The Politics of Jabberwocky: As Canada Plummets Down the Rabbit Hole

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Watching Question Period, something I no longer do, is like stepping into a parallel universe, since the Harper government came to power. They perform like they are in opposition.

But even more than that, their performances are unusual. Almost frightening, as if something has possessed them. It's like a really bad play, that while it offends and leaves you embarrassed for the actors, also keeps you spellbound. Can this really be this bad? Will the plot finally be revealed that explains their actions? Will Canadians stand up and cheer when it reaches it's climax, or simply demand their money back?

In Lawrence Martin's new book Harperland, he explains why during Question Period, everything appears both robotic and chaotic at the same time. The performances of the Conservative MPs are pre-scripted and they actually hold "dress rehearsals" before the big show.

[Says adviser Keith Beardsley] "I'd throw the question out and the PM would be sitting there watching. And if the minister wasn't prepared, Harper knew it." The ministers had their own briefing books with preset answers. "But the last thing they wanted to do was to be frantically looking through their books with the prime minister staring at them.' When an iffy answer was given, Beardsley would look over at Harper with raised eyebrows, as if to say, "What do you think?" And Harper, he recalled, "would just shake his head like 'That's no damn good."' (1)

And according to David Emerson the Liberal MP who crossed the floor immediately after winning his seat as a Liberal:

"You'd go through a dry run as to what was going to be said, and the prime minister himself would intervene regularly to shape someone's response to an issue. And the discipline was amazing." So were the results. The prep session was remarkably accurate in forecasting what would be asked during Question Period. "You'd probably capture 90 percent of what was coming..."(1)

Now this would be admirable if the script dealt with the issue, but it does not. It only provides ammunition for an attack on the person asking the question.

It was clear from the start .. that all the prepping was not intended to produce candid answers to opposition queries. The strategy was not to reveal information but to shield it and counterattack ... Harper's cabinet had documented Liberal failures on every conceivable issue. On some days, the Tories turned almost all of the Opposition queries into a counterblast. All governments had used this tactic, but it soon became apparent that this government would exceed all others. The Conservatives didn't mind looking evasive. They didn't mind if it looked intellectually infantile to defend their own inadequacies by pointing to the inadequacies of others. (1)

I'm reminded of an incident when my children were younger. After calling his sister "stupid", my daughter responded to my son, with "well at least I'm not as stupid as you are". To which my brilliant boy fired back "You are so".

During the first year of Harper's government, one of their favourite responses to any question was the inclusion of "for the past thirteen years", referring to the length of unbroken Liberal reign.

But they got a little carried away, allowing it to exceed it's best before date, until NDP Pat Martin reminded them that they were now part of that "thirteen years". They never used it again.

I wonder how future historians will view this period, and what their impressions will be of the Harper government, after reading the transcripts? They will no doubt determine that this was a group who was functionally illiterate, intellectually depraved and categorically insane. How else could you explain it?

Wait! I know.

It's Pure Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky was the name of a poem of pure nonsense, included in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. I used to think that the Conservatives behaviour was like 'Lil Abner meets the Muppets', but then after reading Elizabeth May's description of their antics, that poem immediately came to mind.

You need a special dictionary to translate what the Harperites are trying to say. Some call it Orwellian, but I think that's too deep. Nope. It's pure Jabberwocky.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Brillig is simply 4 o'clock, 'slithy' is 'lithe and slimy' 'Toves' are "something like badgers, something like lizards, and something like corkscrews" (undefinable creatures), while "gyre and gimble," means to "rotate and bore". Mimsy is 'flimsy and miserable' 'borogove' a thin shabby-looking bird, 'Mome' means to seem 'grave' and 'outgrabe' is something between bellowing and whistling. So the translation:

’Twas 4 o'clock and the undefinable creatures
Did rotate and bore on their thistle;
So flimsy and miserable were these shabby birds,
That they gravely began to bellow and whistle.

