They are never, ever getting back together - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

Nothing could have prepared Pierre Poilievre for this kind of heartbreak. One moment, he was locked in a passionate, years-long erotic dance with Justin Trudeau - every move, every speech, every calculated glare across the Commons a thrilling prelude to the climax he so desperately craved. And then, without so much as a whispered au revoir, Trudeau was gone. No farewell French kiss for Poilievre. No lingering glance to acknowledge the time they’d spent circling each other. Just a quiet, devastating exit that left Poilievre standing at the altar.

 

For years, Poilievre had courted Trudeau’s attention like a spurned lover who never got the closure he needed. He had built his entire political identity around opposing him - every speech, every rally, every too-long pause during Question Period filled with the breathy anticipation of Trudeau’s response. He had studied him, memorized his movements, mapped out the contours of their ideological battlefield with the precision of a man tracing his lover’s form beneath the moonlight. And now? Trudeau is a private citizen, unshackled from the Commons, sipping oat-milk cortados in Tofino while Poilievre stands, dumbfounded, in the wreckage of what he once believed to be a grand political love affair.

 

Poilievre’s devotion ran deeper than mere opposition. It was personal. He had crafted entire speeches as love letters in reverse, each insult laced with the delicate venom of a man who spent too many nights staring at the ceiling, wondering why Trudeau had to be like this. He dissected Trudeau’s every move with the meticulousness of a scholar studying a sacred text, his voice trembling with a mix of frustration and reverence as he recited the latest Liberal blunder. He was invested. And like all great obsessions, his had grown until it consumed him, turning politics into a grand, star-crossed romance in which he and Trudeau were the only two players who mattered.

 

But this was no mere political rivalry - it was a fixation that ran so deep, so fervent, that it was hard to tell where the loathing ended and the longing began. Every jeer in the Commons was delivered with the raw intensity of a man desperate to get under Trudeau’s skin, to be noticed, to be felt. His fury at Trudeau wasn’t just about policy; it was something deeper, something primal, something that kept him up at night, pacing, restless, burning. The energy Poilievre poured into hating Trudeau was indistinguishable from desire, the passion of a man who could never, ever look away.

 

But the true act of betrayal came not from Trudeau himself, but from Mark Carney. Where JT had sparred with Poilievre in poetic barbs and overly-dramatic flourishes, Carney is a man of brutal pragmatism. And in one decisive stroke, he did what Poilievre had fantasized about for years: he killed the consumer carbon tax. No drawn-out battle, no dramatic final confrontation, just a quiet policy change, like a landlord replacing the locks on a tenant who was still convinced they lived there.

 

Poilievre was left adrift, a man who had spent so long fixated on one target that he never stopped to ask himself what he would do if Trudeau ever stopped looking back. His speeches have lost their spark. His jabs at Trudeau, once delivered with the passion of a lover burning with lust, now feel empty, like a man muttering an ex’s name in his sleep. The magic is gone. The chemistry shattered.

 

Poilievre still talks about Trudeau, but now it’s different. Before, his voice had that intoxicating mix of contempt and desperate longing, a hatred so intense it risked slipping into something else entirely. Now, when he brings up Trudeau, it has the energy of a bitter ex scrolling through their former partner’s Instagram, convinced that every vacation photo, every sunset backdrop, every well-lit selfie is somehow meant for them. He still calls Trudeau’s legacy a disaster, still accuses him of ruining the country, but there’s no fire in it. It’s perfunctory, automatic, the same way you might reflexively tell friends that you’re over an ex while repeatedly refreshing their social media pages at 3 a.m.

 

But the electorate seems to have other ideas. They’re looking to the future, to new political realities, to the actual issues facing the country rather than Poilievre’s romanticized battle with Trudeau’s spectre. And that leaves him in a difficult position: clinging to a rivalry that no longer exists, trying to rekindle a fire that has burned out.

 

If Poilievre wants to win, he’ll need to stop relitigating a love story that ended before he was ready. He’ll need to move on, to find a new muse in Carney or, heaven forbid, a new vision for Canada that isn’t just a reaction to the one Trudeau crafted before ghosting him. Until then, he’ll remain trapped in this sad, lonely loop: a man standing in the wreckage of a lost love, whispering Justin’s name into the void, waiting for a response that will never come.