Western Standard - March 10, 2022


Can Poilievre make the Conservatives the party of freedom？


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

160.17978

Word Count

1,188

Sentence Count

67


Summary

Most Conservative leadership races are proxy battles for the ideological soul of the party. This ideological battle has taken different forms in its previous three contests. In 2004, Stephen Harper represented a moderated but still Western and Reform-rooted version of the newly united party against the Toronto-based, traditional progressive conservatism of his primary challenger, Belinda Stronach. In 2015, the Tories saw its first ever serious play for high office by an explicitly libertarian candidate in the form of Maxime Bernier. And in 2017, Canada saw the sometimes controversial Mad Max campaign saw the former controversial minister run on the most radical platform of rolling back the size and scope of the Canadian state in its history.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The showdown to replace Aaron O'Toole as Conservative leader is shaping up to be one of the most consequential races in that party's history.
00:00:09.460 So far, the race has a few declared candidates, Pierre Polliver, Leslyn Lewis, and Patrick Brown, and Jean Charest is expected to formally launch his campaign in Calgary on March 8th.
00:00:21.640 A few others may join the fray, but Polliver and Charest will very likely be the only candidates with any realistic shot at winning.
00:00:30.000 Most Conservative leadership races are proxy battles for the ideological soul of the party.
00:00:34.760 This ideological battle has taken different forms in its previous three contests.
00:00:39.360 In 2004, Stephen Harper represented a moderated, but still Western and Reform-rooted version of the newly united party
00:00:45.880 against the Toronto-based traditional progressive conservatism of his primary competitor, Belinda Stronach.
00:00:52.060 Harper's vision won out, but he was careful not to govern just for his native Western and Reform faction.
00:00:57.220 On the contrary, his cabinet was dominated by more traditional progressive conservatives,
00:01:02.160 and he successfully held the party together until losing power in 2015.
00:01:07.080 In 2017, Canada saw its first ever serious play for high office by an explicitly libertarian candidate in the form of Maxime Bernier.
00:01:15.400 His Mad Max campaign saw the sometimes former controversial minister run on the most radical platform
00:01:21.300 of rolling back the size and scope of the Canadian state in Canada's history.
00:01:25.460 Bernier lost the controversial vote to Andrew Scheer, who ran as a relatively generic Blue Conservative.
00:01:32.620 Bernier went on to publicly break with the Tories and take a more populist direction with his People's Party.
00:01:37.960 The 2020 race that replaced Andrew Scheer saw two major candidates, who agreed on almost everything,
00:01:43.840 run campaigns highlighting their exaggerated non-differences in policy.
00:01:47.520 O'Toole, who originally intended to run as a centrist, Purple Tory campaign, ran as the true blue defender of conservative orthodoxy
00:01:55.620 once he learned that the young Polliver was not running.
00:01:58.900 It was a bizarre spectacle.
00:02:00.640 O'Toole, who ran as a Red Tory only a few years earlier,
00:02:04.120 recast himself as a slayer of the spineless, liberal-like Red Tories of his ideological bunkmate, Peter McKay.
00:02:10.460 But enough conservatives bought the shtick to make him leader, but not enough to keep him there.
00:02:16.920 In his quest for the Prime Minister's chair, O'Toole jettisoned the social conservatives who helped him win the party's leadership
00:02:22.140 and key planks of his own platform, like opposing Trudeau's carbon tax.
00:02:27.100 Going much further into liberal territory than was promised by rival Peter McKay.
00:02:32.200 O'Toole's big gamble was a bust, and the Tories even managed to lose a handful of seats.
00:02:36.340 Most ominously, O'Toole's turn at the helm saw an explosion in support of the upstart People's Party.
00:02:43.620 That party's populist and anti-authoritarian fusion attracted disenfranchised conservatives
00:02:48.580 and less familiar voters from the leftist parties.
00:02:52.700 Perhaps most concerning for the Tories, however, was the PPC's ability to grab the zeitgeist
00:02:56.980 of anti-authoritarian voters who wanted Trudeau and Trudeau's mandates gone more than anyone else.
00:03:03.040 Their energy and anger, even more so than their votes, was fuel that was badly needed
00:03:08.780 if the conservatives were to have any hope of defeating the liberals.
