I think there was one other thing you missed in that column (and I was surprised given your knowledge and passion on the subject): Guns. The Conservatives were headed for victory with a couple of weeks left to go and Trudeau pulled his Fear Factor wedge on guns. O'Toole, scared about losing suburban votes, went squishy which alienated everyone. Conservatives felt betrayed and centre left types wondered again about Conservatives' "hidden agendas." That's when O'Toole's numbers sank and he lost all those ridings by a hair.
If O'Toole had stood firm and called out the Liberals for their hypocrisy, things might have gone differently. The charge of hypocrisy sticks to the Liberal brand. And people value leaders who have beliefs they're prepared to defend. (You completely won me over on the gun topic. There's no reason O'Toole couldn't have done the same. Even if he hadn't, he would have projected toughness. I think that's what he lost.
Poilievre is winning, I think, because unlike Scheer and O'toole he doesn't show fear. He says what he thinks on hot button issues and doesn't get scared off because of what the "Laurentian elite" may say. This connects to what your friend said about the male vote. Most people were already sick of the Liberals' DEI intersectional moral superiority, which mainly targets men. Cultural issues aren't a top of mind voting concern, but in my view are the 90% of the iceberg under the water because they signal how parties will approach issues, prioritize and make economic decisions. Cultural positions also let people know of parties hold certain groups are held in contempt: No one will vote for a party that hates them, which is what the left gets wrong when it says (condescendingly) that the working class doesn't know its own interests. Not all interests are economic; some are about basic self respect, and what self-respecting working class voter will vote for a party that codes it as racist, misogynist, homo/transphobic and unCanadian?
I wanted O'Toole to win because I've always been on the liberal left and thought that was the best way to keep two moderate parties. Like you, a feared O'Toole's loss would mean a far right turn for the Conservatives, and inevitably power shifts to the opposition party, so I was prepared to suffer short term inconvenience for long term security. But as it's turned out, Trudeau has doubled-down on his illiberal instincts, pushing centrists further away, and people have noticed that Poilievre's bark is worse than his policy bite and that he's actually more liberal in terms of classic values like free speech, equality, due process, etcetera.
I was a lifelong lefty, always voting red orange or green. What pushed me right? Wokeness. Since then I've also moved right on economics, discovering Milton Friedman was revelatory for me. I joined the CPC specifically to vote PP as leader, but I was too shy to "like" his page on facebook, or tell any of my prog friends (some of whom have disowned me due to my political shift). When my arch liberal baby boomer mother found out I joined and voted in Pierre, she reacted like I had just joined the SS. All this to say I think we've been conditioned to think that conservatives need to be super careful and water everything down to appeal to moderates, BUT the left/progressive orthodoxy is now so extremely off the deep end that we don't need to find a soft middle path of moderation slightly to the right of the wokes, we need Pierre Poilievre to boldly say what we're all bloody well thinking! Pierre isn't really a radical, he's a centrist - he is in the centre of *actual* political sentiment in this country, which you would never know because our cultural establishment has shamed everyone into accepting their astroturfed phony consensus. Many of my lefty friends are slowly coming over to team blue - what they're overcoming is the Jon Stewartized mental conditioning that "conservatism bad"
Matt - your error comes down to two things IMHO - Canadians (and their vacuous, lightweight, virtue-signalling leader) can ignore economics if they so desire, but economics will not ignore them. Further, Canadians have always been proud of their nation’s status in the world and the regard in which Canada was held abroad. They see now that under Trudeau, in all too many ways, we are firmly on a fast track to becoming, to borrow a phrase from Trump, a “shithole country”. This was evident, to anyone who bothered to look, prior to Covid. Not there yet by any means, but the Trudeau/Lib trajectory is clear to all but those whose intellectual capacity is addled by wokeism.
This gave me a good laugh. Thank you. Something else that I suspect nobody saw coming, was youth enthusiasm to vote for Pollievre. I have teens - and depending on when the election is called, the youngest may or may not be old enough to vote. But you know who I heard about yesterday's poll results from first? My youngest teen. He is eager - excited - to see a conservative win and for Pollievre to become prime minister. Me? I'm in the demographics that in theory would support Trudeau, but I detest everything he's done since 2020. I am not loyal to any specific party and have voted for most of them - but have donated politically to the CPC for the last two years now, hold a membership, and will be voting CPC in the next election. Maybe my loyalty habits are changing too? I will admit to laughing when the NDP formed the agreement with the liberals as I knew they'd just sunk their own ship - I don't know how THEY didn't know it at the time because it was so obvious...
anyways - thanks for the laughter this morning. And for the self critique - I appreciate a glimpse into your thought process about previous columns.
I have been thinking about this for a while, but reading the article solidifies it: the media likes to talk about "party that appeal to the centrist voters win" and that's why they want CPC to choose centrist leader, depicting hardline leader as too extreme for Canadians.
