News
Politics

The Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, and their endless supply of useful idiots

Jul 29, 2023

Here we are, a week or so outside of the news that some of us knew for a year; the alleged whistleblower from the Patrick Brown leadership campaign, Debbie Jodoin, was never really a whistleblower at all.

But what was she?

That depends on what you believe motivates Jodoin. I’ve spoken to several insiders, both from the Conservative Party of Canada, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, and the answers are fairly consistent. Most describe Jodoin as an excitable person who wants to feel like she is part of something big. Let’s go with that for now.

The question becomes, why is someone whose loyalties are so malleable allowed to exist in the CPC in the first place? The answer is twofold; Pierre Poilievre’s antics are mostly an internal problem for the CPC, and the CPC doesn’t police in-house, alleged rule breakers. Unless your name is Patrick Brown, of course.

Let’s go back to 2022, when the news broke that Brown was being disqualified from his leadership run. The offense? Originally, the party said Brown had solicited and received improper corporate donations, but they failed to provide evidence. They also claimed they had a whistleblower, but failed to reveal who the whistleblower was, and what her relationship was to Brown.

I had my own communications with Jodoin back in 2018, the first time Brown was unceremoniously removed from politics. She was one of his staffers and portrayed herself as a true Brown loyalist. She routinely used the term “coup crew” to describe the party members who played a role in dismantling Brown’s path towards the premier’s office.

This time Jodoin would trade her loyalty for playing the key role in his removal from the leadership race. Insiders say this is where Jodoin allegedly showed her true motivations – being a part of something big, something that was transformational. One way she secured this position was when she decided to give her accusations to Poilievre’s campaign before giving it to the party.

That distinction speaks volumes.

At the time of Brown’s removal from the race, the CPC decided to keep Jodoin’s identity a secret. For many of us, this was a massive red flag that the fix was in. Brown himself commented that it was highly suspicious that Poilievre knew the name of his accuser, but Brown was left in the dark. Hindsight confirms these suspicions.

When the news broke that Brown was being turfed, Jodoin had already moved to Jean Charest’s campaign. She was also rumoured to immediately receiving a scrutineer contract with the CPC. When her name was finally published, Charest’s campaign cut her loose, not wanting to be associated with someone who was considered more of a mole than a whistleblower.

A member of the party executive told me at the time that her moving to the Charest campaign was by design, with the hope, from Poilievre’s perspective, that she would sewer Charest as she did Brown.

All of these shenanigans, and the lack of accountability, seem impossible to outsiders. Unfortunately, it’s quite normal for the Conservative Party of Canada. The party has an internal reputation of not policing underhanded behaviour, as long as the end result is what the majority of caucus wanted. In 2022, just before the leadership race started, insiders say the conservative caucus was divided between two main groups; classic conservatives, and convoy conservatives.

Convoy conservatives won the internal argument, and so Brown’s ouster, and the reasons behind the ouster, would remain an internal party matter. Now that Poilievre is leader, don’t expect any clarifications or accountability to come any time soon.

So where does that leave the party, and its supporters?

That question might be an interesting one to outsiders, but party executives and party supporters have something in common – they don’t seem to care if they are seen as putting their thumb on the scale, as long as that thumb has the right name on it. Look at all that has happened over the past 3 years – the pandemic, vaccine disinformation, the convoy protest in Ottawa, the onslaught of strange conspiracy theories pertaining to the dreaded New World Order – all of these issues have one thing in common – none of them will convince a voter to abandon the only party that seems to want their vote.

Jodoin might be a political operative, or a mole, or even an opportunistic whistleblower, but at the end of the day she is just one of millions in Canada who the CPC sees as classic useful idiots.

Contributing Writers

Subscribe Now!

Which newsletters would you like to receive?

Yes! By providing my email address, I agree to receive communications from Crier Media (this can be changed at any time). Please take a look at the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for more details.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Related stories