by Mark Bourrie
BIBLIOASIS
2025/$28.95/448 pp.
Donald Trump first developed his half-baked plan to annex Canada in late 2024. But the ensuing torrent of headline-grabbing threats make it feel like a lifetime ago. Does anyone even remember those good old days when Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives were set to sweep the Liberals from power? Back in early 2025, politics watchers could choose from not one but two biographies of the rising Conservative leader. These books were coded as “pro-Poilievre” and “anti-Poilievre.” But the reality was more complicated. Andrew Lawton wrote a bog-standard political hagiography, Pierre Poilievre, albeit with a heavy dash of ambivalence about the most nakedly ambitious man in Ottawa. Mark Bourrie’s portrait, Ripper, is more negative, but it also pays Poilievre the compliment of taking him seriously. Bourrie could have written a straight-up hit piece, attacking Poilievre’s smarm and snark, his thin skin and casual cruelty. Instead, he composed an urgent narrative about creeping right-wing authoritarianism.
Ripper, writes Bourrie, “is about Pierre Poilievre’s world as much as it is about the man himself.” That world included “the almost unique political opportunities that existed in Calgary in the late 1980s” and 1990s when the Reform Party was ascendant and young conservatives such as Jason Kenney, Danielle Smith, Rob Anders and Poilievre rose to prominence. Since then, writes Bourrie, Poilievre “has not changed to win over voters; they have shifted to where he is, and we need to understand how and why that’s happened.”
By situating Poilievre in the context of a rising tide of the global far-right, Bourrie shows him to be both a conventional conservative politician by temperament, and an odious figure who has increased polarization and stoked grievance for his own benefit. Since he was a teenager in Calgary, and then an Ottawa MP at age 24, Poilievre has consistently built his brand around two poles: first as stalwart opponent to the liberal (and Liberal) status quo, and secondly as an everyman striving for recognition in the shadow of elites: Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney.
As party leader, to his own detriment, Poilievre styled himself as the “anti-Trudeau”—sneery where Justin Trudeau was sincere, sharp where Trudeau was soft. He ditched the glasses, hit the gym and shrunk his T-shirts, the better to contrast his ultimate fighter physique with Trudeau’s milder yoga-dad appearance. Laser-focused on Trudeau’s supposed flaws, Poilievre left it to the opinion polls to make the case for his own leadership potential. Mark Carney exploited this glaring error in judgment.
Mixed results in the 2025 election—increasing Conservative seats but losing his own—may ultimately define the Poilievre brand more than catchy, alliterative slogans and social media influence. Rejected by his Ottawa riding, Poilievre limped home to Alberta to try again—in the safest Conservative seat in Canada—both prodigal son and Laurentian carpetbagger.
Political biographies are often strangely hollow. This one fills the void with context. Bourrie gives us a sordid story of dirty money, foreign interference, US-born conspiracies, homegrown racism and post-truth populism that elevates the winning and maintaining of power above the public good.
You won’t learn what makes Poilievre tick. But his lack of self-awareness is as well-documented as it is banal. He’s hardly the first politician to use public office as a prophylactic against introspection. Nevertheless, read this book for Bourrie’s wrathful takedown of the egotism, infighting, backbiting and corruption that threaten Canadian democracy. If that’s not enough for you, read it for the story about the time a prime minister made Poilievre cry. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t Trudeau.
Marc D. Froese is a professor of political science and the director of international studies at Burman University.
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