Or as Elizabeth May says:

Heckling has become much more common over the last two decades or so ... [but] it has now become far worse. One unpleasant aspect to the current heckling is the willingness of the government front benches to engage in rude shouting across the floor. Bad behaviour used to be reserved for backbenchers who tended to remain rather anonymous in their interruptions. Even when such opposition heckling was notorious, as in the case of the famous Liberal "Rat Pack," it was by a scattering of MPs, not by an entire caucus and rarely, if ever, by government ministers. Under the current government, a number of ministers will initiate heckling across the floor. The prime minister himself does not stoop to it, although it is clear that he encourages a pit bull approach from his ministers on certain files. (2)

See. Jabberwocky. "Outgrabe" - bellowing and whistling.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Jabberwock is "offspring". The Jubjub is "a desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion". Frumious is a combination of "fuming" and "furious", and Bandersnatch, "a swift moving creature with snapping jaws".

“Beware the horrible offspring, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that snare!
Beware the desperation, and shun
The snapping jaws of little Pierre!"

A perfect description of Pierre Poilievre. The little man-boy who struts around in perpetual passion, with jaws flapping and snapping. A perfect Bandersnatch. Belligerent and aggressive, Harper pulls him out when the questions get tough and they have no script.

He's been known to flip the bird, use profanity, and once even did a little pixie dance when the Speaker of the House was asking his caucus to settle down.

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

Vorpal is "verbal" and "gospel", manxome "manly" and "buxom". Are you seeing Jason Kenney? I know the manly is debatable, but remember when he denied removing the protection of gays and lesbians from the citizenship guide, then ran out the door in tears? He was later forced to admit to his dirty deed, but running away with his buxom chest extended is his modus operandi.

"He took his Bible on tape in hand:
Looked into the mirror, the foe he sought—
Then rested he by the Tumtum tree,
In hopes that his nonsense they had bought!"

Jason Kenney to a tee.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

Uffish means "when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish". Jabberwock another offspring. Tulgey is "thick, dense, dark". Burbled is "a mixture of the three verbs 'bleat', 'murmer', and 'warble'".

I know ... John Baird, right?

Grouph, rough and in a huff he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through thick, dense and dark,
Bleating and warbling as he came!

It is so much easier to understand what the Harper government is saying when you realize that it is Jabberwocky.

Like when Stephane Dion, then leader of the Opposition asked for information about press reports of the ill treatment of Afghan prisoners. Instead of answering the question, Stephen Harper responded in typical fashion.

Stephen Harper attacked Dion and questioned why he cared more about the Taliban than our own soldiers. [March 21, 2007]. I actually felt the air being squashed from my lungs, so deep was my shock at this answer from the prime minister: "I can understand the passion that the Leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners. I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers." (2)

"T'was late in March when the slithy tove,
Did gyre and gimble in the House;
And mimsy were his arguments,
His outgrabe that of a louse."

It's easy really. Jaberwocky. It doesn't have to make sense, and clearly it never does.

But maybe Alice says it best: 'It seems very pretty, but it's rather hard to understand! Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas— only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate.'

Previous:

The Politics of Contempt: The Nixon-Harper Ticket

The Politics of Hate: Where Will it Lead?

The Politics of Conceit: "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"

The Politics of Opportunity: Election Tampering


Sources:

1. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 44-45

2. Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and Crisis in Canadians Democracy, By Elizabeth May, McClelland & Stewart, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5760-1, Pg. 70

3. It's time to ask: Is Poilievre fit to hold public office? By Randall Denley, The Ottawa Citizen, June 15, 2008

Pierre Poilievre: Cunning

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

The relationship between the Conservative Party of Canada and the American Republicans dates back to the Reform Party days, and probably even before, but it was strengthened with the Moral Majority/Religious Right.

However, the ties with Jim Sensenbrenner and his son Frank are rather disturbing. Apparently Frank was drawn to the Reformers when he was going to school in Canada and is a close personal friend of Stockwell Day.

However, I'll be getting into that a bit more, but I wanted to go back to Pierre Poilievre's interest in Sensenbrenner.

When he and John Baird were drafting their, what we now know was fraudulent Accountability Act, he went to see the Republican with the possibility of adopting the U.S. False Claims Act.

The Conservatives are considering an American-style law that would pay a bounty to a whistleblower who sues a company that defrauds the federal government or wastes taxpayers' money.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, who is overseeing the Harper government's whistleblower reforms, is meeting with U.S. legislators in Washington over the next several days to see if the U.S. False Claims Act can be adapted to Canada as part of the much-touted Federal Accountability Act. (1)

We have to remember that the "much-touted Accountability Act, was actually a Liberal initiative and those who had worked on the task force had already looked into the U.S. False Claims Act.

