Please Advise! Is Canada as Grim as Poilievre Says?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

A recent global poll by U.S. News & World Report named Canada as the country the most people wanted to live in. Another of their polls ranked Canada as the second-best country overall.

But when I watch TV, I see ads with Pierre Poilievre saying, “Everything feels broken in Canada.”

Who is right?

Signed,

Can-fused

Dear CF,

Those global fools who idealize this country are blind. They do not realize the hellscape in which Canadians dwell — the living envying the dead, cannibalism rampant, parking scarce.

Season 2 of HBO's The Last of Us, currently filming in Vancouver, is now being categorized as a documentary.

“A living hell for the working-class people of this country” is the way Poilievre puts it. Housing prices, Poilievre's ads point out, have skyrocketed under the Liberals. That is certainly true. Poilievre will fix that problem because freedom, crime and the carbon tax. Also, crime. Crime, crime, crime, and by God it's been cold. January seemed to go on forever. Thanks, Trudeau.

Why so glum, Pierre? Perhaps the issue is that Poilievre grew up in Calgary and his riding is in Ottawa. The Vancouver Canucks are leading the league, the Winnipeg Jets are close behind, and the Edmonton Oilers are on a record-setting win streak. You could see how a guy dividing his time between Flames and Senators country could get pessimistic.

But Poilievre has support for his dismal point of view. He is leading the national polls. And he is certainly the preferred choice of those who came to hear Tucker Carlson, the no-longer-Foxy pundit who recently filled auditoriums in Calgary and Edmonton after being invited by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Too bad Poilievre missed Smith’s great photo op with Jordan Peterson, Carlson and Conrad Black. The Conservative leader was conspicuous by his absence. It was like looking at your Disney World photos, seeing Goofy, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn and Scrooge McDuck, but hey, where's Pinocchio?

Meanwhile Poilievre insists the country is broken, but could it be his own stuff that isn't working? For example, his calendar app. Ed Broadbent's funeral service was held last Sunday and Poilievre failed to show up. That's probably just as well for all concerned — having some dude with slicked-back hair in the pews periodically yelling “Marxist!” would not have gone over well.

For Poilievre, listening to the Broadbent eulogies would have been like Ebenezer Scrooge being visited by the spirits on Christmas Eve, but only if Scrooge had awakened Christmas Day and repossessed Tiny Tim's crutch. You just know those socialist spooks would cut no ice with the Conservative leader.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew was among those who spoke at the Ottawa service for Broadbent. “At a time of angry populists around the globe, of separate social media ecosystems that are worlds apart, of identity politics that obscure the simple truth that we are all related, Ed stood for the opposite,” Kinew said. “He stood for thoughtful leadership. And perhaps most importantly, he stood for the vision that we are one country.”

Across town, Poilievre must have wondered why his ears were burning like a faulty Tesla.

Regardless, Poilievre will keep beating that drum of doom. Repetition works, and people often seem receptive to the message that these are the worst of times. Dr. Steve has never lived through a decade — and he's lived through plenty — that was not widely proclaimed to be the absolute nadir of human history.

These days, large numbers of American voters say that democracy is not working, a message that has come entirely, and repeatedly, from a single corrupt messenger and his many sycophantic stooges. So it follows that if you keep repeating “Canada is broken,” you might convince a significant number of citizens that it's true. Even if the delusional citizens of Guyana and Togo do not understand.

Anyway, fellow Canadians, try to persevere. Yes, Canada is a hellscape, but at least we’re through January. And how about those Canucks?