Conservative politics in Canada has been struggling both in and out of power. How can conservatives fix their issues?
The year is 2015, the Canadian election is heating up, Stephen Harper has been in power for almost 10 years while looking to keep his tentative majority over a crippled Liberal party and a Jack Layton-less NDP. The Conservative Party is running on a platform of “Status Quo”. They have just finalized the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement; the economy has been on an upswing. Harper and the Conservatives’ promises effectively are “Hey we are doing a great job, we will deliver surpluses and maintain the budget freeze”. The Conservatives spend quite a bit of time hammering the new, young leader of the Liberals – Justin Trudeau. We all remember the “He’s just not ready” attack ads. I bring this up because this was an interesting turning point in Canadian politics.
Canadians have long agreed that we do not care for American-style campaigns, attack ads, or playing the blame game. We want to hear what you are actually going to do to help us. During the 2015 election, the NDP and Liberals focused on increased spending programs for Canadians. The Conservatives did not highlight much of their platform and instead focused on Justin Trudeau. At the time the Liberals held only 34 seats – which was perhaps telling given that Trudeau wasn’t even the leader of the opposition, but would go on to lead the Liberals to a landslide majority.
Since then the Liberals held power come 2019 – this time with a minority government, defeating an Andrew Scheer-led Conservative Party. During the 2019 election, again, the Conservative Party focused on Trudeau as a leader and failed to release a platform until well after the election campaign had begun. Why am I giving a history lesson on Canadian politics? Well, for the last six years the Conservative Party (at both the Federal and multiple Provincial levels) has abandoned platform policies and instead focused on populist rhetoric.
Everyone witnessed Mr. Trump’s rise to power in the United States’ Republic Party and his eventual win over Mrs. Clinton in 2016. American politics is a dirty business, but Trump unleashed a new style of dirty politics – personal derogatory attack. Instead of engaging in any form of substantive policy debate, Trump simply attacked anyone and everyone. This offensive populist approach is playing out across the world. We have seen rises of populist parties and governments win elections in Turkey (Erdogan), Brazil (Bolsanaro), Hungary (Orban), and others. As much as I don’t agree, Trump has changed the way the conservative parties attempt to win elections, not just in America but around the globe.
Fast forward to 2018, Ontario is entering into a spirited election. Mr. Ford is running a populist campaign for the Progressive Conservative Party against Mrs. Wynne (Ontario Liberal Party). The Liberals have had a majority government for 13 of the last 15 years. Mrs. Wynne again is running on her success as the Premier of Ontario for five years and continues to promote many of the public social policies she hopes to continue in her next term. Mr. Ford runs on dollar beers, cutting taxes, and scrapping everything the Liberals have done for Ontario in the past two decades. Again, no platform of substance is released. Likely due to ‘Liberal fatigue’, Ontario voters give Mr. Ford a majority government. Given the success in Ontario, Jason Kenney repeated the same playbook in Alberta in 2019, after 4 years of NDP rule in Alberta.
After the Scheer defeat – which many expected to have been a slam dunk win for the Conservative Party – Mr. Trudeau was facing several scandals due to lack of judgment, meanwhile, the Conservative Party went out and found themselves a new leader in Erin O’Toole.
In the year Mr. O’Toole has been the Conservative Party leader, we are again witnessing the same playbook followed by Mr. Scheer, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Kenney. Less focus on policy and platform, more focus on attacking and blaming Trudeau. This strategy has proven to have failed previously on a national level, and present polls indicate that it is also failing in the conservative stronghold of Alberta.
Populist platforms, although they may energize and sound like pending action, are deficient in vetted policy and execution plans. A voter cannot hold a politician to account for their promises if no promises were made. We are witnessing that in Conservative-run provinces right now. Failed leadership is wreaking havoc during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conservative leaders are abstaining from forming plans and instead of settling scores. Every step of the way Mr. Ford has put the pandemic response on the leaders of municipalities or blamed the Federal Government. Even this past week Mr. Ford’s response to the continuing pandemic was “It is up to the people of Ontario to get us through this”. That is not leadership, that’s passing the buck. With vaccine deployment ramping up and Ontario falling behind the rest of the country, instead of offering solutions, Mr. Ford has continued to blame the Federal Government for a lack of vaccines. How does this tie into Mr. O’Toole? We are seeing the same playbook rolled out across social media by the O’Toole campaign team.
The Conservative Party of Canada Convention from March 19-21 was anticipated to outline a new path for the party. The major headlines from the convention were a rejection by Party members of a line that would have stated the Party believes "climate change is real" and is "willing to act”. What came out was nothing substantive apart from a rewriting of the Party’s leadership selection rules (an internal feud between the historic PC and Alliance wings). Since the convention, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a ruling confirming the constitutionality of the Federal Government’s Carbon Tax – previously challenged by Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario governments. Meanwhile, Mr. O’Toole continues to declare Mr. Trudeau as ill-equipped for the job of Prime Minister and calling for an inquiry into the handling thereof. Mr. O’Toole should instead be delivering alternative ideas as to what the Conservative Party would do differently and attempt to influence change. There is no conversation about what the Conservatives are willing to offer to Canadians. Without a promised platform, any pursuant government cannot be judged by the voters directly. I believe that populism has not taken a stronger hold of federal politics as most Canadians are more engaged in politics. They want ideas, they want bipartisanship. It’s not enough to just tell people “Well we aren’t the Liberals”. Further, populist talking points are fairly challenging in Canada, we are a much more socially progressive country, the threat of ‘Socialist!’ rings hollow here. Ontario, the kingmaker of federal elections, is a massive melting pot of immigration and proud of it. You can’t run a pro-life, pro-gun rights campaign – or even ‘give MPs a vote of conscience’ on the issues. Canadians are very content with the current laws around pro-life, while polls favor stricter gun control. Canadians want more green energy and climate change solutions, leaving Conservatives left with taxes as part of their traditional talking points. Taxes are a hot-button issue as to any conservative that bangs the ‘balanced budget’ drum will have to face the prospect of healthcare and education job losses – as evidenced well provided by Messrs. Kenney and Ford in Alberta and Ontario, respectively for the last three years.
So where do Conservatives go from here? Do they continue down the same platform-less, populist path? Recent polls show the Conservative Party well behind as the Liberals head towards reclaiming a majority. The Conservative Party of Canada and Mr. O’Toole ought to develop a clear platform and plan to get Canadians back to work, tackle housing affordability, and leave social issues behind. The next election could be less than two years away.
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