00:03:12.420 This is a long-winded way of me coming back around to the latest battle for the conservative crown.
00:03:18.440 It's too early to say yet, but the Paul-Avers-Sharay fight is shaping up thus far
00:03:22.920 to be a new kind of contest not yet seen before.
00:03:26.520 Harper v. Stronach was blue v. red.
00:03:29.860 Scheer v. Bernier was blue v. libertarian.
00:03:33.000 O'Toole v. McKay was red, but painted blue v. red.
00:03:38.420 Paul-Avers-Sharay may shape up to be libertarian populist v. very red.
00:03:43.660 Paul-Avers sent strong signals that he isn't running as a traditional blue conservative
00:03:47.180 in the Harper and Scheer mold.
00:03:49.460 Exhibit one of this is his open embrace of the Freedom Convoy's main objectives,
00:03:53.940 lifting all mandates now.
00:03:55.220 He did it quickly and decisively, and in clear contrast to the waffling indecisiveness of former leader Aaron O'Toole.
00:04:03.380 In Saskatchewan, he held a boisterous rally, calling for Trudeau to legalize smiling again.
00:04:08.380 That is, end the federal mask and vaccine mandates.
00:04:13.200 Exhibit two is what appears to be an embrace of a radical and badly needed overhaul of Canada's crumbling monetary policy.
00:04:19.520 Discussing the gold standard and bitcoin can be confusing to the uninitiated,
00:04:24.380 but to the rapidly growing digital currency movement, he is speaking an easily recognizable language.
00:04:29.200 Paul-Avers' speeches in Parliament comparing Trudeau to a medieval English king
00:04:33.200 who debased the currency and subsequently lost his head
00:04:36.660 is using arguments that come directly from the gold standard proponents
00:04:40.540 and their successor advocates of the bitcoin standard.
00:04:44.060 Most Canadians pay little to no attention to monetary policy
00:04:46.640 beyond what the government's artificial interest rates mean for their mortgage payments.
00:04:51.560 For those who are paying attention,
00:04:54.000 they could find themselves with a serious candidate for high office.
00:04:56.680 Oliver's path to the conservative leadership and the prime minister's chair
00:05:01.480 align nicely along a single path.
00:05:04.520 That is, to win back wayward PPC votes
00:05:06.980 and convince enough swing voters that he is a decisive leader guided by principles and not polls.
00:05:12.660 For the first part of this, Oliver is well on his way.
00:05:15.980 He is unambiguously anti-mandate, although a bit late to the game in his public position.
00:05:20.640 He is beating the establishment and anti-authoritarian drum,
00:05:24.020 competing with Bernier to see who can use the word freedom the most in a stump speech.
00:05:29.060 If he really wants to send a clear signal that he wants PPZ voters on Team Pierre,
00:05:34.140 he should run as Bernier himself did in 2017 on a promise of ending the supply management dairy cartel.
00:05:40.400 It may not be the biggest issue in Canada at the moment,
00:05:43.160 but has in many ways become a litmus test among activists for political courage
00:05:47.220 and facing down powerful and entrenched interests.
00:05:50.600 At the same time, Oliver should avoid the excesses that can come with populism
00:05:54.720 and seek to win over swing voters with strong, decisive leadership.
00:05:59.540 This would be in contrast to the strategy last time around,
00:06:02.600 which saw Aaron O'Toole publicly repudiate most of his own major policy positions
00:06:07.060 to show swing voters just how reasonable he was.
00:06:10.180 But to many, it just stank of political opportunism.
00:06:13.120 Most voters in Canada are not two-dimensional ideologues plotted along a left-right axis.
00:06:19.820 They have individual values and don't always fit neatly into ideological purity tests
00:06:24.940 and will often select a candidate who appears strong and decisive
00:06:28.340 over one that may signal the right virtues.
00:06:32.540 It's difficult to find anyone under the age of 50 west of Lake Superior who knows who Jean Charest is.
00:06:37.900 The temptation will be there for Oliver to play it safe
00:06:41.160 because his primary opponent faces strong hostility from the party's right and in the west.
00:06:46.760 But Charest has significant support in Quebec and among the party's corporate oligarchs.
00:06:52.000 Oliver has a chance to win both his party's leadership and to become the prime minister.
00:06:57.080 And his best bet is to refashion the Conservative Party into the new party of freedom.
00:07:02.300 Have a great week.
00:07:23.840 Have a great week.
00:07:24.380 Have a great week.