Do by-elections, which usually have notoriously low turnout, matter?

We get told general campaigns do, all the time. But what about by-elections? Should we care — and should we care that no one seems to, you know, care about them?

That legendary political muse, Dan Quayle, had the best take on it all. Said the former U.S. vice-president: “A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.”

Well, yes. Hard to quibble with that one. Good insight, Dan.

Fewer folks went to the polls in this weeks by-election in Mississauga Lakeshore — only around 30%. But, before some political scientist starts writing wordy op-eds about the need for compulsory voting, remember: by-elections are beloved by hacks and flaks, but rarely ever regular folks. And they’re the bosses.

For instance: Toronto Centre had a byelection in October 2020. More than 80,000 people were entitled to vote. Slightly over 16,000 did. York Centre had a byelection in the same month, with about the same result: more than 70,000 were eligible to cast a ballot. Only 11,000 bothered. Democracy survived.

So, before academia gets its tenured knickers in a knot, remember: by-elections don’t ever attract as much attention ruin as general elections do. That’s normal. And it’s unlikely to change.

Mississauga-Lakeshore therefore had the standard byelection turnout, but a notable result. The result tells us a few things, participation rate notwithstanding. Here they are.

One, the Conservative Party got clobbered. The Liberal candidate — a former Kathleen Wynne government minister, and therefore not without blemish — basically massacred his Tory opponent, by thousands of votes. He took 51% to the Conservative’s 37%.

That’s notable, as noted, because that’s a worse showing than what the much-derided Erin O’Toole got when he was running things. In that race, O’Toole’s chosen candidate did better than Pierre Poilievre’s.

Well, Pierre has represented an Ottawa suburb for years, winning in seven elections. But he didn’t in Mississauga-Lakeshore. How come?

His spinners, all coincidentally anonymous, insist it was because the aforementioned riding is all-Liberal, all the time.

Well, no. That’s false. Sure, Liberal Svend Spengemann represented the riding in the Trudeau era — but before that, Mississauga-Lakeshore was federal Conservative territory for a number of years.

And, oh yes, this: provincially, the riding is still Conservative territory. Just a few months ago, in June, a provincial Conservative candidate won there — by many thousands of votes. And four years before that, same result: the Tories won it, by a lot.

What about Team Poilievre’s other excuse — duly reprinted, without attribution in the pages of the Toronto Star, because it serves both their interests — that it’s all Doug Ford’s fault? You know, that the Ontario Premier sank his federal cousins in the by-election because he’s unpopular? Guilt by association and all that.

Except, that one doesn’t wash either. When he’s been running things, in good times and bad, Ford has taken that riding handily. Twice.

Did Ford’s misadventure with the notwithstanding clause, and the general strike it would have caused, hurt Poilievre’s chances?

Again, no. Ford ultimately never used the notwithstanding clause to win a fight with an education union — and there was no general strike, either. And, besides: both those things were controversies many weeks before the by-election even got underway.

So, what was it? Who is to blame for the first real-world test of Pierre Poilievre’s leadership since he became leader?

Well, that would be what Poilievre and his caucus see in the bathroom mirror every morning: themselves. The convoy crap, the crypto-currency craziness, the whackadoodle WEF weirdos. All of that, and more, has persuaded many Canadians that, under Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party of Canada has abandoned the political center. And is, you know, chasing the People’s Party vote.

Which, by the by, got 286 votes in Mississauga-Lakeshore.

About which, our muse Dan Quayle might say: “Not winning enough of the popular vote? It means you are not popular.”

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My girlfriend Paula Christison had been over, and we’d been studying, then watching something on the little black and white TV we had. My Carleton roommate, Lee G. Hill, was there too. Lee and I had been great friends in Calgary. In junior high, we’d started a couple fanzines with Beatles-centric themes. In our shared room on Second Russell, we had a couple John Lennon posters up amongst the punk rock stuff.

Paula left for her place downtown, so Lee and I were studying when the phone rang. It was Paula. “John Lennon’s been shot, babe,” she said. “It’s on the radio.”

Lennon wasn’t perfect. In fact, as I much later learned, he was deeply flawed.

But his assassination, on December 8, 1980, was of course a terrible tragedy. It was profoundly sad. It was a loss.

So, to me, was the fact that his last album (before the inevitable avalanche of ham-fisted compilations and retrospectives) was a piece of self-indulgent, saccharine shite like Double Fantasy.

Generally, he always needed Paul as an editor, and vice-versa. But his best album – and one of the best albums of all time, in my view – was Plastic Ono Band. It was like him: it was stark, and raw, and different, and deeply, deeply personal. Some say the LP was the product of his dalliance with primal scream therapy, or his response to the (necessary, and overdue) collapse of the Beatles. To me, it was instead an actual piece of art and great rock’n’roll, improbably found under the same piece of shrink wrap. Like listening to someone’s soul, without having received an invite to do so.

