This post is for the undecided voters. It’s also for any Conservative voters who don’t understand why anyone would vote differently, and any non-Conservative voters who want to point at an explanation for their vote.

In any event, as always, please vote. It’s particularly important in this 2025 federal election.

Aside: I know that, because I live in Ontario, where only 45% of eligible voters cast ballots in February 2025, and only 43% of those voters supported Ford, and yet (with less than 20% of the province supporting him) the PCs have 65% of the seats. Thus education and health care will continue to be underfunded, in favour of spending 100 billion dollars to dig a tunnel under the 401. Sigh.

At the federal level, the conservative platform is even scarier. If you don’t know that, I’m sorry, but either you’re not paying attention, or are willingly blind.

Granted, I do understand (somewhat) the desire to vote conservative. Perhaps you are living rural, and feel the other parties are ignoring you. Or you have a local MPP who is doing a good job, despite whatever might be happening federally. Or you’re remembering how conservatives were before the Canadian Alliance merger in 2003.

However, in 2025, voting PC is very much cutting off your own nose to spite your face.

As such, I present three reasons why Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre should NOT get your vote.

3) He doesn’t care about national security

He cares about saying whatever is on his mind. For instance calling the Prime Minister a “wacko” in question period. When asked to use parliamentary language instead, he settled on “extremist”. Only to repeat “wacko” on social media. (For what it’s worth, the topic was BC decriminalizing some hard drugs to try and reduce overdose related deaths.)

Supposedly, being outspoken is why Poilievre will not go through the procedures to get national security clearance. (He gets it automatically if elected PM.)

Really?

If the United States is trying to annex us, we’re talking about election meddling issues as merely ONE of the things he should know about. Yet he has deliberately blinded himself to such things. True, I don’t think Poilievre is about to take secret documents down to Mar-A-Lago to chat with Trump, but we know every other party leader has obtained this clearance. And it REALLY doesn’t seem like “I don’t want to keep national secrets” is a good reason if you want to be Prime Minister (in particular given point two below).

The other excuse he’s trotted out is that he obtained clearances in the past, having been involved in elected politics since he was 25. But that just makes this even MORE baffling. It makes us ask what changed, that he won’t do this again. Particularly in light of questions about interference from India.

If it’s that he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong to not get the clearance, he doesn’t even have to do that. He can simply say based on the changing situation he decided to get clearance.

But he’s not. He won’t. He doesn’t care about national security.

2) He doesn’t care about transparency

You might think the above point means he’s a transparent guy, but he’s not. He cares about looking good. He’s the only party leader who is not allowing reporters with him on the federal campaign. The Conservatives are even screening questions, allowing only four per event, with no follow-ups. His party was also the last to put out a costed platform.

Supposedly this is because Poilievre sees the mainstream media outlets as having a bias against him.

In fairness, he has had issues with them, as I recall CTV in 2024 cutting a clip of him talking that showed him in a bad light. But at that time, he escalated it to a conspiracy rant, saying that a news team was doing the bidding of Bell Media’s CEO. Comparatively, when Trudeau got upset at Bell Media earlier in 2024, it was because they were laying off journalists.

Pretty sure the Conservatives enjoy when anyone lays off journalists.

Related, I’m old enough to remember when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister, and how he constantly shut out the media. To the point where, before Trudeau was elected in 2015, a video of him went viral saying “We respect journalists in this country, they ask tough questions, and they’re supposed to." A statement that should be common sense, but wasn’t at the time.

Alas, with the next PC government (whenever that is), it may not be common sense again. As heaven forbid we learn anything that isn’t on the Conservative list of approved topics, yes? Perhaps, instead of constantly feeling persecuted, they should be asking themselves WHY they perceive there is a bias.

Worse, Poilievre has said he wants to defund the CBC. Preventing Canadians from learning more about anything. (Shades of Harper making the Canadian Census into a Voluntary Survey here. They want to keep the public in the dark.) Indeed, Poilievre even previously told someone from the satirical “This Hour has 22 Minutes” to get a job that isn’t taxpayer funded, which is kind of ridiculous given who pays his salary.