Ken Kernaghan, the political scientist at Brock University who headed the task force into whistleblowing, said the members unanimously rejected the idea of paying public servants who expose fraud because it appealed to a "base instinct" that could possibly lead to ill-founded allegations.

Most of the task force's recommendations were ultimately included in the Liberals' whistleblower act, C-11, which passed through the Senate days before the Martin government fell, but wasn't formally proclaimed. (1)

Now Poilievre and Baird never really did anything about an Accountability Act except to make sure that it got a lot of press. They also set up offices with no other function than the ability to be able to say they have those offices in place. But I wanted to take another look at this so-called False Claims Act to see why the Reformers would be interested. And knowing that Jim Sensenbrenner was involved, I knew that somewhere along the line someone would probably be able to profit from it.

And I was right. According to the New York Post the only ones who really benefit are the lawyers and those they use to put forward their claims.

The law allows whistleblowers who report fraud against the government to collect up to 30 percent of any money recovered from information they provide ... Since Congress amended the law in 1986, hiking the potential payout to whistleblowers, suits have grown tenfold, with nearly 70 percent of them involving health-care companies. Since 1986, whistleblowers have collected a staggering $1 billion.

... Then there's the "protection racket" problem. Whistleblowers, plaintiffs' attorneys and even government prosecutors increasingly seem to be targeting legitimate businesses - using the threat of the FCA's steep penalties (which include permanent exclusion from government programs as well as big fines and damages) to coerce companies into settling cases rather than risking a trial verdict that could bankrupt them.

Plaintiffs' attorneys have helped fuel the fervor for FCA lawsuits. Shortly after Congress amended the FCA in 1986, public-interest lawyer John Phillips, who had lobbied heavily for the new legislation, set up a front group, "Taxpayers Against Fraud," to tout the law - and also set up his own private practice to cash in on the act. His firm has won some $100 million in contingency fees pursuing FCA cases, according to Forbes magazine, and its successes have attracted some 200 more contingency lawyers into the field.

Meanwhile, Taxpayers Against Fraud works the media. Cited dozens of times a year in press stories as an advocate for the FCA. (2)

And of course one of the people Phillips lobbied was Jim Sensenbrenner. If you go on their website they sing his praises and Phillips is on record as making contributions to Sensenbrenner's reelection campaigns.

So it would appear that this was not about wanting to clean up government, but wanting their supporters to clean up under the guise of accountability.

I profiled Poilievre first, because apparently the Calgary School are grooming him to eventually lead the movement some day, and since that means that there would be a possibility that he could be prime minister, we can't let him slip under the radar. His girlfriend is a key member of the party hierarchy, so has a lot of clout to make sure his career is nurtured from within.

Sources:

1. Tories consider U.S.-style bounty for waste-busting whistleblowers, Kathryn May,
The Ottawa Citizen, March 13, 2006

2. A Foolish Way to Fight Fraud, By: Steven Malanga, New York Post, March 29, 2006

Pierre Poilievre: Sneaky and Manipulative

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

The City of Ottawa was recently named the best city to live in Canada:

Ottawa's great economy, low crime rate and steady population growth put the city back on top as the best place to live in Canada, according to rankings released Thursday by MoneySense magazine.

You would think given that, people in Ottawa would be proud and perhaps congratulate their government for a job well done

I'm sure many do, and have, but not a new group of rabble rousers calling themselves the Ottawa Taxpayer Advocacy Group. They claim to be non-partisan but their leader, Ade Olumide, was a candidate for the Conservatives in 2006, and their battle cry parrots most neo-con groups associated with Stephen Harper "The Silent Majority is Silent No More"

Stephen Harper was always speaking up for the muzzled Canadians. Now he muzzles everyone else, but whatever.

In an interview with the American TV network, Harper said he endorsed the war and said he was speaking "for the silent majority" of Canadians. Only in Quebec, with its "pacifist tradition," are most people opposed to the war, Harper said. "Outside of Quebec, I believe very strongly the silent majority of Canadians is strongly supportive," the Canadian Alliance leader says.

Ironically most of these "silent" groups are pretty noisy, but what is this really about?

