Conservative MP and leadership candidate Pierre Poalievre arrives for a press conference at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa on April 28. Justin Tang / The Canadian Press
Earlier this week, Conservative candidate Pierre Poalievre held a press conference and once again smashed the Bank of Canada.
The announcement was confusing – something to ban the bank from creating digital currency and attracting the chief auditor. Informed heads shook disapprovingly.
But Gerald Butts, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief secretary, suggested the following tweet:
“His crypto stuff is crazy about banana muffins, but Poilievre’s French is fantastic. Guess which of these two things is more important in general elections.
Clever liberals know that Mr Poilievre is not actually campaigning against a digital currency based on the central bank. He is campaigning against empowered elites – “gatekeepers”, he called them – who have made housing inaccessible and vaccines mandatory, who are more concerned about global warming and the recognition of ceded lands to indigenous peoples than the price of gas. give up beef for chicken.
Clever Liberals know that the Carlton MP is the most serious threat they face since Stephen Harper united the Conservatives in 2004.
Mr Poilievre continues to generate large crowds and disapproving titles. Tom Broadbeck of the Winnipeg Free Press accused him of participating in “Donald Trump-style politics.”
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“The former US president has made a political career by lying to Americans and attacking the integrity of public institutions such as the courts, intelligence agencies and the US Federal Reserve,” Mr Broadbeck wrote. “Poalier’s tactics are very similar.”
Mr Broadbeck reflects the progressive narrative: Pierre Poalier uses inconsistent anger in a populist campaign that, if successful, could polarize Canadian politics and do great harm to the country.
The Progressive Narrative also argues that high levels of immigration and the acceptance by younger voters of women’s and minority rights are combined to create a diverse and tolerant society, against which some less educated, rural, evangelical, white voters resent , although their influence will diminish over time.
However, the facts say otherwise. There are 28 states in the United States with Republican governors and only 22 with Democratic governors. In Canada, the conservative governments of one brand or another dominate every major province except British Columbia.
Donald Trump was probably the worst president in American history, and the Democrats managed to defeat him. But many analysts expect Democrats to lose control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in this year’s by-elections. And unless President Joe Biden changes his grim approval rating, the Republican Party is likely to regain its presidency in 2024.
In Canada, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won three consecutive elections. But they lost the popular vote in two of them. A Nanos poll this week shows that the Conservatives have 36 percent support and the Liberals have 30 percent.
What struck sociologist Nick Nanos was that younger voters preferred both the Conservatives and the New Democrats to the Liberals.
“The combination of fatigue with the Liberals, the pandemic and the cost of living is shaking up what was once the basis for supporting the Federal Liberals,” he said.
(Thousands of adult Canadians based on phones using a four-week moving average of 250 each week, with an accuracy of 2.9 percentage points 19 times out of 20.)
Young voters swinging by conservatives contradict the progressive narrative. Tory’s labor support does the same. But on the eve of the Ontario election campaign, the International Labor Union backed progressive Conservative Prime Minister Doug Ford and released an ad attacking Liberal leader Stephen Del Duca.
“The Ford government has done more in these four years in terms of labor, labor laws, workers and education than the Del Duca Liberals when they were in power,” Joe Mancinelli, head of the Eastern Canada union, told Brian. Lily of the Toronto Sun.
As for the angry white-populist trope, there is growing support for the Republican Party among Latinos in the United States. In Ontario, Doug Ford is popular with immigrant voters in the suburbs, and Mr. Poilievre is actively courting those same voters.
Prime Minister Pierre Poalever is far from inevitable. Liberals have ample time to assess the threat and meet it, perhaps with a new leader. But ask yourself this:
How likely is it that standard liberal tactics to accuse conservatives of being anti-abortion, anti-abortion, racist and stupid will work on Pierre Poliver?
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