Ripper has one message: The Pierre Poilievre we see today is the same person as the teenager he was in Calgary’s Reform Party backrooms. Mark Bourrie describes that 1990s teenager as “the political equivalent of a hockey goon,” and argues that he hasn’t adjusted his behaviour or outlook since then.
Bourrie is borrowing a New York Times columnist's division of today's politicians into "weavers" striving for consensus and "rippers" who see politics as war. Gray suggests his book is as much about the socio-economic transformations and media revolutions that have "spawned a crop of right-wing dictators, and caused the deterioration of traditional journalism and public discourse."
Bourrie conclusively proves his point that the politician is an Olympic-class ripper, a viciously brilliant critic who has shown no potential, as yet, to become a weaver who could bring the country together.
Sounds like the book Mark Bourrie was born to write. Good on him and Biblioasis for getting it out in such timely fashion (something the Globe has also chronicled).
