The optimist

Pierre Poilievre rents a breakfast and banks the windfall from freer trade

Melissa Lantsman introduced the speaking party. An event singer, Vanessa Wang, sang the national anthem. Caroline Mulroney, who is President of Ontario’s provincial Treasury Board and therefore absolutely one of the MPPs that Doug Ford said would be too busy to campaign federally, gave opening remarks. Mulroney thanked everyone for “getting up so early” to attend this event, as one often does at Chamber of Commerce breakfasts.

It was 9:30 a.m.

Any campaign features leaders accepting invitations from business groups and community organizations. I have seen Stockwell Day, Jean Chrétien, Stéphane Dion and many other leaders walk into rooms full of polite skeptics. In a democracy, almost all of us are polite skeptics, or should be.

This was not a Chamber of Commerce breakfast, but rather an event staged in a Toronto rental hall, the Arcadian Court on Bay Street, to resemble one. The audience was invited by the Conservative campaign, and included several people who were, in fact, taking breaks from roles in Conservative campaigns. Near the end of his remarks, Pierre Poilievre complained that he’s been getting lousy advice from “Liberal supporters and lobbyists.” The invited audience for this not-breakfast included lobbyists.

Eleven months ago he wrote that Chambers of Commerce and similar groups “hold pointless luncheons and meetings… that almost no one sees.” Now his staff had built a replica of such a meeting. “Your father is a great inspiration to us all,” he told Mulroney from the podium. “Boy, I wish I could pick up the phone and seek his advice right now.” One is forever regretting belated phone calls.