The issue is, "centrist voter" is not a constant. They don't hold the same value over time. My theory is that "the party that can pull the centrist voters to them win". It's subtle difference, but it's big. It's not about being a leader that's confirming whatever the centrist voters currently believe, but making centrist voters believe in things that the party is selling, or to sell things that centrist voters will move into.
Trudeau in 2015 convinced voters on government spending big, which is against orthodoxy of Canadian belief that believe in balanced budget since the 90s. He also made many other changes that was not part of centrist beliefs and make it the new orthodoxy, like gender balanced cabinet, pricing on pollution, going easier on drugs, etc. These were things that were controversial at best, or not cared about at worst, pre-2015. But in 2019 and 2021 CPC had to answer why they were against this supposedly "centrist" belief.
Poilievre, instead of playing catch up with centrist belief like O'Toole, forecasted what the centrist voters will care about in short term future and occupy the space first. Once he got centrist voters' ears, then he could push them to believe more things that he believes in, like anti-carbon tax. Now we're witnessing it, with the belief that "centrist voters believe in pricing on pollution" being ditched left and right.
Great leaders don't follow voters, great leaders make voters follow them. Media (and O'Toole) believed the former, Poilievre (as Trudeau did in 2015) is proving the latter.
That motivation point echoes conversations I've had with a journalist friend since the pandemic "ended" in the news cycle. The wild card in Canadian politics, I told him, was the enormous, untapped voter pool represented by those who simply can't be bothered to vote, even if the incumbent rubs them the wrong way on a daily basis.
It's easier to shut that nagging, lecturing voice out than it is to vote, apparently, and voting is easy. This group, largely composed of working class/blue collar/rural males, sat out 2019 and 2021. The imported-from-U.S. election wedge issues of the past two elections might have got the Liberal base (55+ comfortable urban women and civil servants) predictably fired up, but the dominance of those distracting issues - and the responses from an on-the-defensive CPC - meant it was an election for "those people." People who talk about the CBC.
The convoy changed the landscape. It was a spark that ignited a belief in this group that they actually had a voice. For good or bad, it got many of them off their asses, with legions more cheering from the sidelines. When livelihoods were threatened, that voice emerged. And when the government went nuclear dealing with a movement loudly deemed a barbarian invasion by the political/managerial class, the "fuck you" vote was born.
Add to that the initially-ignored inflation wave that followed and the realization by many that a home and family are things (suddenly) not available to ordinary Canadians, and you had sustained tinder for the fire. All the Liberals needed to do was come out with some condescending statements, ineffective non-measures, and "actually, you've never had it so good" gaslighting to cement their status as bad guys who'll ignore any problem so long as wealthy Toronto retirees are happy.
If Poilievre could rouse and energize this group of ignored and maligned people enough to get them to the polling station, I said, his victory is assured. But it won't be a cake walk. You can't count on people predisposed to non-voting to vote. Every day brings a new opportunity to faceplant, too. You can't turn off the base. You can't give "edgy" voices in the party and community to much backing. It's got to be a tight, focused operation.
Thankfully for him, Trudeau and Co. seem to be doubling down on unpopular policies, as they can't be wrong, ever. They resemble the Wynne 2018 camp more and more with each passing day.
Great column, Matt. When you began it by referencing a past column, even quoting it, I thought I was in for a TNG 'Shades of Gray' type of experience.
I was wrong, and am glad I continued reading it to the end. Kudos for having the humility to write such an insightful piece based (initially) on studying the arc of your past interpretations of (then) current events and how they might play out in the future (our present).
The comments from your main source in the piece are also interesting, but he, like you, is operating from the benefit of hindsight. While more directly plugged in than you are, he's no more prescient than you were back then - in fact, as you often note, he agreed with most of your past columns.
I am still unconvinced that Poilievre can hold this lead the polls suggest, though for the sake of the country, I hope he does. With all his flaws, Poilievre is a much more relatable leader to most Canadians than any of his opponents. We must rid our country of self-serving vanity politicians like Trudeau and his cultists, Unserious Singh and his fellow grifters (are their any principled NDP'ers left?), and culturally insular extortionists like Blanchett and the Bloc (okay, that last one is likely impossible).
The forces at play that you and your source point out are accurate, and important. Trudeau is definitely disliked, nay despised, by an overwhelmingly massive majority of men (including me). What's been surprising, even shocking to me is how many women have finally seen through Trudeau's BS - which I maintain is how he won back in 2015 - and have pivoted to Poilievre. I never expected such a shift. The other thing I'm hearing from my adult children and their friends is they will vote for anyone, any party that presents a credible plan to solve the housing affordability crisis - this is a massive issue with GenZ.
What keeps me up at night is the baffling way Trudeau and his cult keep doubling down on frankly stupid, failed policies while Poilievre and the CPC keep eating his lunch. What worries me is the degree of foreign and domestically funded electoral interference and/or further CASA-type arrangements between the LPC, NDP, Green's and the Bloc that may be lurking behind the closed doors of this government. - It's almost that they know that no matter how bad the polls look, that on election day, the LPC seem confident it won't matter, and they'll retain power. It defies logic, but I can't shake the feeling that their smugness is due to more than just the fact of you and Jen's contention that the Liberals think they couldn't possibly be wrong about anything.
