Canadians should start paying more attention to his nostrums and begin asking tough questions. Those are the types of questions that Poilievre likes to avoid because, in his view, journalists who ask them are part of a conspiracy against him.

I had the opportunity to work across the aisle from Poilievre for over a decade. They can lose the glasses, drop the tie, slow the cadence and reduce the Brylcreem. Those of us who got to know his overheated demagoguery firsthand know that nothing will have really changed -- and that’s the danger.