[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Firebot

She's a reporter making a fabricated claim on a question meant to promote a Liberal narrative that she cannot backup, and Poilievre called her out on her claim.

She should have been prepared to answer if these were true.

There's nothing fabricated about it. There was a Canadian Press article 4 days ago quoting multiple political science professors talking about that exact thing; her mistake was not being prepared for getting bogged down in semantics by knowing the names of the professors:

Duane Bratt, political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said some people have long embraced conspiracies, but now they have moved into mainstream politics.

"The big shift that we have seen is that it is now being promoted by someone who could be prime minister," said Bratt.

Poilievre peddled the WEF control claims during the Conservative leadership race in 2022, and it has emerged again as a regular talking point following the federal byelection in southern Manitoba, said Bratt.

In that contest in Portage-Lisgar, the Conservatives were looking to beat back a growing challenge from the People's Party of Canada.

Maxime Bernier, the leader of that party who has long accused the WEF of having a globalist agenda, ran in the byelection. The Conservatives attacked him for having attended the Davos summit when he was Harper's foreign affairs minister in 2008. Bratt said Poilievre's embrace of conspiracy theories could be because he's attempting to steal back votes from the PPC.

"The question is does he really believe it or is he just pandering to people, and will he pivot again if he becomes prime minister," Bratt said.

Kawser Ahmed, a politics professor at the University of Winnipeg with a research specialty in conspiracy theories, said the number and uptake of conspiracy theories began to grow after the 2016 presidential election in the United States, aided by social media and encrypted messaging apps.

...

"There's a lot of ideas that are now moving into the mainstream that are simply not supported by science, evidence or facts," he said. "But it doesn't matter and some of those politicians have been elected, like the current premier of Alberta."

United Conservative Party premier Danielle Smith has said she is in lockstep with Poilievre, and will having nothing to do with the World Economic Forum.

Populism has driven politicians to feed into conspiracy theories because they need votes, and fear is a great motivator, said Ahmed. They get less interest peddling for votes using their record.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/poil...ries-1.6517247