I've read their quotes in newspaper articles and perused their website and they are just another cut taxes, reduce the size of government, bust unions and privatize until Canada has nothing left, advocacy group, for the Conservative Party of Canada and Tim Hudak's Neo-cons.

They raised a flap when Ottawa's buses refused to allow their advertisement attacking the bus drivers union, to be driven around the city. If I could get John Baird and Pierre Poilievre to wear T-Shirts with my ads 'I'm with stupid' pointing at each other, I'd gladly pay, but I suppose that wouldn't be fair.

And speaking of the gruesome twosome, they've both spoken at the group's functions. I think they were billed as 'An Evening at Yuk Yuks with The Ottawa Taxpayer Advocacy Group', because I laughed and laughed.

Federal Transport Minister John Baird waded into Ottawa civic politics on Sunday, blasting municipal officials for what he said were a misplaced sense of priorities. Baird, the MP for Ottawa West-Nepean, told an audience from a taxpayer advocacy group Ottawa's city hall has a history of wasting money.

"There are some people who can't make priorities," he told a Sunday audience gathered to hear potential municipal candidates in Ottawa's upcoming election.

Considering that Baird's government is on record as spending the most amount of money since any government before them, and he himself has created such an accounting nightmare in his department that it may be years before it's sorted, I don't really think he should be judging anyone else's spending habits.

MP Pierre Poilievre applauded OTAG as a counter-balance to special interest groups which, he said, apply pressure on governments to spend more money on programs. A special interest group getting praised for dissing special interest groups. He is funny.

I'll bet it would be neat to follow the money here though wouldn't it, because they sure have a bunch of it. Not to worry though they are non-profit ... and of course non-partisan.

Advocacy groups are important and if they were genuinely concerned with the people of Ottawa, they would offer better solutions than simply no tax hikes and reduce their staff by 10%. And if they were really non-partisan they wouldn't have two of the loudest mouths of the neoconservative movement speaking for the "silent majority".

Maybe I'll try to follow the money with these guys, something our media should be doing before quoting them all over the place. Just a thought.

Pierre Poilievre Continued: Poor Behavioral Controls

Another aspect of a sociopath is a person with poor behavioural controls or impulses. Poilievre is well known for outbursts and outrageous antics.

When his party was being investigated for the "In and Out" election financing scheme, he would chant "in and out, in and out", causing a great uproar, as his colleagues chimed in.

Not long after the swearing incident above, he was caught on tape using an obscene hand gesture and when the speaker of the house was discussing his lewd behaviour, he started doing a pixie dance, much to the amusement of his party, who had to be told to settle down.

He has attacked transgenders, who were in need of sex change operations, stating that the "federal government should hold back any health fund transfers used for this purpose."

He has accused opposition members of being anti-Semitic, based on even the slightest hint that Israel should be held accountable for it's actions in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. And when I say slightest, it is always ever so slight.

Randal Denley in the Ottawa Citizen once asked: Is Poilievre fit to hold public office?

I don't think so, and if it's true that he is being groomed to be party leader, and possibly prime minister some day, we could be in serious trouble.

He always speaks without thinking and that is certainly not a good trait in a leader.

Pierre Poilievre Continued: Callousness and Lack of Empathy

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Another characteristic of a sociopath is callousness and lack of empathy. What Pierre is discussing is the compensation paid to aboriginal victims of systematic abuse in the forced residential schools.

The tone of his voice definitely reveals a callousness, and the fact that he's looking for "value" for this compensation shows that he clearly does not understand the trauma suffered by former students. In fact his use of the word "partook", like they were willing participants in their own abuse, certainly indicates that he lacks any human compassion.

What is also telling is when he states that "some of us are starting to ask". The Reform-Alliance-Conservative Party have never agreed with the status afforded our First Nations, not understanding that they have treaty rights. They were never "conquered" as some would suggest, but have a legal right to their land and it's resources.

First Nations Second Thoughts

Several years ago, Marcie McDonald wrote an article for the Walrus magazine, entitled The Man Behind Stephen Harper, in which she discusses Tom Flanagan and the agenda of the Calgary School. McDonald opens with the following:

Consternation rumbled across the country like an approaching thunderhead. For aboriginal leaders, one of their worst nightmares appeared about to come true. Two weeks before last June’s federal election, pollsters were suddenly predicting that Conservative leader Stephen Harper might pull off an upset and form the next government.