No, what we have here is casual dismissal of serious questions, so that Poilievre can focus on looking good. He doesn’t care about transparency.

1) Poilievre is out of touch

The man cares about himself. About his messaging, and about getting his turn at this top job, because after twenty years in politics, he feels entitled to it, damn it. (I’m obviously extrapolating there.)

Except, has Poilievre looked at Canada lately? I frankly do not see how an everyday Canadian can relate to him. He’s a career politician. Younger than me, with a full pension, and some questionable viewpoints on important topics.

He blames the liberals for economic challenges like inflation, ignoring the fact that there’s been a global crisis dealing with the worldwide Covid pandemic. He uses slogans like “axe the tax” without offering up any alternative solution to important issues of climate change. And he’s even indicated that he would use the notwithstanding clause to override court decisions - something a federal government has never done - despite how when Doug Ford did that in Ontario, the whole country rose up against him.

To be clear, I’m not saying the other party leaders aren’t also out of touch. Though THEY all agreed invoking the notwithstanding clause was a bridge too far (in that linked article above), and recall my initial remarks about the Conservative platform being scary. No, what I’m saying is that any of Poilievre’s appeals to understanding the common Canadian ring false.

Remember, he also supported the truckers involved in an illegal occupation of Ottawa, accepted an endorsement from Elon Musk who also doesn’t understand common people, and stirs up his supporters to hate, rather than to try to show them a different path forwards.

The conservatives themselves seem to realize he’s becoming a liability, as the most recent ads don’t even feature Poilievre. For instance, one has older people simply talking about not handing the Liberals a fourth consecutive term. Of course, we shouldn’t forget how previous conservative ads didn’t even use Canadian landscapes, but rather Ukrainian farmers and Russian jets, so perhaps we should direct questions at their publicity crew.

Interestingly, the Conservatives also don’t seem to realize that their nationalistic messages are resounding more with male youth than the elderly. Older boomers are more conservative, right, why would that ever change? (Why are they not keeping up? Because they don’t read the room. Instead, they cater to their base.)

But back to Poilievre in specific. Who, according to Angus Reid polls, has never really been that popular. Part of the reason he won the leadership was because he personally got a lot of people to sign up to vote in the race. He was simply MORE popular than Justin Trudeau, nationally.

Again, Poilievre is out of touch. He seemingly cares more about “saving the country” than looking at exactly what shape the country IS IN right now.

Hell, for years he kept telling us Canada was broken. I think he still believes that, and I don’t want a Prime Minister keen on “fixing” something that he truly doesn’t understand. Do you?

~ Let me conclude by saying that I likely have bias here myself, in case you glossed over my issues with Ford above. Still, it seems to me that the Canadian Conservative Party has begun sliding towards an authoritarian government in the same way that the Republican Party did in the USA. If you see it, you see it. If not, look again (particularly at how they’re planning to bypass the judiciary system).

Recall that we saw hints of it under Harper, when he did things like muzzling our scientists and passing laws in order to limit voter turnout. And I’m sure we’d see more of the same no matter who was leading the PC party.

But I think it would be especially bad under Poilievre. Would you agree?

Either way, thank you for reading, and remember to get out and vote.

Fact: In the last provincial election of 2022, only 44% of Ontarians cast votes. Meaning while Ford’s PCs got a mandate with 41% (yes, under 50% of votes were cast for him), that actually represented less than 20% of the province itself.

Are we okay with this? Come on.

As Picard from Star Trek once said, “If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are”.

I know Ford’s not in danger of losing. He has too much momentum amid all the apathy. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote. Because a minority government would at least keep our local bully in check.

Yes, Doug Ford is a bully. You remember, don’t you?