The other worry is that the world geopolitical situation will collapse in a spectacular way in the next year or so, and before our scheduled election. That type of crisis always favours the incumbent.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and the polls hold up, so at least we get a course correction from the CPC for at least 5 years. If not, the geopolitical crisis may ignite here in Canada.
It's 2:00 EDT. So far, this is the best string of comments ever evoked by an article. Truly, folks, you've added good quality writing to excellent quality journalism.
The factors noted are fair as far as they go. But I think there is a flaw in the original thesis about moderate conservative parties being more electable than firmly conservative ones.
O'Toole's fate to me resembles John Tory's fate as a provincial politician. (I say this to analyze, not to blame; I had a tiny role in O'Toole's campaign and a bigger role in Tory's). Both are excellent, able, thoughtful people. Both lost elections largely over wedge issues that were not among the top 20 issues a year before, or a year after, their elections (narrow federal vaccine mandates for O'Toole, religious school funding for Tory).
The standard explanation is that they walked into traps or created their own, so didn't properly execute the moderate strategy. I disagree. A better explanation is that they offered no emotionally compelling, controversial contrast to define the election, so Liberals got to define the contrast for them. Absent those wedges, many say O'Toole and Tory would have won. No! Liberals would have used different wedges. A strategy that relies on tamping down contrasts is hard to execute. There are too many potential contrasts, and on some (e.g., guns) Liberals can always outbid conservatives.
Poilievre gives the appearance of sharper contrast, with some substantive issues to back it up (like carbon tax). Conventional wisdom said an anti-carbon tax CPC couldn't win... even though Doug Ford won twice. The red Tory approach has been tried multiple times against incumbent Liberals: Clark with marginal success, Charest, Clark 2.0, O'Toole. Who won? Harper. Mulroney, whose reinvention as a moderate is pure revisionism; he was seen as a hard liner at the time.
Poilievre may yet lose, or underperform somehow. But his prospects are better than a red Tory's because he will define the contrast in the election, unapologetically and controversially. That approach is far from a sure winner, but it's still their strongest path to success. At some point, the failures of the red Tory approach show not that everyone who tried it inexplicably mucked up the execution, but rather that it is inherently difficult to execute, and thus not as good a strategy as many imagine.
Matt, Thank you for looking back at your piece and admitting your errors - that takes guts and a dash of humility that too many do not have anymore. My brother lived in the US when Trump first ran and he laughed him off as a boob who would never see the White House except on a tour but I said he was speaking to a large number of Americans who loved their country and didn't like how it was deteriorating (few manufactureing jobs, corruption in business and governemnt and so forth) and you know the outcome.
Reporters try to label PP as a 'populist' but what is a polulist if not someone who speaks for the population and their feelings and beliefs? Most of us see rising grocery costs after the carbon tax and most of us realize that we all end up with less despite JT trying to blow smoke up our behinds so what should be expected of an electorate who are fed up and see Canada fading on all fronts?
PP isn't perfect but he has a common touch, knows when to be indignant and actually reflects what a majority of Canadians feel - we are in trouble and our current leadership isn't capable of finding a way to salvation. Sunny ways have faded and reality has set in for us.
About 5 years ago I had a conversation with someone who more or less said that he hated Poilievre because he was not nice. He didn't like his chippieness, and especially didn't like how he talked to the press. I said that those were exactly the reasons I liked him. I was never fooled by Trudeau's so called "sunny ways", but lots of people were. Especially a lot of women. But it was not long before his treatment of Jody Wilson Raybould and Jane Philpott showed him for who he really is. I remain surprised at how many people are still star struck by his fake persona.
Then there is the CPC who for years heeded the ill thought out boilerplate wisdom that what they needed to do was to take advice from the Liberals as to what kind of leader they need. But how has that worked out? But let's look at the federal Conservative leaders who have actually managed to win elections and form government. Progressives hated Harper. He was pretty much seen as the devil incarnate. That rhetoric has waned somewhat of late, but it won't go away for awhile yet. Like it eventually went away in regards to Mulroney, who the progressives of his day also hated. I am old enough to remember when he was the arch conservative Reagan/Thatcher clone who was going to destroy Canada by signing a free trade deal with the USA. This sort of thing is the ho-hum boring and gratingly pedantic nonsense that is always being peddled by (to coin a phrase) "Canada's upper middle class, and those desperate to join them". And of course of the cottage country set who secretly sneer in derision at Canada's working class, and generally anyone who lives outside their bubble. I have heard it said that there are only 2 kinds of Conservative PMs that progressives like. The first is "former". The second is "dead". But as long as they are the current leader or PM we will hear the same tired old tropes about "American style" this and "right wing" that. And of course the incessant shrieking of "POPULISM POPULISM POPULISM!!!" The latter being especially eye rolling. When people say that word to me, I ask them to define it. I either get the glazed over look from someone who can't, or I get a lecture about how the simple folk just can't be relied upon to know what is good for them, and how they are basically all bigots anyway.
