding advantage.
Poll after poll suggested victory was within reach.
Then Canadians voted.
Not only did he lose the election.
He lost his own seat.
A fellow Conservative MP stepped aside to allow him a path back into Parliament.
That is not an opinion.
That is what happened.
Most political leaders would use a defeat like that as an opportunity for reflection.
What did voters see that we missed?
What concerns weren’t being addressed?
What message failed to connect?
Instead, it feels like the campaign never ended.
The attacks simply continued.
Louder.
More frequent.
More aggressive.
Meanwhile, Mark Carney has spent his opening months focused on trade diversification, international relationships, investment attraction,
defence partnerships, and reducing Canada’s dependence on a single export market.
Reasonable people can debate his policies.
That’s what democracy is for.
But debate requires facts.
What we’re increasingly seeing is something different.
Politics as content.
Politics as engagement farming.
Politics as outrage marketing.
The formula is simple.
Create a villain.
Remove context.
Trigger emotion.
Generate clicks.
Repeat.
Sound familiar?
It should.
We’ve watched that model “MAGA” consume American politics for years.
Every day becomes a crisis.
Every disagreement becomes betrayal.
Every opponent becomes an enemy.
The result isn’t stronger democracy.
The result is division.
Canadians have traditionally been better than that.
We have disagreements.
We argue.
We vote.
Then we move forward together.
Lately, however, some political operatives appear determined to import a style of politics built entirely on anger and resentment.
And social media rewards it.
The more outrageous the claim, the farther it travels.
The correction never catches up.
That’s why I believe Canadians need to become more skeptical than ever.
Not skeptical of one party.
Skeptical of everybody.
When a claim seems designed to make you angry, stop.
Read further.
Ask questions.
Look for context.
Because democracy depends on informed citizens, not manipulated ones.
I don’t expect everyone to support Mark Carney.
I don’t expect everyone to vote Liberal.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with me.
But I do expect better than this.
Canada deserves vigorous debate.
Canada deserves accountability.
Canada deserves honest disagreement.
What Canada doesn’t need is a permanent outrage machine trying to convince us that every day is an emergency and every political opponent is a threat to civilization.
We’ve seen where that road leads.
And I have no interest in watching Canada follow it.
The Recap...
Politics is supposed to be about ideas.
Instead, too much of it is becoming outrage marketing.
The latest attack on Mark Carney’s travel costs says less about government spending and more about how misinformation spreads when context is removed.
Canada deserves better than politics designed to keep people angry.
The Gut-Punch...
A democracy doesn’t collapse because people disagree.
It starts to crack when people stop caring whether what they’re angry about is actually true.
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About a year into his tenure as Conservative Leader I joked that Pierre acts like he’s trying to set the stage for a career as a podcaster rather than trying to pitch his potential as Prime Minister but nowadays I do wonder if that actually might be the case
Very well observed. We have an outrage machine in full swing on the UK at present which threatens to steer us off course because writing about it is much more fun than reporting boring quiet achievements.