Pierre Poilievre’s now-famous apple-eating video has been polarizing from the start — while many Canadians saw it as needlessly cruel, others celebrated the Conservative leader’s audacity.
The far-right American provocateur Christopher Rufo joined Poilievre’s list of admirers offering praise recently for the viral moment.
Rufo told a conservative conference over the weekend he was impressed by “the guy eating the apple,” referring to a video of Poilievre eating an apple while batting away a journalist’s questions about whether he is following a similar right-wing populist playbook as Donald Trump.
Rufo was one of two keynote speakers at the Canada Strong and Free Network regional conference in Red Deer on Saturday — the other being Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who spoke earlier in the afternoon and wasn’t present during Rufo’s remarks.
The network, formerly known as the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, was founded in 2005 by former federal opposition leader Preston Manning to provide networking opportunities for “various components” of Canada’s conservative movement.
The purpose of Rufo’s address to the conservative activists was to instruct Canada’s right-wing activists on building successful political campaigns through a carefully curated set of facts, combined with appeals to emotion and a clear call to action.
He received raucous applause as he detailed his successes in getting critical race theory banned from public institutions across the U.S. and eliminating the provision of gender affirming care for transgender youth in Texas, among other achievements.
By following his playbook, Rufo promised, right-wing activists will ensure “that our ideas are the ruling ideas of the social order.”
Rufo’s resume
Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, boasted of his major political accomplishments since 2020, earning audience applause for each one.
He claims he helped write former president Donald Trump’s September 2020 executive order banning critical race theory — the notion that racism comes from a systemic failure rooted deeply in U.S. history — from public bodies in the U.S., which the order characterized as “offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating.”
Rufo took additional credit for having “arm-stronged” 22 state legislatures into passing laws “to abolish critical race theory” from public bodies. As of August 2024, 18 states have actually passed legislation to that effect, although legislation has been introduced in 24 additional states.
Rufo’s next target was medical care for trans youth.
In May 2023, Rufo published documents leaked to him from a surgeon at Texas Children’s Hospital, demonstrating the Houston hospital had continued providing hormone treatment for transgender youth, despite having publicly pledged that it had discontinued the practice. His source was later arrested for leaking patients’ medical information to Rufo.
Rufo took credit for Texas Gov. Greg Abott banning any form of any form of gender-affirming treatment for minors, including hormone and puberty blocking treatment.
Although Premier Smith didn’t mention Rufo in her remarks, which opened by slamming recent Senate appointee Kristopher Wells as a “radical, extreme LGBT activist,” she boasted of her intention in the upcoming legislative session “to ensure that children are protected” by banning puberty blockers for trans youth.
Rufo conceded that he’s regarded as a “controversial” figure, acknowledging the fact that several sponsors pulled out of the event due to his appearance, including Mastercard, Bruce Power and SunLife.
Major sponsors Meta, Coca Cola and DoorDash remained on the bill.
A populism roadmap
Rufo identified three elements that enabled him to take ideas that were once considered fringe to the centre of political debate — facts, emotion and power.
By combining these elements, he said, activists can manufacture a sense of urgency and enthusiasm that is amplified through traditional and social media.
Citing Aristotle, he identified the “successful manipulation of emotions” as a key aspect of political persuasion.
“People always criticize [me] to say, ‘You're engineering a social panic.’ That’s supposed to be an insult. Well, OK, I get that that’s a pejorative, but … some things are actually worth panicking about.”
Rufo described facts as simply the “raw material” necessary for crafting a narrative that spurs an emotional response, and tailored a local metaphor to fit.
“How valuable is oil that's just stuck in the ground? It's speculatively valuable. It's not actually valuable, until you dig it up, you clean it up, you produce it, you put it in a tanker, and you send it to the marketplace,” he said.
Tailoring facts to create an emotional response, said Rufo, can influence people “to skip cooking dinner for their family to go do something for two hours.”
Rufo addressed criticisms from conservatives who are impressed by his “incredible results,” but suggest he would be more effective if he attempted to reach a more moderate audience without the inflammatory content that relies on outrage and anger to motivate followers.
“You have to modulate how you speak, depending on the goal and on the audience,” he acknowledged. “But you shouldn't back away from the fact that there's strong emotions. You shouldn't be scared of how you feel.”
How Canadian politicians are putting Rufo’s strategy into practice
A couple prominent figures in Canada’s conservative movement used the question-and-answer period as an opportunity to introduce themselves to Rufo.
Retired University of Calgary political scientist Ted Morton briefly served as Alberta’s finance minister in 2010 before launching his second failed PC leadership candidacy in 2011. Morton boasted that he quoted Rufo in his forthcoming book, citing the specific page number where the quote appears.
He depicted Premier Smith’s signature Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act as the culmination of a 30-year campaign beginning with Preston Manning establishing the Reform Party, which Morton said was rooted in the “fact” that Alberta was being mistreated by the federal government.
“We're fighting for what we love. That was the emotion … and we now have a leader in Danielle Smith,” said Morton.
“Fantastic,” replied Rufo.
Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) executive director Kris Sims described herself as a fellow “activist journalist” and the CTF as “one of those pugnacious groups that rally politicians” before asking Rufo whether the conservative movement should prioritize energizing its pre-existing base or mobilizing new supporters.
Rufo responded that activists need to ensure any new supporters are the “right people” from the demographic groups most impacted by the policy in question.
An unidentified attendee asked Rufo whether he’s aware of any Canadian figures who are following his playbook.
Acknowledging his limited knowledge of Canadian politics, Rufo referred to Poilievre’s apple moment.
“That guy's fantastic,” Rufo said.
The apple video is effective because “he never accepts the [reporter’s] premise,” added.
“He has him tongue tied, and then he just drops bombs on him. Just, boom, boom, boom. Because he has his talking points.”
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