Like many people, I am sick to death of this. Poilievre doesn't take their shit. He pushes back. I like that way more than Trudeau's whole "smiler with the knife under his cloak" routine.
I admit that I as well didn’t think Poilievre could turn it around, but I was wrong. I thought he was too combative. That may not have worked when he won, but is well suited for today.
The people who have lost their shit are the pundit class who always lead with “if the CPC were just like the LPC they’d do so well”. Poilievre is a giant fuck you to them and if he wins it’ll be a total refutation of their stupid worldview. They need to be taught a very sharp lesson.
One potential factor that has not been mentioned is the potential impact of foreign interference in the 21 election and the revelation of foreign interference to voters.
Yes I know the Liberal/CBC talking points that the overall outcome of the election was not impacted, but voters deserve to know exactly which ridings WERE impacted. This has helped erode trust in these self serving conclusions.
Voters should be concerned with why a foreign agent registry is taking so long to implement, particularly now with divisions re: Israel/Palestine and the NDPs leverage over the Libs
There is nothing that isn’t true in you and your CPC folks’ comments. Certainly, everyone should have seen that being called privileged when you worked your ass off all your life does leave a bit of a stain. But the other thing that you didn’t mention (perhaps because you and your interviewees are way to close to politics and politicians) is that this country needs hope.
We are not a hateful country. We do not like that people are being killed, but we are a practical country and sometimes evil has to be routed out. We are parents who love our children and we want to be the ones showing them how to navigate life. We want common sense and sanity, not tampons in mens bathrooms.
A really good article, and one I'd like to add a few points on:
-I think one of the ingredients in Poilievre's "secret sauce" is that he's kept his message very focused on things of immediate interest to a lot of people like affordability and housing. That was one of the keys to Stephen Harper's first victory, namely sticking to a five point plan that was easy for voters to understand and appeal to. Poilievre's bluntness also appeals to a lot of people outside the Laurentian bubble-it almost reminds me of Ezra Levant, except without the moronic stunts and temper tantrums that turn Levant into a living cartoon character. There's a reason why Poilievre's broadened his appeal while Levant's never truly gone mainstream.
-Another ingredient is that he's more politically flexible than people give him credit for. His pledge to limit oil imports in favour of domestic production from places like Alberta is the stuff of nightmares for neoliberals and free traders, but it's sweet music to Albertans who feel like our oil is being constrained by Trudeau's energy policies. Something similar happened provincially when Sun media pundits said the quiet part out loud about Danielle Smith, namely that won by moving back towards the centre. She's got things like a provincial pension plan and police force on the table right now, but she sure didn't run on them!
-As for the PPC, it doesn't hurt that Maxime Bernier is as sharp as a bowling ball. Some of the libertarians who first joined the PPC were quitting in disgust because of the number of far-right types Bernier was attracting to the party. And remember, he's the same clown who Harper had to fire from Cabinet for leaving politically sensitive documents at the home of his Hells' Angels-affiliated girlfriend.
-I'm surprised Mr. Gurney's source didn't comment more on the Liberals' decision to exempt home heating oil from the carbon tax. If the supply agreement was the NDP's major miscalculation, the home heating oil exemption was the Liberals' miscalculation. That almost cut the knees off any rationale for supporting carbon taxation and was just another slap in Western Canada's face.
-One possible gap in Poilievre's armor could be his environmental stance. People notice when droughts get longer and we face water shortages, especially when businesses ranging from agriculture to tourism depend on that precipitation. He hasn't said much about what he'd actually do to replace the carbon tax, just brushing off the questions. That could be the potential sore spot for a lot of people.
-Finally, I've always felt that efforts to tear down John A. Macdonald statues and do things like 'Cancel Canada Day' have always done more harm than good. They make the 'ordinary' Canadians Mr. Gurney's source talks about feel like they're being attacked for taking pride in their heritage and who they are as Canadians, the same way that DEI and privilege discussions have, hence why they've been shifting to the Conservatives. The very real issues some of the activists pushing these things need to be addresed, of course, but I think a little flag-waving on their part might go a long way.
I thought this was a fantastic column because it reflects my own theories of Canadian politics. I too was wrong about Poilievre in the period after the 2021 election, and it has been an interesting exercise for me to examine how my views of Canadian politics have changed because of Poilievre.
But the humility really makes this column fantastic. To not only admit that you were wrong, but to sincerely attempt to find out why you were wrong. I can't help but wonder where Poilievre and the CPC would be now if our institutions, politicians, and the Canadian media had more humility.
All of this seems very right.
