When Parliament sat in session on Jan. 31, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre referred to a media release the Trudeau government issued regarding crime in Canada.
The media release said there had been a 300 per cent rise in car theft in Toronto.
Rather than presenting his policy to reduce crime, Poilievre chose to smugly go after the prime minister’s character.
“What happened in 2015? I know, he happened, Mister Speaker. How can we make him unhappen and solve the crime?” Poilievre said.
Canadian politics have essentially become a popularity contest where politicians compete to make the best soundbite to drum up their most extreme supporters.
The prime minister isn’t exempt from criticism, as in the very same parliamentary session, he made similar personal digs at Poilievre.
“The Conservative leader just chooses to whip out his empty slogans and continue to blame everyone while we’re getting to work,” Trudeau said.
“The leader of the opposition has trouble believing we would actually include real facts in our press releases, something he and the Harper government never did for years.”
It’s playground tattle-tail-type behaviour at the highest levels of government, as each leader seems determined to get the loudest applause from their party’s benches.
Canadian politics has descended into accusations and populism and pushes us further towards Donald Trump-style American politics.
While no one makes childish accusations on a political stage quite like former president Trump, an Angus Reid study published Feb. 9, 2024, said 75 per cent of Canadians feel Canada is not immune to Trump-style politics.
And this is not a single-party issue.
According to the 1,510 Canadians surveyed, 86 per cent of NDP voters, 82 per cent of Liberal voters, and 67 per cent of Conservative voters said they felt this way.
Canadians feel this way because of what our politicians are presenting to them.
A lack of real focus on the issues concerning their Canadian constituents and more focus on belittling political opposition makes for a broken system of government.
And according to the Angus Reid survey, only 43 per cent of Canadians said they feel otherwise.
Our way of political life needs to be corrected, especially for the sake of the new generation of voters.
An Elections Canada review of youth voting trends found young voters lacked motivation to vote compared to older generations.
The review said young voters “feel less strongly that voting will make a difference” and “believe that the government does not care what they think.”
And why should young voters feel that their vote matters and the government cares what they think?
It may be because their nation’s top political leaders would rather yell at each other than focus on the issues their constituents voted them into office to solve.