What worried many in First Nations’ circles was not Harper himself, but the man poised to become the real power behind his prime ministerial throne: his national campaign director Tom Flanagan, a U.S.-born professor of political science at the University of Calgary. Most voters had never heard of Flanagan, who has managed to elude the media while helping choreograph Harper’s shrewd, three-year consolidation of power.

But among aboriginal activists, his name set off alarms. For the past three decades, Flanagan has churned out scholarly studies debunking the heroism of Métis icon Louis Riel, arguing against native land claims, and calling for an end to aboriginal rights. Those stands had already made him a controversial figure, but four years ago, his book, First Nations? Second Thoughts, sent tempers off the charts.

In it, Flanagan dismissed the continent’s First Nations as merely its “first immigrants” who trekked across the Bering Strait from Siberia, preceding the French, British et al. by a few thousand years – a rewrite which neatly eliminates any indigenous entitlement. Then, invoking the spectre of a country decimated by land claims, he argued the only sensible native policy was outright assimilation.

Aboriginal leaders were apoplectic at the thought Flanagan might have a say in their fate. Led by Phil Fontaine, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, they released an urgent open letter demanding to know if Harper shared Flanagan’s views. Two months later, Harper still had not replied.

For Clément Chartier, president of the Métis National Council, his silence speaks cautionary volumes. Martin’s minority government could fall any minute, giving Harper a second chance at the governmental brass ring. “If Flanagan continues to be part of the Conservative machinery and has the ear of a prime minister,” he worries, “it’s our existence as a people that’s at stake.”

Recently a Conservative MP, Peter Goldring, posted a newsletter to his website suggesting that Louis Riel was a villain.

Goldring posted the letter in response to a request from the federal New Democrats who wanted Louis Riel to be recognized as a father of confederation and wanted a conviction that saw him hanged for treason overturned. In his letter Goldring wrote, "Riel didn't father confederation; He fought those who did." Riel, a politician who fought for Metis rights in the late 1800s and also helped found the province of Manitoba, led two violent rebellions against the Canadian government and was hanged for treason.

The letter went on to say, "To un-hang Louis Riel and to mount a statue to him on Parliament Hill would elevate anarchy and civil disobedience to that of democratic statesmanship." The letter has now been removed from Goldring's website, but the words have Alberta's Metis outraged.

Was he one of the "some of us"?

In January 2002, when Jim Flaherty was the Ontario finance minister under Mike Harris, he suggested that the First Nations weren't "real people". (1)

Was he one of the "some of us"?

Backlash

Most knowledgeable listeners concluded that Poilievre continued to advocate the old Reform Party view and was not actually proposing to adopt any of the mutually acceptable solutions natives had agreed to or that previous governments had advocated. Mr. Harper, on taking office, had discarded Paul Martin's Kelowna Accord which was to begin to address some of the problems noted above.

Many listeners heard, in this context of prior positions by his party, Mr. Poilievre's comments as excusing prior governments' behaviour. His exact words: "Now, along with this apology, comes another $4 billion in compensation for those who partook in the residential schools over those years. Now, you know, some of us are starting to ask, 'are we really getting value for all of this money..."." As the word "partook" implies voluntary choices rather than state-sponsored child abuse, and those who pay compensation in civil courts are not usually consulted as to whether they (the abusers) are "getting value", the words appeared to convey some racist assumptions.

"Mr. Poilievre, who did not spend his childhood "partaking" in state-sponsored child abuse, is not sure the government is getting "value" for the compensation it is paying the natives it abused."

Anita Neville, the Liberal aboriginal affairs critic, called Poilievre's comments "disgraceful" and "ignorant." "I invite him to take a tour of many of the First Nations communities in this country and see how people are living," she told the Canadian Press. "The irony of something like this on the day of the apology... . And I fear it reflects an attitude or a view that is prevalent among many members of that caucus." Opposition MPs called for Poilievre's resignation. According to news reports, many Conservative MPs were also angry at Poilievre.

The day after his appearance on CFRA, Poilievre rose in the House of Commons to apologize for his statement saying, "Yesterday on a day when the House and all Canadians were celebrating a new beginning, I made remarks that were hurtful and wrong. I accept responsibility for them and I apologize."

