Ready For a Conservative Government!
Post 70 | Can't happen soon enough
[Note to recent subscribers looking for another retirement article - hold tight as I’m hoping to write another soon. Political events are dominating at the moment and it’s my primary beat]
Canada’s newest sport this week was the Trudeau Pile-On, as the scales fell belatedly from everyone’s eyes. But where were the politicians, much of the Johnny-come-lately media and so many of my fellow citizens when hands were deep in the cookie jar and money flowed, as he laid low our country? Some awful combination of complicity and complacency got us to this spot.
It’s all too little and far too late, as was Trudeau’s sorta-kinda-maybe resignation on Monday.
Arghh!!
[Deep breath]
But I’ve spilled plenty of ink on this appalling government the past eighteen months and want to be shut of them and focus here on what lies ahead. The waters will get much rougher for a while, and we need a new Conservative government with a strong mandate to face the gargantuan task.
Polls and media have coronated Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives (CPC). But I’m not resting easy because we still don’t know how and when the election will play out. More so because I am untrusting of fellow voters who twice returned an objectively incompetent government to office.
Quoting from September’s Cautionary Tales for Canadian and US Elections, “Can people forget ten years frittered away pursuing gender wars, history revision, DEI and climate alarmism while our productivity crashed, government ballooned, immigration ran wild, personal freedoms trampled and runaway spending drove the debt sky high along with inflation that lies at heart of many current woes? It seems crazy to say it - but yes!”
Let’s explore some realities and dangers on our path to a new administration, and wrap up with a few constructive suggestions.
The Conservatives have a lifetime of expectations and hopes already downloaded on them while registering off the charts in polling. Neither can be sustained at this level and there are some issues lurking around corners.
Electoral amnesia and power of the image makeover are stark realities we cannot ignore as the Liberals plan their leadership race. One need only look to the near-successful makeover of Kamala Harris in the US as an example of how a party and media machine can prop up anyone. Consider also that Trudeau’s cult-of-personality style married with an empowered PMO, PCO and bureaucracy, allowed most Liberal MPs to escape deserved scrutiny and accountability. And this will provide cover for some to scuttle away unscathed, with the purifying space of three months or more to scrub away sins and remake themselves in shiny new images.
It doesn’t even require voter memory loss for Liberals to stage a faster comeback than predicted, as there are plenty who believe they were on the right track while just suffering a few tactical mistakes. My unscientific read is that a big chunk sitting in the CPC polling column will rush back to safety of the Liberal bosom given almost any reason.
Perhaps more distressing is almost tacit absolution of MPs as mere pawns in a political process over which they have no agency. Despite a party machine and powerful PMO turning them into political eunuchs, they are handsomely paid and fully empowered to press against those forces if in possession of character and principle. Liberal MPs’ choice to stay silent, fall into line and follow Trudeau into ruination is either because they agreed, suffered from overpowering self-interest or weak will. That many Liberals are now lauding twelfth-hour defectors for their courage, as has been granted to Freeland for instance is worrisome – given their sanity returned only after seeing the oncoming electoral drubbing or their own positions in danger.
Liberals need the equivalent of a very long timeout in the corner to figure themselves out, then come back in future years with something viable to again offer Canada – because we need strong parties offering differing visions. Doing this effectively in a shortened two-month window is impossible given their current disarray and will require years to properly reconstitute no matter what rabbit they pull out of the hat by March 24.
And yet still I worry.
Meanwhile we are watching a Conservative party capture Canadian consciousness and steamroll through the polls in a way unseen since Mulroney’s 1984 landslide. This has been driven by the Liberal’s implosion, a natural political cycle that historically sees incumbents rarely last beyond eight years, and a nascent western political movement slowly shifting away from the collectivism, wokeism and globalism of the past decade. But credit is also due to the Conservatives themselves, more particularly Pierre Poilievre, for sticking his head above the parapet after being elected leader in 2022 to increasingly call out our economic and social insanities – at a time when raising such issues was yet politically fraught.
With their newfound popularity comes increased scrutiny and critique, as it should. And as has perhaps always been the case in politics, it revolves around two categories - policy and style.
One of the more popular charges leveled at the Conservatives is their lack of detailed policy disclosure and over reliance on slogans. I find this newfound interest in policy darkly amusing from a population largely uninterested for years - unless policy scrutiny means simply asking how much more money will be spent. This same population has cared little about budgets - those documents that turn policy promises into reality - as they’ve dripped in a decade of red ink. And leanness of policy disclosure has been kvetched about at some point in nearly every election cycle.
Reality is that few ever download the voluminous policy platforms released after election kick off, never mind plumb their depths. Even then they’d find mostly broad brush and promissory descriptions with details often in modest supply and creative costing that rarely survives first contact with reality. But rest assured, prior to an election we’ll have plenty of bedtime reading as parties upload their respective tomes, populate websites and drop off mailbox pamphlets.
