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Article content The protest in Montreal last Friday that descended into violence wasn’t just a failure of leadership from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre insists, it was yet another sign that the Liberal government is on its last legs. Speaking to The Gazette, the federal Conservative leader framed last week’s unrest as a symptom of a country unravelling under Trudeau’s nearly decade-long tenure. “It is another confirmation of how everything is broken after nine years of Trudeau’s radical woke agenda,” Poilievre said. The pro-Palestinian, anti-NATO protest, which saw windows smashed and clashes with police, led to three arrests. Montreal police have indicated that more arrests are expected. It also came just before Trudeau’s attendance at a Taylor Swift concert, sparking uproar on social media. Trudeau condemned the protest on X on Saturday at noon. Speaking Monday at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Montreal, he said violent protesters should be “pursued and punished.” “I must reiterate how deplorable it was to see the violence and demonstrations here in Montreal on Friday night,” Trudeau told approximately 300 NATO delegates. “We must ensure that the laws are respected and that there are consequences for all those responsible.” However, Poilievre accused Trudeau of neglecting his responsibilities during a moment of crisis. “I have no problem with him taking his kids to a concert. That’s everyone’s right,” Poilievre said. “But part of the job of being prime minister is you get called away from important family and other functions to do your job.” When asked if he would leave a concert under similar circumstances, Poilievre was unequivocal: “Yes.” “He has a travelling team that sets up an on-site office everywhere he goes. He should have said, ‘I’m going to put my friendship bracelets down, get my national security officials on the line, and discuss how we can respond to this chaos,’” Poilievre said. “Instead, he danced around.” Montreal police reported no antisemitic acts during Friday’s protest, but tensions had risen earlier in the week when a woman was filmed making Nazi salutes and invoking Holocaust rhetoric . Last week’s protests and political fallout come at a precarious time for the Liberals, whose standing in national polls has steadily eroded. Even in Liberal stronghold Montreal, local races appear more competitive. Recent polls show Conservative candidates closing in on traditionally secure Liberal ridings. In the Mount Royal constituency, Conservative Neil Oberman is now two points behind incumbent Liberal Anthony Housefather — the Liberals previously won this seat by more than 30 points in the last election. LaSalle—Émard—Verdun’s byelection last month saw Liberal candidate Laura Palestini, who lost to Bloc Québécois candidate Louis-Philippe Sauvé, avoid featuring Trudeau’s image in her campaign materials. Poilievre tied Trudeau’s declining popularity to a range of national issues, saying rising rent, crime, and protests like Friday’s have ruptured Trudeau’s image. Poilievre said he believes in a common-sense approach to preventing future unrest, emphasizing stricter immigration screening, tougher penalties for violent protesters, and stronger safeguards for places of worship. “I plan to ask Montrealers a question: You’ve given Justin Trudeau and the Liberals your total loyalty for over a decade. What have you got? It’s clear what he’s getting. He’s getting power. But what do you get as a Montrealer?” hnorth@postmedia.comL ast week, South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace made headlines when she introduced legislation that would ban transgender women from using women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill. Mace, of course, did this in response to the election of Sarah McBride, who in January will become the first openly transgender member of Congress. Mace’s move was successful in two ways: House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to ban trans people from using Capitol bathrooms that correspond to their sex assigned at birth — and the Republican lawmaker gained the notoriety that she clearly desired, even earning praise from Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right-wing firebrand with whom she regularly feuded during their first term in Congress. On the surface, Mace going on the warpath against trans people may seem jolting, as she’d once positioned herself as a different kind of Republican. In 2021, she’d even insisted she was a supporter of LGBTQ rights, saying “Religious Liberty, gay rights and transgender equality can all co-exist,” as one of her former communications directors pointed out on X this month. When The Independent profiled her in early 2023, she called herself a “caucus of one .” She mostly voted in line with other mainstream Republicans and voted to make Kevin McCarthy speaker at the beginning of 2023. Things changed later that year, when Mace joined some of the same obstructionists who had voted against McCarthy — an effort led by former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz — to oust the speaker. She gained further notoriety when during one meeting with House Republicans, she wore a giant red “A” emblazoned on her shirt. All of these moves have allowed her to move up the ranks in the Republican Party. And it explains how the current Republican Party operates, rewarding controversial, headline-grabbing stunts over thoughtful policy. Mace first won her seat in 2020, when Republicans significantly pared down Democrats’ majority in the House. House Republican leader McCarthy — who once bemoaned that his party looked “like the most restrictive country club in America” — had aggressively recruited women and people of color to run in swing districts. And Mace had a quintessential American story. After being raped as a teenager, Mace dropped out of high school before she worked at a Waffle House, got her GED and became the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, a prestigious military academy. Her status as a single mother who was unafraid of a bit of trash talk made her seem like the kind of Republican who could lead the GOP beyond Trump, even though she had worked on his 2016 campaign. While she opposed Trump’s impeachment after January 6, she did vocally criticize him. She did not back away from picking fights with fringe figures like Greene. When Greene attacked her for supposedly being “pro-abort” — which Mace isn’t except in the cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother — Mace said bless her f**king heart ” and called her a “religious bigot.” On the policy side, she tried to find a middle way at times, introducing legislation to decriminalize cannabis . She voted with