Liberal Tina Keeper, an aboriginal MP from Churchill, branded Mr. Poilievre "a national embarrassment," and said she had received more calls from constituents about Mr. Poilievre's remarks than she had about the prime minister's request for forgiveness for the assimilation policies of the residential-school program. (2)

This coming just as Stephen Harper was making a public apology put the entire thing in context. And for that context allow me to quote Tom Flanagan again when he was trying to repackage Harper to appear "prime ministerial": "How do we fool people into thinking that we're moving to the left when we're not?" (3)

Enough said.

Sources:

1. Canadian Race Relations Foundation, "Flaherty: Enough is enough says the Executive Director of the CRRF", News release, January 22, 2002

2. Wikipedia

3. The Pilgramage of Stephen Harper, By: Lloyd Mackey, ECW Press, 2005, ISBN: 10-1-55022-713-0

Pierre Poilievre: Political Sociopath

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

The characteristics of a sociopath might include a glibness or superficial charm. They might be manipulative and cunning with a grandiose sense of self. They are often pathological liars, with no sense of remorse. They can be impulsive with a lack of behavioural controls and a constant need to have their egos stroked.

Several of these characteristics can be applied to anyone entering the political arena, but few will be identified as having them all. And those who do have them all, I refer to as Political Sociopaths.

A political sociopath enters political life as a combatant; but with a pathological narcissism that puts their own interests above absolutely anything or anyone else. Stephen Harper himself is definitely one. John Baird another. But I think the one to best fit the profile is Pierre Poilievere.

Pierre Poilivre and the Calgary School

Like Stephen Harper, Pierre Poilievre was tapped on the shoulder by a group of neo-Conservative academics known as the 'Calgary School'. They seek out young people who are not only political junkies, but who can also be manipulative, cunning and with a grandiose sense of self. If they can feed their enormous egos, they have no trouble pulling the strings.

It is also desirable that their protegees have little or no experience in the real world. Pierre Poilievre, who it is said is being groomed as the future leader of the Reform-Conservative party, fits the bill perfectly.

Rick Mercer stated in an interview recently: "What bothers me is the trend in politics with people like Pierre Poilievre, who’s the prime minister’s parliamentary secretary. A lot of people have him pegged as the future leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and there’s absolutely no evidence the man has ever had a job. He’s an MP, and there’s just no evidence. If there is evidence, maybe he’d like to bring it forward."

When he was running for election in 2004, he stated that he was co-owner of a political research company called 3D Contact Inc., and according to the company profile, the 'contacts' were Stephen Harper, Ted Morton and Stockwell Day. His partner was Jonathan Denis, now Minister of Housing in the Alberta government.

Poilievre also claimed to have done policy work for Canadian Alliance MPs Stockwell Day and Jason Kenney, and prior to running for office himself; worked as a full-time assistant to Day.

And though born and raised in Calgary, he selected a nice middle class neighbourhood in Ottawa, winning in 2004 to become the youngest MP on the Hill. However, it would not be his age but his immaturity that defined those early years. Now it's his narcissistic, hyper-partisan combative, all fluff and no substance posturing.

His partner is Jenni Byrne, who has been named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Government and Politics in Ottawa by the Hill Times:

Ms. Byrne, a backroomer, is considered an influential staffer for having a key role in staffing ministerial offices and also to craft strategy to deal with issues facing the government on a daily basis. She is the link between the party's headquarters and the Prime Minister's Office. Ms. Byrne's boyfriend is Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, a loyal Harper foot soldier.

She has since left the office of the PMO to work at party headquarters.

Meanwhile, Harper said goodbye this week to one of his longest-serving and most partisan advisers, Jenni Byrne, who will leave her post as director of issues management to become director of political operations for the Conservative Party of Canada.

Conservative political staffers within the Prime Minister's Office and in ministers' offices say Giorno and Byrne are the two most influential and powerful political aides in Ottawa. They routinely direct the affairs of all but the most senior and trusted cabinet ministers, such as Environment Minister Jim Prentice and Transport Minister John Baird. Byrne, a former nursing assistant in her mid-30s, moves to a role currently being filled by Doug Finley

Like Poilievre, she has been actively involved with the Party, even going back to their Reform days.

Traits of a Political Sociopath

Callousness and Lack of Empathy

Poor Behavioural Controls

Sneaky and Manipulative

Cunning