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Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
Zero.
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I'm not so sure. He has already insinuated in the HoC that Trudeau only won because of Chinese interference, and he's doing a lot of groundwork on the daily to go into the next election with Canadians doubting the legitimacy of Liberal wins. That message is also helped out by O'Toole saying he thinks the Conservatives lost as many as 9 ridings last time because of interference.
Canada's not as far gone as the US was to have something like a Jan 6th event, but he is strategically calling into question the legitimacy of the last Liberal victory and planting seeds that Liberal candidates in ridings across the country will be benificaries of outside interference acting against Canada's interests while Conservatives will be victims of that interference. I don't think it's farfetched at all that if he loses in the next election he will lean into the fear he has been cultivating and go with the narrative that the conservatives were hurt by foreign interference and the government formed from the election is illegitimate or even some sort of puppet of foreign interests that isn't working for Canadians.
Hopefully he changes tack before the next election, but considering he's refusing to even view information about possible interference and corruption because it might affect his ability to stay on the political attack I think he sees leaning into that kind of stuff and increasing fear and doubt as his path forward. Maybe he moderates his message for a federal election, but I doubt he stops the dog whistles for believers of those ideas. Add on to it that he's playing up online conspiracy theories about pedophilia in the HoC to make implied accusations of statutory rape against Trudeau and I don't think he should be expected to act graciously should he lose.
It's a different context and a different approach, but it looks like we're seeing lessons learned from US politics being applied in Canada.