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Via Paul Wells, here is the ‘they don’t respect him’ report from Politico’s Mickey Djuric about Canada’s federal opposition, the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC)*.
“I was struck by how insular Mr. Poilievre and the Conservative Party was,” former U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Cohen, who served under former President Joe Biden and had advised Poilievre to engage with Trump, told POLITICO. “They have very little, to no relationships in the United States, or in any other country for that matter.”
One GOP operative went even further. “They don’t respect him,” the operative said of Washington Republican circles, which shapes how Trump’s allies are engaging with Canadian conservatives.
… After (the Poilievre-led CPC) lost the election, (Saskatchewan MP Randy) Hoback was removed from his Canada-U.S. trade critic role and replaced with Conservative MP Shelby Kramp-Neuman, a close Poilievre ally.
Kramp-Neuman has held the post for 10 months, a role Poilievre said would help improve his party’s ties with Washington. But people involved in Canada-U.S. trade discussions say they’ve never encountered her in that capacity. Four people familiar with trade talks, including two senior government officials, had the same reaction when her name came up: “Who?”
Guess they had a brain Kramp?
But yeah, the CPC is a fundamentally serious governing party in waiting. They’re doin’ terrific.
(* I’ll call them by their straight name.)