Please Advise! What’s with Poilievre’s Weird Video Celebrating Russian Jets?

[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,

The federal Conservatives recently posted a video starring party leader Pierre Poilievre, a paean to old-fashioned Canadian virtues with the theme of “We’re Home.” The video was quickly deleted after a Calgary-based X account revealed that most of the purportedly Canadian images were in fact stock footage and photos from such places as Serbia, Ukraine, Slovenia, North Dakota, Utah and Indonesia, and even included footage of Russian fighter jets.

What's the message here, Dr. Steve?

Signed,

Corn Pop

Dear CP,

If the Conservatives are going to borrow from the Americans, perhaps we should follow suit. Let's tag this video with the descriptor currently being stuck on U.S. Republicans. Whatever else it might be, the video is weird. Very weird.

Put aside the image appropriation for a moment. Just consider the video itself. It stars Poilievre, standing at a podium in a tight white T-shirt and white Stetson cowboy hat. He looks like Mr. Clean at a line dance, or maybe an understudy for the Village People.

Poilievre recounts a tale of homespun Canadian life, with some odd details. A long table beneath lush flowering trees is, we are told, the scene of a family celebration, “because it's been 10 years since one of the adult kids in the family has been sober and overcome his drug addiction.”

Very commendable. Yet almost every adult at the table is drinking. Wine bottles line the table. It's true that no one is openly using drugs, but still, weird vibe for a sobriety dinner.

Next, we are told the little ones are tired (surely they didn't get into the vino?) and it's time for Grandma and Grandpa to take them to the car. Thing is, the kids are now wearing parkas. Only 12 video seconds ago it was summer.

Apparently that's why Canadian summers are so precious — they're over almost before you can serve dessert. But maybe the parkas are just a way of dealing with the mosquitoes. Those Manitoba skeeters can punch through denim like lasers through a water balloon.

There are images of new homes, a university, cattle, foothills, the “Rocky Mountains.”

“These are our people,” Poilievre proclaims at the close. “This is our country! This is our home. Your home, my home, our home. Let's bring it home!”

OK, Pierre, we can bring it home. But the shipping charges are going to be huge. Those mountains you call “the Rockies”? They're in Utah. The foothills? Indonesian. The grazing cattle are in California, the new home is being constructed in Slovenia, the university campus is Kyiv Polytechnic.

Then there are those Russian fighter jets. Are those coming home, too? Isn't Norad supposed to prevent that sort of thing?

There are so many international shots in the video it gets confusing when at one point you see a Petro-Canada station. Do they have those in Moscow?

You start expecting to see a relaxing Canadian boat ride featuring Jack Sparrow, or a Canadian stroll through the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin. Perhaps a Sunday outing for an ordinary, traditional Canadian family, dressed as the Dallas Cowboys.

The Conservatives deleted the video, in the touchingly naive belief that it would then disappear forever. (Here's that YouTube link again.)

Clearly they were embarrassed about all the purloined and repurposed stock footage. But perhaps they were also concerned about a subliminal suggestion potentially delivered by the piece. A new home in Slovenia? The hills of Indonesia? A table in Tuscany? Even a twilight sky shot over Venezuela — could there be a subtle message here? Could this be the introduction of a brand new image: Pierre Poilievre, globalist?

Goodbye to the divisive immigrant basher of yesterday.

It's a new day, a new message, a new Poilievre. From Slovenia to Indonesia to Venezuela — we are the world! “These are our people!” he shouts in the video. “Let's bring it home!”

Pierre will greet you at the airport when you arrive. You can't miss him — look for the white cowboy hat.