Even still, I propose that high level vision is more useful and accessible than detailed policy for most - though the sadder reality is that many just vote based on a feeling or who they like.
We can tell much about a party from the vision they lay out. Without vision, policies are unmoored and subject to the whims of circumstance. Without vision, policies are often little more than spending promises. Without vision we don’t know where a party even wants to take the country.
We usually glean vision from speeches, interviews and debates, as then further outlined in formal election platforms.
Harkening back, Canadians should have paid much closer attention to Trudeau’s vision beginning in 2015. He told us, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada," and that he saw Canada as "the first post-national state." He was explicit in his plan to run deficits, create more universal social programs, expressed no concern with inflation, was demonstrative of his diversity focus, declared climate change as a central issue, spoke glowingly of globalism and his aspirational role in it declaring “I’m excited to be on the world stage”. He provided a clear picture of his tendency to apologia and performative announcements and his belief in collectivism and redistribution. Details were always light as he talked in early days about governing “from the heart outwards” and “sunny ways”.
You could have put nearly any policy on top of that vision and it would have gone over like a lead balloon for me. Over ten years he made countless policy announcements that were heavy on spending, long on drama and light on details after which he showed little interest in enacting them, with a subsequent track record littered in failed outcomes.
So you’ll forgive me if I focus first on vision.
The Conservatives have offered their own. The familiar slogans surrounding it are Axe the Tax, Build the Homes, Fix the Budget, Stop the Crime. Poilievre’s speeches and interviews flesh these out a bit but, other than engaged supporters, many don’t read more than the slogans.
What I have more broadly heard is:
The vision is centred around fiscal responsibility – including a priority to balance budgets and instill disciplined spending, following a principle of affordability – to manage inflation and reduce debt.
It proposes to grow our way to prosperity, not through government expansion, but creating the environment for productivity increase and enablement of the private sector, particularly small business - through the primary levers of de-regulation and tax reduction.
It is a vision that encourages and leverages our natural resources (fossil fuels and minerals) to help drive growth and employment, while selling our clean and socially responsible energy to a demanding world.
It promotes family values and personal freedom.
It declares security and sovereignty as priorities – with regard to domestic crime, border security and immigration management, with a still to be detailed military ramp up noted.
It makes housing a priority with a combination of federal tax policy and carrot/stick encouragement of deregulation at provincial and municipal levels, married with controlled immigration.
It proposes to focus first on promoting Canadian prosperity and wellbeing, underpinned by the classic notion of hard work rewarded.
That’s a good pragmatic baseline on which I can mostly superimpose my own vision for Canada – something I haven’t been able to do for a long time. There are several topics on which they are mostly silent, which signals they thankfully intend to defocus them. It also is missing a few key pieces including a foreign policy plan, at least not one I can yet determine.
They have been specific in a few areas including carbon tax elimination, removal of GST on new homes, modifying the Catch and Release Bill C-75, proposed changes to Bill C-63 Online Harms Act, various immigration changes and reduction in multiple regulations.
There is then the question of should they have released more so far? The simplest retort to demands for more detail is that things are working pretty darn well for the Conservatives, so why change course. The strategy is surely intentional - to keep sole focus on the government, and they have succeeded in exposing the gross incompetence. After all, the duty of an Official Opposition is holding the government to account. We see the performative elements of that in Question Period though most work is done in committees. Opposition proposes new legislation on occasion but their main role is to audit, critique, provide amendments or push back on government legislation.
It is in this detailed work that differences in vision, priorities and policy can be found. But other than a small handful with time or interest to follow the minutiae, most of us don’t see such details. And it’s only once an election is called, we can expect neat packaging in the form of policy platforms.
Still, I believe now is the perfect time for Conservatives to more broadly explain their vision, as we run up to a presumptive spring or summer election.
Let’s look at why.
Despite polls showing a near 30% Conservative lead over the Liberals and predictions of a majority landslide, a few realities are at play. Poilievre’s own favourability polling is stagnant at 38% (this features 47% favourability with men and only 30% from women) and his unfavourability is ticking above average. This lack of improvement in personal appeal is unchanged since 2022 despite Trudeau* and Singh’s own favourability metrics plummeting, and while intention to vote for the CPC party itself shot up since the summer – see both charts below courtesy of the Angus Reid December 30 poll.
[*At its peak, Trudeau’s favourability reached 65% and mostly bounced between 40-55% until 2023 - men almost always more wary)
In a parliamentary system where we vote for MPs and not directly for a Prime Minister, Poilievre’s low favourability may seem unimportant but it has impact on both the representative and popular votes. Representative vote drives the all important first-past-the-post seat count. But popular vote is symbolic of a mandate’s breadth, and tells us how many individuals believe in the new government - something that will be important when trying to push through a challenging agenda. So if more than half of voters dislike, disagree or don’t know enough about Poilievre, it will impede progress once in office.
To that end, Conservatives would benefit from a shift in communication to further explain their vision and bring the country along. Let’s break it down a bit.