I think there was one other thing you missed in that column (and I was surprised given your knowledge and passion on the subject): Guns. The Conservatives were headed for victory with a couple of weeks left to go and Trudeau pulled his Fear Factor wedge on guns. O'Toole, scared about losing suburban votes, went squishy which alienated everyone. Conservatives felt betrayed and centre left types wondered again about Conservatives' "hidden agendas." That's when O'Toole's numbers sank and he lost all those ridings by a hair.
If O'Toole had stood firm and called out the Liberals for their hypocrisy, things might have gone differently. The charge of hypocrisy sticks to the Liberal brand. And people value leaders who have beliefs they're prepared to defend. (You completely won me over on the gun topic. There's no reason O'Toole couldn't have done the same. Even if he hadn't, he would have projected toughness. I think that's what he lost.
Poilievre is winning, I think, because unlike Scheer and O'toole he doesn't show fear. He says what he thinks on hot button issues and doesn't get scared off because of what the "Laurentian elite" may say. This connects to what your friend said about the male vote. Most people were already sick of the Liberals' DEI intersectional moral superiority, which mainly targets men. Cultural issues aren't a top of mind voting concern, but in my view are the 90% of the iceberg under the water because they signal how parties will approach issues, prioritize and make economic decisions. Cultural positions also let people know of parties hold certain groups are held in contempt: No one will vote for a party that hates them, which is what the left gets wrong when it says (condescendingly) that the working class doesn't know its own interests. Not all interests are economic; some are about basic self respect, and what self-respecting working class voter will vote for a party that codes it as racist, misogynist, homo/transphobic and unCanadian?
I wanted O'Toole to win because I've always been on the liberal left and thought that was the best way to keep two moderate parties. Like you, a feared O'Toole's loss would mean a far right turn for the Conservatives, and inevitably power shifts to the opposition party, so I was prepared to suffer short term inconvenience for long term security. But as it's turned out, Trudeau has doubled-down on his illiberal instincts, pushing centrists further away, and people have noticed that Poilievre's bark is worse than his policy bite and that he's actually more liberal in terms of classic values like free speech, equality, due process, etcetera.
Pierre is not radical, he is a centrist.
I was a lifelong lefty, always voting red orange or green. What pushed me right? Wokeness. Since then I've also moved right on economics, discovering Milton Friedman was revelatory for me. I joined the CPC specifically to vote PP as leader, but I was too shy to "like" his page on facebook, or tell any of my prog friends (some of whom have disowned me due to my political shift). When my arch liberal baby boomer mother found out I joined and voted in Pierre, she reacted like I had just joined the SS. All this to say I think we've been conditioned to think that conservatives need to be super careful and water everything down to appeal to moderates, BUT the left/progressive orthodoxy is now so extremely off the deep end that we don't need to find a soft middle path of moderation slightly to the right of the wokes, we need Pierre Poilievre to boldly say what we're all bloody well thinking! Pierre isn't really a radical, he's a centrist - he is in the centre of *actual* political sentiment in this country, which you would never know because our cultural establishment has shamed everyone into accepting their astroturfed phony consensus. Many of my lefty friends are slowly coming over to team blue - what they're overcoming is the Jon Stewartized mental conditioning that "conservatism bad"
Matt - your error comes down to two things IMHO - Canadians (and their vacuous, lightweight, virtue-signalling leader) can ignore economics if they so desire, but economics will not ignore them. Further, Canadians have always been proud of their nation’s status in the world and the regard in which Canada was held abroad. They see now that under Trudeau, in all too many ways, we are firmly on a fast track to becoming, to borrow a phrase from Trump, a “shithole country”. This was evident, to anyone who bothered to look, prior to Covid. Not there yet by any means, but the Trudeau/Lib trajectory is clear to all but those whose intellectual capacity is addled by wokeism.
"Hoist on my own petard, there."
This gave me a good laugh. Thank you. Something else that I suspect nobody saw coming, was youth enthusiasm to vote for Pollievre. I have teens - and depending on when the election is called, the youngest may or may not be old enough to vote. But you know who I heard about yesterday's poll results from first? My youngest teen. He is eager - excited - to see a conservative win and for Pollievre to become prime minister. Me? I'm in the demographics that in theory would support Trudeau, but I detest everything he's done since 2020. I am not loyal to any specific party and have voted for most of them - but have donated politically to the CPC for the last two years now, hold a membership, and will be voting CPC in the next election. Maybe my loyalty habits are changing too? I will admit to laughing when the NDP formed the agreement with the liberals as I knew they'd just sunk their own ship - I don't know how THEY didn't know it at the time because it was so obvious...
anyways - thanks for the laughter this morning. And for the self critique - I appreciate a glimpse into your thought process about previous columns.
I have been thinking about this for a while, but reading the article solidifies it: the media likes to talk about "party that appeal to the centrist voters win" and that's why they want CPC to choose centrist leader, depicting hardline leader as too extreme for Canadians.
