Anaida Poilievre discusses stoicism and feminism in first podcast interview

OTTAWA — Anaida Poilievre has been taking on a more prominent role in helping husband Pierre campaign to become the next prime minister of Canada, and is not shy to share her views, whether it’s about the Venezuelan election results or CTV’s recent blunder.

Last week, she made her first podcast appearance with personal trainer and family friend Tony Greco, where she discussed a wide variety of subjects, including her immigrant family’s struggles, how reading personal growth books has helped her overcome adversity and the social issue she intends to shed light on should she become the prime minister’s wife.

Below are some highlights from their 40-minute long discussion.

Poilievre (née Galindo) was born in Venezuela and moved to Canada with her family in 1995. While she has often spoken about how all her family members shared a two-bedroom basement apartment in the east end of Montreal, she went into more detail about her family’s struggles and how they affected her personally.

“As immigrants, when my family came here, it was survival mode for everybody,” she said, adding that their arrival in Canada was a “huge setback” financially for the Galindo family.

Her parents divorced a few years later. By the age of 15, she said she and her siblings were working at McDonald’s because her mother was on welfare and could not keep up with the family’s finances. That led to the Galindo children having to pay for not only their own essentials and education, but also sometimes food when the fridge was empty.

“We were working at McDonald’s not so we could go to the movies and hang out with our friends and buy candy, it was literally just for responsibilities that we had to pay for.”

Anaida said she became self-reliant very early on and became financially independent at the age of 17 when she moved out of the family home. She then moved to Ottawa to pursue her education at 19 years old, despite not speaking a word of English at the time. She eventually landed a one-month contract in the Senate and worked hard to stay on as staff.

Anaida said she recently found her agenda as a teenager. Inside, the same phrase was written down multiple times: “You don’t have to become another statistic.”

It came as no surprise that Poilievre and Greco delved into the topic of physical well-being and diets (for those who are curious, Pierre has been training with Greco for the past 26 years and eats a high-protein diet with almost no carbs or sugar).

What was more surprising is how much the Poilievres are into personal growth books and the philosophy of stoicism. Pierre has been reading Meditations by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, while Poilievre says one of her favourite books is The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage by Ryan Holiday.

Modern stoicism is on the rise, with Holiday or tech investor Timothy Ferriss having built an entire industry around it in Silicon Valley with podcasts, YouTube videos and books.

As per Poilievre: “Stoicism is a philosophy where you focus on things you can control, and you accept the things that you cannot control. And it’s about rational thinking to develop that emotional strength and to have that inner peace despite all the things going on around you.”

Poilievre said she is inspired by her husband’s leadership skills and ability to face adversity as he is vying to become prime minister. “Well, I just look at him and how he’s tackling it. He has the perfect recipe for that, so I’m just holding all of the ingredients,” she said.

Poilievre name dropped another book, Atomic Habits An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear, in explaining how Pierre is his toughest critic in the ruthless world of politics and how he strives to get one per cent better every day.

“Everyday, he just works at his craft, and he keeps on getting better and better and better.”

Laureen Harper was well-known for her advocacy for animals and her many foster cats at 24 Sussex, whereas Sophie Grégoire Trudeau remains to this day outspoken about mental health and eating disorders. Should her husband become prime minister, Poilievre said she will be shedding light on human trafficking taking place in Canada.

Poilievre said she became aware of the issue in 2014 when, as a Senate aide, the upper chamber was studying the Harper government’s Bill C-36 on prostitution. The bill criminalized buying sexual services, communicating for the purpose of prostitution and advertising sexual services.

“It really had an impact on me because I did not understand and realize that human trafficking was something happening in Canada,” she said about her work on the bill.

Former Justice minister Peter MacKay said at the time he considered prostitution to be “inherently dangerous and exploitative.” But critics argued that Bill C-36 would make sex workers’ job more difficult and drive prostitution further underground. Poilievre’s comments make it clear that she intends to focus on people who are forced into prostitution.

Poilievre said people often think that human trafficking happens in third-world countries, but most victims are in fact Canadian citizens. In many cases, she added, victims do not realize that they have been trafficked because they are pimped out by a romantic partner. Poilievre also said Indigenous women are disproportionally affected by the issue.

She said she has been thinking about using her platform to shed light on human trafficking since the night her husband won the Conservative party leadership, two years ago.

“We need to tackle this in our own background,” she said. “These are our daughters, our sisters that have been trafficked and it can happen to anyone.”

Poilievre has already launched an Instagram account, called “Their Stories Matter,” which seeks to offer a voice to victims of human trafficking and their families.

Poilievre, mother of two young children, also offered her view of the opportunities and challenges facing women today.

She said we live in an “interesting era” for women and said that women are “blessed” that so many before them “have been breaking all the barriers.” She said women now have a choice to be fully focused on their careers, on their families, or balancing both.

“We have a situation where you can take the opportunity and have basically the best of everything,” she said. “We’re in a situation where, really, women are in control, where they can choose their own journey, their own path and I think that that’s something wonderful.”

She added that women still face challenges, such as often being the default parent to their children but said it’s just “nature.”

Poilievre recalled a time when travelling with husband Pierre and his staff in northern Ontario during the leadership race in 2022 where she had to pump her breast milk in the back of a car and put it in a cooler to feed her youngest, Cruz, who was still a baby.

“I was just trying to do it all,” she said.

“I think that women, we have become incredibly good at multitasking, balancing things, being capable choosing and prioritizing things. And we’re blessed for that.”

That is why, she said, the world needs more women in leadership roles because they bring “something different to the table, different views.”

Her hope is to use her platform to continue “elevating women out there” and connecting them to others, and hinted she might soon be launching a project to help bring them in leadership roles.

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