Pellerin: What do the federal leaders think about Ottawa priorities?

In 2019, the CBC sent an election survey to Ottawa-area members of Parliament and candidates, asking what event, book, or song had made the biggest impression on their “political thinking.” Some cited growing up in a close-knit rural community. Others cited Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale or the music of the Tragically Hip. Pierre Poilievre, then MP for the riding of Carleton, the Conservative finance critic, and a rising star in the party, took a different tack. He chose what had, for two decades, been his political bible: Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. Poilievre...