The issue is, "centrist voter" is not a constant. They don't hold the same value over time. My theory is that "the party that can pull the centrist voters to them win". It's subtle difference, but it's big. It's not about being a leader that's confirming whatever the centrist voters currently believe, but making centrist voters believe in things that the party is selling, or to sell things that centrist voters will move into.
Trudeau in 2015 convinced voters on government spending big, which is against orthodoxy of Canadian belief that believe in balanced budget since the 90s. He also made many other changes that was not part of centrist beliefs and make it the new orthodoxy, like gender balanced cabinet, pricing on pollution, going easier on drugs, etc. These were things that were controversial at best, or not cared about at worst, pre-2015. But in 2019 and 2021 CPC had to answer why they were against this supposedly "centrist" belief.
Poilievre, instead of playing catch up with centrist belief like O'Toole, forecasted what the centrist voters will care about in short term future and occupy the space first. Once he got centrist voters' ears, then he could push them to believe more things that he believes in, like anti-carbon tax. Now we're witnessing it, with the belief that "centrist voters believe in pricing on pollution" being ditched left and right.
Great leaders don't follow voters, great leaders make voters follow them. Media (and O'Toole) believed the former, Poilievre (as Trudeau did in 2015) is proving the latter.
That motivation point echoes conversations I've had with a journalist friend since the pandemic "ended" in the news cycle. The wild card in Canadian politics, I told him, was the enormous, untapped voter pool represented by those who simply can't be bothered to vote, even if the incumbent rubs them the wrong way on a daily basis.
It's easier to shut that nagging, lecturing voice out than it is to vote, apparently, and voting is easy. This group, largely composed of working class/blue collar/rural males, sat out 2019 and 2021. The imported-from-U.S. election wedge issues of the past two elections might have got the Liberal base (55+ comfortable urban women and civil servants) predictably fired up, but the dominance of those distracting issues - and the responses from an on-the-defensive CPC - meant it was an election for "those people." People who talk about the CBC.
The convoy changed the landscape. It was a spark that ignited a belief in this group that they actually had a voice. For good or bad, it got many of them off their asses, with legions more cheering from the sidelines. When livelihoods were threatened, that voice emerged. And when the government went nuclear dealing with a movement loudly deemed a barbarian invasion by the political/managerial class, the "fuck you" vote was born.
Add to that the initially-ignored inflation wave that followed and the realization by many that a home and family are things (suddenly) not available to ordinary Canadians, and you had sustained tinder for the fire. All the Liberals needed to do was come out with some condescending statements, ineffective non-measures, and "actually, you've never had it so good" gaslighting to cement their status as bad guys who'll ignore any problem so long as wealthy Toronto retirees are happy.
If Poilievre could rouse and energize this group of ignored and maligned people enough to get them to the polling station, I said, his victory is assured. But it won't be a cake walk. You can't count on people predisposed to non-voting to vote. Every day brings a new opportunity to faceplant, too. You can't turn off the base. You can't give "edgy" voices in the party and community to much backing. It's got to be a tight, focused operation.
Thankfully for him, Trudeau and Co. seem to be doubling down on unpopular policies, as they can't be wrong, ever. They resemble the Wynne 2018 camp more and more with each passing day.
Great column, Matt. When you began it by referencing a past column, even quoting it, I thought I was in for a TNG 'Shades of Gray' type of experience.
I was wrong, and am glad I continued reading it to the end. Kudos for having the humility to write such an insightful piece based (initially) on studying the arc of your past interpretations of (then) current events and how they might play out in the future (our present).
The comments from your main source in the piece are also interesting, but he, like you, is operating from the benefit of hindsight. While more directly plugged in than you are, he's no more prescient than you were back then - in fact, as you often note, he agreed with most of your past columns.
I am still unconvinced that Poilievre can hold this lead the polls suggest, though for the sake of the country, I hope he does. With all his flaws, Poilievre is a much more relatable leader to most Canadians than any of his opponents. We must rid our country of self-serving vanity politicians like Trudeau and his cultists, Unserious Singh and his fellow grifters (are their any principled NDP'ers left?), and culturally insular extortionists like Blanchett and the Bloc (okay, that last one is likely impossible).
The forces at play that you and your source point out are accurate, and important. Trudeau is definitely disliked, nay despised, by an overwhelmingly massive majority of men (including me). What's been surprising, even shocking to me is how many women have finally seen through Trudeau's BS - which I maintain is how he won back in 2015 - and have pivoted to Poilievre. I never expected such a shift. The other thing I'm hearing from my adult children and their friends is they will vote for anyone, any party that presents a credible plan to solve the housing affordability crisis - this is a massive issue with GenZ.
