Polls suggest that Canadians are in the mood for change. Michael Harris writes:
Within its sample of 2,000 respondents, the same Abacus poll that showed an overwhelming majority wants a change in government also found 31 per cent of respondents didn’t like any of the politicians on offer. This group was then asked how they would vote if there were an election tomorrow.
Here are the numbers: 33 per cent Liberal; 22 per cent NDP and 19 per cent Conservative. According to pollster David Coletto, it is this group of people who don’t favour any of the leaders that will decide the next election. If Trudeau can hold on to the Liberal vote in this group and add it to the 20 per cent who want him to remain PM, there is a realistic chance he will win a fourth term.
According to Coletto, the only certain way that Trudeau falls is if one of the Opposition parties makes itself more attractive to this pivotal group that currently doesn’t like anybody.
And that is bad news for the Conservative Party of Canada. Up until now, the party’s leader has scored with the CPC base but missed the net with the broader electorate.
The problem for Conservatives is their Leader, Pierre Poilievre:
The sticking point is Pierre Poilievre’s slavish adherence to the kind of Trumpian nastiness that is rotting the heart of the Republican party in the Indicted States of America. Poilievre specializes in put-downs, not lift-ups. It is usually the latter that inspire Canadians.
With former PM Stephen Harper’s public endorsement, Poilievre won the top job by dragging the CPC further to the right. And he has maintained that Freedom Caucus-style political stance as leader of the Opposition.
Gut the CBC, fire the chairman of the Bank of Canada, close safe injection sites, and keep the drill bit turning to the right while the planet is deep in a fossil-fuelled fever.
That approach may have gotten Skippy the clip of the day from question period, but it didn’t make more room in the CPC tent. Politics is a game of addition, not subtraction, and so far, Poilievre’s has got the arithmetic backwards. Great at subtraction, a flop at addition.
Poilievre's predecessor, Erin O'Toole, recognized that the Conservatives have to make room for more moderate Canadians:
Erin O’Toole won the CPC leadership the same way his successor did — by playing to the party’s hard-right base. But O’Toole realized that the pitch that won him the top job in the party would not, could not, win him a general election.
So he adjusted the sales pitch, moderated his views, and took a few baby steps to the centre of the political spectrum in hopes of gaining wider appeal. It didn’t work because Canadians didn’t believe that the leopard had really changed his spots. O’Toole ended up winning fewer seats than his hapless predecessor, Andrew Scheer.
Unlike the more supple O’Toole, a move toward the centre is not possible for Poilievre. It is more likely that Vladimir Putin would rehire Yevgeny Prigozhin as his chef than Canadians would believe in a kinder and gentler Pierre Poilievre.
So if David Coletto has it right, and the only way to beat the Liberals is for the opposition to make itself more attractive to those who don’t like any of their political options, how does Poilievre do that?
Word has it that Poilievre intends to ditch his glasses for contacts. That kind of change won't do it for him.
Image: The Toronto Sun