Poilievre’s pugnacious style is no doubt impacting his likability** quotient. The confounder is it’s his prosecutorial approach that opened the eyes of many slumbering Canadians, who would otherwise still be unaware of our mess. They just don’t like that it took tough talk to get it done. Still, I hope he starts the shift from constant attack mode and spends time clarifying his vision, while continuing to pin accountability on the Liberals. He’s got fantastic communication and retail politics skills so it’s not a lack of capacity for him to make this turn. On the occasions he’s chosen to flex his statesmanlike chops, he is very effective.
[**The notion of likability is a frustrating but real aspect of politics with excessive weighting afforded to it as written in Do we need to like a Prime Minister?]
I remain cautious of a massive Conservative victory as foregone conclusion. If the Liberals manage to get organized, choose a packageable candidate and leverage the power of a friendly mainstream press – they will quickly bleed away a big chunk of support temporarily parked with the Conservatives, particularly if they can forestall an election until mid-year. While I don’t predict a scenario where Conservatives lose, I remain concerned many voters will rush back to the safe Liberal fold given the slightest reason - whether pushed or pulled. Some support loss is inevitable given stratospheric polling levels but even if they gain a majority seat win, Conservatives will want every last vote onside. They will otherwise face a tsunami of pushback from liberal societal norms, a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy that can scuttle a new agenda, a Liberal stacked Senate that can stop legislation and liberal municipal governments across the country inclined to thwart deregulation.
But here’s a countervailing reality perhaps keeping Poilievre on his aggressive stylistic path. While we’ve been dithering, the world around us got a lot tougher. We’re facing big challenges, not least from the US, that must be met with a combination of strength, leadership resolve and diplomatic toughness. So some of this may be signaling beyond our borders that a new and tough sheriff will be in town.
My unsolicited advice for the coming months.
Flesh out your vision more clearly so the broader country hears it – not only to win the election, but prime us for expectations and challenging days ahead.
Put forward other MPs for the country to start seeing depth of team, even though an election will bring more into the fold.
Temper your promises with the reality that some of our biggest problems can be merely encouraged or enabled by the federal government and not directly fixed.
Show us more of your statesmanship and dial back the name calling - it will turn off a large swath of Canadians from tuning in.
Meanwhile,
I hope you’re building bridges behind the scenes to execute a strong agenda. Ex-Aussie PM Tony Abbott’s lessons-learned advice in the National Post seems pertinent.
Plan a first month rush out of the gate, ala Javier Milei, with key legislation ready to table along with administrative and regulatory reforms. Even if you don’t share it, assure us you’ll have it ready.
Plan a modest sized Cabinet reflecting your promise of smaller and less invasive government, signaling where you’ll focus energy and what will NOT be prioritized.
We can only infer the job Poilievre will do as Prime Minister. But I believe he is precisely our man for the times, confident he will walk his talk and be an earnest defender and builder for Canada, with cautious optimism he will make the collaborative adjustments needed to lead. I am betting that rigour, structure and accountability will guide Poilievre and his team. I see a good vision shaping up, along with earnest intent and capacity to do the hard work of governing, something we’ve not seen from our PM in a decade.
But it’s not me he needs to convince.
I will continue analyzing, suggesting and cheering for Canada’s success, and for a pragmatically inclined new government to lead us.
Stay tuned and stay pragmatic.
Conventional wisdom seems to be that any specifics released about policy too far before elections lead to theft and misrepresentation of those ideas by the Libs.
I agree with you that Poilievre needs to shelve that caution and give voters, especially women, reasons to vote FOR him, because the Liberals are going to misrepresent and define him unfavourably, anyway.
My very engaged, teenage son insists that this next election will be a Conservative landslide. I will believe that only the day after said landslide actually occurs. I have seen this movie too many times.
Toronto and Vancouver, with their huge house wealth effects, are infinitely complacent and there's an ingrained, default Liberal voting habit there. Montreal has similar habits and le Bloc siphoning off votes.
Female voters want to like Trudeau. Many have clung to him despite everything he has ruined.
To scare women, the Liberals pretend that abortion is in play in every election. Despite Conservative policy refuting this claim, fear mongering works almost every time, because many voters are lazy and gullible.
Especially so, when the Conservative leader isn't considered cuddly or handsome. Women didn't like Harper and Kenney and they don't like Poilievre.
With Trudeau eventually leaving, I agree that many urban votes will undeservedly go Liberal again.
This election is anything but a foregone conclusion for the Conservatives.
Fantastic! You’ve captured my sentiments totally. I couldn’t agree more that Pollievre needs to pivot from attack to clarity of focus and detail of vision … he actually tuned me out the last while. The one thing I also believe, is that we “meaning all Canadians” need to become more active and be part of the solution and not just be bystanders. I thought Pollievre’s interview with Jordan Peterson was great and his comment “he got to party while I get the hangover” was spot on …. Unfortunately for yours truly and many others, we didn’t benefit from the party but will surely suffer from the hangover.