What keeps me up at night is the baffling way Trudeau and his cult keep doubling down on frankly stupid, failed policies while Poilievre and the CPC keep eating his lunch. What worries me is the degree of foreign and domestically funded electoral interference and/or further CASA-type arrangements between the LPC, NDP, Green's and the Bloc that may be lurking behind the closed doors of this government. - It's almost that they know that no matter how bad the polls look, that on election day, the LPC seem confident it won't matter, and they'll retain power. It defies logic, but I can't shake the feeling that their smugness is due to more than just the fact of you and Jen's contention that the Liberals think they couldn't possibly be wrong about anything.
The other worry is that the world geopolitical situation will collapse in a spectacular way in the next year or so, and before our scheduled election. That type of crisis always favours the incumbent.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and the polls hold up, so at least we get a course correction from the CPC for at least 5 years. If not, the geopolitical crisis may ignite here in Canada.
It's 2:00 EDT. So far, this is the best string of comments ever evoked by an article. Truly, folks, you've added good quality writing to excellent quality journalism.
The factors noted are fair as far as they go. But I think there is a flaw in the original thesis about moderate conservative parties being more electable than firmly conservative ones.
O'Toole's fate to me resembles John Tory's fate as a provincial politician. (I say this to analyze, not to blame; I had a tiny role in O'Toole's campaign and a bigger role in Tory's). Both are excellent, able, thoughtful people. Both lost elections largely over wedge issues that were not among the top 20 issues a year before, or a year after, their elections (narrow federal vaccine mandates for O'Toole, religious school funding for Tory).
The standard explanation is that they walked into traps or created their own, so didn't properly execute the moderate strategy. I disagree. A better explanation is that they offered no emotionally compelling, controversial contrast to define the election, so Liberals got to define the contrast for them. Absent those wedges, many say O'Toole and Tory would have won. No! Liberals would have used different wedges. A strategy that relies on tamping down contrasts is hard to execute. There are too many potential contrasts, and on some (e.g., guns) Liberals can always outbid conservatives.
Poilievre gives the appearance of sharper contrast, with some substantive issues to back it up (like carbon tax). Conventional wisdom said an anti-carbon tax CPC couldn't win... even though Doug Ford won twice. The red Tory approach has been tried multiple times against incumbent Liberals: Clark with marginal success, Charest, Clark 2.0, O'Toole. Who won? Harper. Mulroney, whose reinvention as a moderate is pure revisionism; he was seen as a hard liner at the time.
Poilievre may yet lose, or underperform somehow. But his prospects are better than a red Tory's because he will define the contrast in the election, unapologetically and controversially. That approach is far from a sure winner, but it's still their strongest path to success. At some point, the failures of the red Tory approach show not that everyone who tried it inexplicably mucked up the execution, but rather that it is inherently difficult to execute, and thus not as good a strategy as many imagine.
Matt, Thank you for looking back at your piece and admitting your errors - that takes guts and a dash of humility that too many do not have anymore. My brother lived in the US when Trump first ran and he laughed him off as a boob who would never see the White House except on a tour but I said he was speaking to a large number of Americans who loved their country and didn't like how it was deteriorating (few manufactureing jobs, corruption in business and governemnt and so forth) and you know the outcome.
Reporters try to label PP as a 'populist' but what is a polulist if not someone who speaks for the population and their feelings and beliefs? Most of us see rising grocery costs after the carbon tax and most of us realize that we all end up with less despite JT trying to blow smoke up our behinds so what should be expected of an electorate who are fed up and see Canada fading on all fronts?
PP isn't perfect but he has a common touch, knows when to be indignant and actually reflects what a majority of Canadians feel - we are in trouble and our current leadership isn't capable of finding a way to salvation. Sunny ways have faded and reality has set in for us.
Cheers
About 5 years ago I had a conversation with someone who more or less said that he hated Poilievre because he was not nice. He didn't like his chippieness, and especially didn't like how he talked to the press. I said that those were exactly the reasons I liked him. I was never fooled by Trudeau's so called "sunny ways", but lots of people were. Especially a lot of women. But it was not long before his treatment of Jody Wilson Raybould and Jane Philpott showed him for who he really is. I remain surprised at how many people are still star struck by his fake persona.
Then there is the CPC who for years heeded the ill thought out boilerplate wisdom that what they needed to do was to take advice from the Liberals as to what kind of leader they need. But how has that worked out? But let's look at the federal Conservative leaders who have actually managed to win elections and form government. Progressives hated Harper. He was pretty much seen as the devil incarnate. That rhetoric has waned somewhat of late, but it won't go away for awhile yet. Like it eventually went away in regards to Mulroney, who the progressives of his day also hated. I am old enough to remember when he was the arch conservative Reagan/Thatcher clone who was going to destroy Canada by signing a free trade deal with the USA. This sort of thing is the ho-hum boring and gratingly pedantic nonsense that is always being peddled by (to coin a phrase) "Canada's upper middle class, and those desperate to join them". And of course of the cottage country set who secretly sneer in derision at Canada's working class, and generally anyone who lives outside their bubble. I have heard it said that there are only 2 kinds of Conservative PMs that progressives like. The first is "former". The second is "dead". But as long as they are the current leader or PM we will hear the same tired old tropes about "American style" this and "right wing" that. And of course the incessant shrieking of "POPULISM POPULISM POPULISM!!!" The latter being especially eye rolling. When people say that word to me, I ask them to define it. I either get the glazed over look from someone who can't, or I get a lecture about how the simple folk just can't be relied upon to know what is good for them, and how they are basically all bigots anyway.
