If you believe in polls like dogs believe in poles, then the Liberals’ $10.5 million court settlement with Omar Khadr, as odious as any stink in recent times, will have little effect on the 2019 federal election.

The Conservatives and their newly-elected leader Andrew Scheer will have to find better and badder dirt.

Three different polls by three different Canadian pollsters show the Trudeau Liberals and their unquestionably sneaky deal with Khadr — leaked first about its signing, and the multi-million-dollar figure coming in a second media leak — has already found itself relegated to insignificant history by the majority of voters.

In fact, a Nanos poll this week shows the Liberals’ popularity has actually inched up in the last four weeks, coming in at 39% support as compared to the Tories’ 30% and the NDP’s 19%.

The reason for this head-shaker, perhaps, is that Canadians, by and large, appear to have a visceral hatred for Donald Trump, the quintessential Ugly American.

It matters not that Trump had yet to enter politics and had nothing to do with Khadr’s treatment at Guantanamo Bay. It’s just that he represents the kind of leader who would revel in sleep deprivation supposedly levelled on Khadr, and couldn’t care less if he were a boy soldier or a Boy Scout.

Everyone needs an ogre to both fear and loathe.

View the full Nanos Research poll results here

The progressive Barack Obama, as smooth as silk, is gone from the White House where, during his eight years in office, Omar Khadr’s alleged mistreatment was mainly under his watch.

But what the hell? Why let these facts stand in the way of misplacing blame and hating Donald Trump even more for his representation of all things evil?

It’s infectious.

As the chronically left-wing Rolling Stone magazine asked on its cover story of Justin Trudeau, “Why can’t he be our President?” It was the height of ridiculousness.

Justin Trudeau appears on our cover. Is Canada's prime minister the free world's best hope? https://t.co/yLLLr6sGGIpic.twitter.com/gZ4awM1HCm — Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 26, 2017

Who knows, however, what the Khadr backlash would be if Obama were still in the White House?

But one suspects the Trudeau Liberals would have had a more difficult time sweeping the Khadr deal under the rug, especially since their first line of defence was to feebly blame Stephen Harper for Khadr’s predicament rather than the two Liberal prime ministers in Jean Chretien and Paul Martin who had left him in Guantanamo to be mistreated and tortured by his American captors.

Sometimes it appears we elect children to be our leaders.

When Conservative MP Peter Kent penned a scathing op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on the Liberals’ pay-out to Khadr to tip Americans to the story, and Tory MP Michelle Rempel followed up on Fox News, the Liberals were quick to condemn them for potentially disrupting the upcoming negotiations to redefine NAFTA.

It would be laughable if it were not presented as real.

In another walk into the absurd, we now have the Conservatives claiming Trudeau’s interview with Rolling Stone could end up derailing the NAFTA negotiations because the portrayal of Justin Trudeau as the “anti-Trump” could have Trump blowing his gasket in a jealous rage and putting the torch to the trade pact.

The usually right-headed Lisa Raitt, now deputy leader of the Tories (and once my boss), even called the Rolling Stone interview a “serious misstep by the Trudeau regime.” “They should have taken a breath and not sought out this publicity this time,” she said. “Because I don’t think it’s helpful to the overall goal of our country, which is a free trade deal.”

As the Mad Hatter said to Alice, “Well, then I rest my case.”

markbonokoski@gmail.com