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Raymond J. de Souza: Carney vs Poilievre becomes battle of the philosophers

The Conservative leader was forced to shift away from snark after Trudeau was replaced

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The early months of 2026 have witnessed a most welcome elevation in the quality of our political rhetoric. Prime Minister Mark Carney took the lead at Davos, quoting Thucydides and Vaclav Havel.

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Leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre saw Carney’s Thucydides in Toronto and raised him a Marcus Aurelius; saw his Vaclav Havel and raised him an Adam Smith and Margaret Thatcher in London, and threw in a Konrad Adenauer in Berlin. In between, mirabile dictu, he had a long chinwag with Peter Mansbridge, the veritable incarnation of Canada’s elite, mainstream, legacy media, to use only the polite epithets heretofore hurled in that direction by the Conservatives.

Raymond J. de Souza: Carney vs Poilievre becomes battle of the philosophers Back to video

Mansbridge asked politely what exactly, in the name of defunding the CBC, was going on. Poilievre responded that while he had been focused on social media outreach for four years, he had now decided to........

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