The next morning, exams weren’t cancelled, though it felt to me like they could have been. When I walked into Carleton’s gym, there was a guy sitting there, already wearing a John Lennon T-shirt. I wanted to punch him. Instead, I just took my seat and wrote the stupid exam.

Forty years. I can’t believe he’s been gone that long; I can’t believe I’m way older than he ever got a chance to be. It sucks. Breslin wrote it best.

Here’s my favourite picture of him, the one I used to use on posters I’d make up for Hot Nasties shows.  I liked it because he looked like a punk. That’s Stu in the background, I think.  Also long gone.

Often miss you, John.  Hardly knew you.

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Spare a thought and a prayer, if you will, for the convoy types. Because they are sad and lonely, these days.

Their suitor and champion has abandoned them, you see. Pierre Poilievre has ghosted the convoy folk.

It’s no small thing. Poilievre won his Conservative Party’s leadership in a landslide – not despite the convoy folk, but partly because of them. During happier times, Poilievre marched with the convoy enthusiasts, he sang their praises, he brought them coffee and posed for selfies.

And then, the Tory leader became invisible during the convoy cabal’s time of need. Poof! He was gone. Poilievre dumped them, much like Brad Pitt dumped Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie, except with much more skill and a lot less drama.

The inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act was a lot like a criminal prosecution, even if it will make no finding of criminal culpability. But it had all the trappings of one: a judge, a witness stand, court reporters, and an army of lawyers, stacked up like cordwood.

The Public Order Emergency Commission, as it was more formally known, conducted court-like hearings at the federal Library and Archives on Wellington Street. No media reports can be found to describe what would happen when the doors would open there.

Did the convoy leaders turn around in their seats, like in Hollywood movies, expecting Pierre Poilievre to stride in, and take over the conduct of the defence? Did they expect him to arrive like Perry Mason, and free them all from the chains of Trudeau-stan oppression?

Well, he didn’t. In fact, he said nothing as the hearings got going. He did not utter a word – not one, single solitary word – about his relationship with the convoy gang.

And, in so doing, he revealed – to this writer, at least – that he’s a lot smarter than we thought he was.

Consider the evidence, because there was a lot of it. For six weeks, more than 70 witnesses appeared at the inquiry. Hundreds of thousands of documents were submitted. Videos were played. Examinations and cross-examinations took place.

The evidence, for the convoy types – those who occupied Ottawa for weeks, those who blocked border crossings from B.C.’s Pacific Highway to Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge – was very, very bad. Vandalizing the statue of Terry Fox. Desecrating the War Memorial. Defecating and urinating in public. Yelling abuse at masked Ottawa residents, many of whom had not slept in weeks because of truckers leaning on their horns – which is 115 decibels, several times over.

Oh, and the waving of swastika flags. Ironically, it was the convoy folks’ top-notch lawyer who repeatedly tried to make that into an issue. No one else.

And through it all, with the convoy types getting hammered for day after day, where was Pierre Poilievre? Gone, baby, gone. Oh, sure, on an early November B.C. trip, he said he’d have something to say when all the evidence was in – except, the evidence is all in, and he still hasn’t said anything to defend the convoy-ers.

The Conservative leader did say one thing that was interesting, however, when touring the Left Coast. Poilievre said he “condemned” anyone who “broke laws, behaved badly, or blockaded critical infrastructure.”

“Behaved badly.” Which, of course, was pretty much all of them. You don’t hold a major city hostage for weeks in the name of “freedom” and then get a gold star, boys and girls. Ditto crippling border trade, or any of the other clearly-bad behaviour.

So, why was Pierre Poilievre smart to abandon Tamara Lich and her bridesmaids – Chris Barber, Pat King, James Bauder and Benjamin Dichter – at the altar? Well, Nanos has the answer.

The pollster did a poll, released this week, and found that nearly 70 per cent of Canadians fully supported the Trudeau government’s use of the Emergencies Act. Fifty per cent said the inquiry left them with an even worse impression of the convoy participants.

And the Poilievre Conservatives’ lead in the polls? Gone. Evaporated. Disappeared. As Nanos top guy, Nik Nanos put it, in an understatement for the ages: “If there continues to be a focus on the convoy…it could be a potential risk for Pierre Poilievre.”

No kidding. And you know who knows that most of all? Pierre Poilievre does.

Which is why he’s ghosted the convoy folks. Which is why he’s kept quiet. Which is why he’s not dumb.

And which is why the convoy types are feeling sad and lonely, these days.

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