Ford himself only won the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2018 by 51% over Christine Elliot… who had actually won the popular vote. Then after being elected, in 2019, Ford capped the wage increases of critical provincial employees, including nurses and teachers, at 1% per year (below inflation)… yet MPPs got a 14% pay hike.

And Ford has repeatedly stated he won’t hesitate to use the notwithstanding clause against courts that rule against his government.

Indeed, in June 2021, Ford convened an emergency debate session of the Legislature to invoke that clause, overriding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to ensure unions wouldn’t be able to spend much money talking about his transgressions. (Seriously, how was that override not a bridge too far?)

Even more recently, Ford’s push to expand alcohol sales outside of the LCBO cost taxpayers an extra several million dollars. For no reason other than he wanted it to happen in 2024 instead of by 2026. (By the way, loss of LCBO sales is one way Ford is defunding the government, the same as when he removed car license fees and gave handouts to parents, see below.)

Doug Ford does whatever he likes, at whatever the cost, and we have to foot the bill.

Ontario, you MUST vote. This is not going to get better. It’s going to get worse.

We don’t even know how much worse, because Ford took the secrecy of his ministerial mandate letters all the way to the Supreme Court on our dime. Moreover, all the Conservative MPs are yet again forbidden from doing any debates this election season (or so I assume if none of 30 different timeslots for a CBC interview worked out), and Ford himself has not spoken to any reporters.

But we can extrapolate. With certain categories in particular.

EDUCATION: In 2019, Doug Ford unnecessarily made the EQAO Chair a full time position. This is the one is in charge of the province wide education testing in Grades 3, 6, 9 and 10. That person (then a failed Tory candidate) did next to nothing during the pandemic (when testing was suspended) while drawing a huge salary. Ford is now adding on more testing, namely a mandatory Grade 10 Financial Literacy test that will be required for graduation.

Note I’m not saying this is a bad idea, I am saying Ford will give as much thought (and funding) to that as he did to destreaming in 2022. Namely, very little. Why, as recently as last year, he was making more cuts to core education funding, with the per student funds down by almost 10% since 2018. Instead of funding education, he gave $200 payouts to parents in 2020. (Sound familiar?)

HOUSING: Doug Ford said in 2022’s campaign that he would build 1.5 million new homes by 2031. The province is nowhere near on track to hit that target, with Ford seemingly more interested in transit this election cycle (ie- removing bike lanes and building tunnels). Yet a study in 2024 found that across Ontario, only 29 homes or apartments were started for every 100 newcomers, putting it at 8th out of all 10 provinces. Alberta of all places seems to be doing better at housing than Ontario.

Ford’s answer? He plans to pass a bill allowing municipalities to clear homeless encampments out of parks, adding (as usual) he is “fully prepared” to use the notwithstanding clause if courts “interfere”.

HEALTH CARE: In 2018, during the election campaign, Doug Ford promised to end “hallway healthcare” in Ontario. In January 2020, before the pandemic hit us, Ford said they had made progress, despite evidence to the contrary. Once we reached 2024, the province had more Emergency Room closures than ever before.

And in a 2025 survey, a majority of those in Ontario (68%) said the situation has deteriorated. The Ontario College of Family Physicians add that 2.5 million Ontario’s have no family doctor, up from 1.8 million in 2020. Four more years of a Ford majority government will not fix this, nor will yet ANOTHER $200 cheque in the mail (oh, and it might bounce).

I won’t even get deeply into how Ford is helping to fund Elon Musk, as Ontario still has a contract with Starlink, which Ford signed in November 2024 (well after he should have known better) and later claimed he would rip up because of tariffs (he has not).

And if you’re sitting there saying you don’t like Ford but don’t know who else to vote for, I’ll offer up the SmartVoting website, which can give you information about your riding: https://smartvoting.ca/

So please, Ontario, PLEASE vote.

Don’t let even less than one fifth of the province decide our fate. Not this time.

We all have to stand up to bullies, including the ones in our own backyard.