Like many people, I am sick to death of this. Poilievre doesn't take their shit. He pushes back. I like that way more than Trudeau's whole "smiler with the knife under his cloak" routine.
I admit that I as well didn’t think Poilievre could turn it around, but I was wrong. I thought he was too combative. That may not have worked when he won, but is well suited for today.
The people who have lost their shit are the pundit class who always lead with “if the CPC were just like the LPC they’d do so well”. Poilievre is a giant fuck you to them and if he wins it’ll be a total refutation of their stupid worldview. They need to be taught a very sharp lesson.
One potential factor that has not been mentioned is the potential impact of foreign interference in the 21 election and the revelation of foreign interference to voters.
Yes I know the Liberal/CBC talking points that the overall outcome of the election was not impacted, but voters deserve to know exactly which ridings WERE impacted. This has helped erode trust in these self serving conclusions.
Voters should be concerned with why a foreign agent registry is taking so long to implement, particularly now with divisions re: Israel/Palestine and the NDPs leverage over the Libs
There is nothing that isn’t true in you and your CPC folks’ comments. Certainly, everyone should have seen that being called privileged when you worked your ass off all your life does leave a bit of a stain. But the other thing that you didn’t mention (perhaps because you and your interviewees are way to close to politics and politicians) is that this country needs hope.
We are not a hateful country. We do not like that people are being killed, but we are a practical country and sometimes evil has to be routed out. We are parents who love our children and we want to be the ones showing them how to navigate life. We want common sense and sanity, not tampons in mens bathrooms.
And we want to drive our Ram 3500’s.
A really good article, and one I'd like to add a few points on:
-I think one of the ingredients in Poilievre's "secret sauce" is that he's kept his message very focused on things of immediate interest to a lot of people like affordability and housing. That was one of the keys to Stephen Harper's first victory, namely sticking to a five point plan that was easy for voters to understand and appeal to. Poilievre's bluntness also appeals to a lot of people outside the Laurentian bubble-it almost reminds me of Ezra Levant, except without the moronic stunts and temper tantrums that turn Levant into a living cartoon character. There's a reason why Poilievre's broadened his appeal while Levant's never truly gone mainstream.
-Another ingredient is that he's more politically flexible than people give him credit for. His pledge to limit oil imports in favour of domestic production from places like Alberta is the stuff of nightmares for neoliberals and free traders, but it's sweet music to Albertans who feel like our oil is being constrained by Trudeau's energy policies. Something similar happened provincially when Sun media pundits said the quiet part out loud about Danielle Smith, namely that won by moving back towards the centre. She's got things like a provincial pension plan and police force on the table right now, but she sure didn't run on them!
-As for the PPC, it doesn't hurt that Maxime Bernier is as sharp as a bowling ball. Some of the libertarians who first joined the PPC were quitting in disgust because of the number of far-right types Bernier was attracting to the party. And remember, he's the same clown who Harper had to fire from Cabinet for leaving politically sensitive documents at the home of his Hells' Angels-affiliated girlfriend.
-I'm surprised Mr. Gurney's source didn't comment more on the Liberals' decision to exempt home heating oil from the carbon tax. If the supply agreement was the NDP's major miscalculation, the home heating oil exemption was the Liberals' miscalculation. That almost cut the knees off any rationale for supporting carbon taxation and was just another slap in Western Canada's face.
-One possible gap in Poilievre's armor could be his environmental stance. People notice when droughts get longer and we face water shortages, especially when businesses ranging from agriculture to tourism depend on that precipitation. He hasn't said much about what he'd actually do to replace the carbon tax, just brushing off the questions. That could be the potential sore spot for a lot of people.
-Finally, I've always felt that efforts to tear down John A. Macdonald statues and do things like 'Cancel Canada Day' have always done more harm than good. They make the 'ordinary' Canadians Mr. Gurney's source talks about feel like they're being attacked for taking pride in their heritage and who they are as Canadians, the same way that DEI and privilege discussions have, hence why they've been shifting to the Conservatives. The very real issues some of the activists pushing these things need to be addresed, of course, but I think a little flag-waving on their part might go a long way.
I thought this was a fantastic column because it reflects my own theories of Canadian politics. I too was wrong about Poilievre in the period after the 2021 election, and it has been an interesting exercise for me to examine how my views of Canadian politics have changed because of Poilievre.
But the humility really makes this column fantastic. To not only admit that you were wrong, but to sincerely attempt to find out why you were wrong. I can't help but wonder where Poilievre and the CPC would be now if our institutions, politicians, and the Canadian media had more humility.