Canadian conservatives have more than just new-found confidence
Back when the annual Canada Strong and Free Conference, which wrapped up Friday, bore Preston Manning’s name, the Reform Party founder would usually take an opportunity to counsel the flock away from fiery rhetoric. He was most stern in 2013, when he warned at the Manning Conference that the conservative movement’s “greatest weakness” is “intemperate and ill-considered remarks by those who hold ... positions deeply, but in fits of carelessness or zealousness say things that discredit the family as a whole.”
He referred in particular to Wildrose Party candidate Allan Hunsperger’s unearthed “lake of fire” remark vis-a-vis homosexuality, though Hunsperger insisted these were his “personal religious views” and not a political manifesto — something you might have thought Manning would appreciate, given his own evangelical background.
But Manning would issue similar admonishments almost every year, basically urging partisans to tone things down for the good of the movement. It was always a funny fit at a conference where conservatives were supposed to feel good about themselves and muster the forces of light against those of darkness. For lack of a better word, it projected an uninspiring lack of confidence. People did grumble a bit about it. Confidence isn’t a problem with today’s partisan Conservatives, and you wouldn’t expect there to be, with Pierre Poilievre 20 points ahead in the polls. A population that’s well and properly sick of an incumbent leader will overlook a lot of non-critical disagreements to get behind a new option.
But I feel like the tide might be turning in a more fundamental, principled way. I wonder if the notion of the Scary Conservative prime minister has finally run out of steam for good — ironically enough, with the most divisive leader at the helm since the party’s reunification.
An interesting discussion at this year’s event concerned in part the way conservative campaigners should speak to people on doorsteps about parental rights, specifically with respect to gender dysphoria in children and how schools should handle it.
Panellist Suzanne Sexton wisely said campaigners have to remember the vast majority of people simply aren’t seized with this issue, and so passion can easily be misinterpreted as zealotry. She advised focusing parental-rights conversations on the fact that “the vast majority of parents, no matter what their political views or their personal, religious or moral views, want the best for their children.” That’s good advice.
But do they even have to make that case, at this point?
The other parties’ positions on this issue are unhinged. Poll after poll tells them they’re miles offside even the majority of their own voters, and yet they only seem to become more and more entrenched: If a child tells a teacher or counsellor they wish to transition to a different gender at school, and they don’t want their parents to be informed or involved, the other parties insist the school must agree.
Almost literally no one agrees with that idea, including, I suspect, many of the people who claim publicly that they do agree with it. It’s based on the fundamentally misanthropic idea that a critical mass of parents would abuse children coming to them with such problems, and the easy-to-refute idea that any given teacher or principal or school knows better. It’s not just an easy argument to win. It seems to be won.
Climate change is another policy on which the Conservatives needn’t squirm or apologize nowadays. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault have taken so many hatchets to their own carbon-tax plan that there’s scarcely anything left for them to defend.
I still chuckle when I see conservative politicians bemoan how people can’t afford anything anymore, and then in the next breath claim the carbon tax “doesn’t work.” They’re literally describing how the carbon tax is supposed to “work” — by pushing people to not buy things they otherwise would in hopes of altering their behaviour.
Of course, the Liberals could never bring themselves to say this. They insist that their carbon-tax rebates mean hardly anyone is out of pocket by the end of the year at all — practically encouraging people not to change their behaviour, and simply confusing a lot of other people besides. (Why take my money just to give it back?) If the Liberals didn’t think exempting home-heating oil from the tax, but not cleaner-burning natural gas, for nakedly political reasons was the death knell for their plan, then they’re more delusional than we thought.
NDP premiers, Liberal premiers, conservative premiers are all demanding the same relief for their citizens. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh mooted abandoning support for the consumer carbon-tax this week, but then walked it back — a bit odd, since New Democrats (not to mention Guilbeault) have always favoured command-and-control measures over dinging the consumer at the till, but it’s not clear anyone in the Jack Layton Building has any idea what they think they’re doing nowadays.
Remember when all the pundits decided it was impossible for a Conservative leader to win without a serious, credible climate-change plan? Not so much, it looks like. As it stands, Poilievre might waltz to a majority without even releasing a platform.
No doubt we’ll soon hear the usual attacks from the Liberals that they unleash against every Conservative leader: He’ll roll back same-sex marriage, he’ll ban abortion, and on and on, ad nauseam infinitum. There’s no reason to believe he’ll do any of those things. And the good news for Poilievre is that confidence is the best shield against spurious allegations of all kinds — the ability, which Poilievre has, to just wave or chuckle away stupid questions, even if you’ve heard them 20 times that week.