Democrats and a handful of Republicans to codify protections for same-sex and interracial married couples and to protect access to contraception. After Democrats did better in the 2022 midterm elections in part because of the anger about the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson decision, she warned that “We're not going to win hearts and minds over by being a**holes to women.” But Mace and other fresh-faced Republicans had one problem: The GOP did not want to move on beyond Trump. Ultimately, Trump did not exit the stage after January 6 and her policy proposals largely went nowhere. He endorsed Mace’s primary challenger in 2022, which famously led to her filming a selfie video in front of Trump Tower, which he proceeded to mock. She would survive, but it would teach her — and other Republicans — a lesson: The Republican Party was not interested in policymakers who could offer something different from Trump. Rather, it wanted more of the same. Mace has since taken a rightward turn. This can also explain the hard-right shift of some of the GOP’s other female policymakers. Elise Stefanik, who previously worked for George W Bush and Paul Ryan, would go from being a moderate who voted against Trump’s tax cuts in 2017 to being his most vocal defender during his impeachment trial. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, a former chief of staff to Senator Richard Shelby who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee and can bring home millions of dollars to her home state, gave her State of the Union response in a kitchen in a heavily affected and strained voice. All three got behind Trump fairly early this time around. While more policy-oriented Republicans like Lisa Murkowski find themselves having to answer uncomfortable questions about Trump’s latest cabinet pick, the lawmakers who glom onto social issues or grandstanding have been rewarded handsomely. Britt is now a regular in Republican circles. Stefanik will become Trump’s US ambassador to the United Nations and Mace got to speak at the Republican National Convention. Democrats, led by McBride, have responded by calling Mace’s legislation as a “distraction.” But anyone who has been to a conservative conference knows that if anything, conservatives see tax policy or the retirement age for Medicare as a distraction and banning trans women from sports and bathrooms as an animating policy alongside restricting immigration. Politics is all about incentives. And as of right now, GOP politics rewards culture war crusaders.

US prosecutors have moved to drop the two outstanding federal criminal cases against Donald Trump , citing his impending return to the presidency. The steps were taken by prosecutors working with Special Counsel Jack Smith on Monday, regarding cases involving Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat , and his handling of classified documents . It represents a major legal victory for the Republican president-elect as he prepares to take office on January 20. The prosecutors said a longstanding US Justice Department policy stating that sitting presidents should not face criminal prosecution requires the case involving the 2020 election to be dismissed before Trump returns to the White House. "This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant," prosecutors wrote in a court filing in Washington. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the move "a major victory for the rule of law." Smith's office also moved to end its attempt to revive the case accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents when he left office in 2021 after his first term as president. But the prosecutors signalled they will still ask a federal appeals court to bring back the case against two Trump associates who had been accused of obstructing that investigation. The move represents a remarkable shift from the special prosecutor who obtained indictments against Trump in two separate cases accusing him of crimes that threatened US election integrity and national security. Prosecutors acknowledged that the election of a president who faced ongoing criminal cases created an unprecedented predicament for the Justice Department. Trump pleaded not guilty in August 2023 to four federal charges accusing him of conspiring to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, who as president will again oversee the Justice Department, was expected to order an end to the federal election case and to Smith's appeal in the documents case. The Justice Department policy, dating back to the 1970s, holds that a criminal prosecution of a sitting president would violate the US Constitution by undermining the ability of the country's chief executive to function. Courts will still have to approve both requests from prosecutors. Florida-based Judge Aileen Cannon, who Trump appointed to the federal bench, dismissed the classified documents case in July, ruling that Smith was improperly appointed to his role as special counsel. Smith's office had been appealing that ruling and indicated on Monday that the appeal would continue as it relates to Trump personal aide Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, a manager at his Mar-a-Lago resort, who had been previously charged alongside Trump in the case. Both Nauta and De Oliveria have pleaded not guilty, as did Trump. In the 2020 election case, Trump's lawyers had previously said they would seek to dismiss the charges based on a US Supreme Court ruling in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution over official actions taken while in the White House. Smith attempted to salvage the case following that ruling, dropping some allegations but arguing that the rest were not covered by presidential immunity and could proceed to trial. Judge Tanya Chutkan had been due to decide whether the immunity decision required other portions of the case to be thrown out. A trial date originally set for March 2024 had not been rescheduled. The case was brought following a probe led by Smith into Trump's attempts to hold onto power following his 2020 election defeat, culminating in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters following an inflammatory speech by Trump near the White House. Trump denied wrongdoing and argued that the US legal system had been turned against him to damage his presidential campaign. He vowed during the campaign that he would fire Smith if he returned to the presidency. In May, Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime when a jury in New York found him guilty of felony charges relating to hush money paid to a porn star before the 2016 election. His sentencing in that case has been indefinitely postponed. A criminal case against Trump in Georgia state court involving the 2020 election also remains in limbo.