Who’s inside Conservatives’ Big Blue Tent?
Scheer facing tough questions after convention
HALIFAX— Where are the boundaries of the Big Blue Tent?
That was the central question at the Conservative party’s policy convention, which wrapped up in Halifax on Saturday. Who makes up Andrew Scheer’s conservative coalition? And what are that coalition’s priorities heading into an election year?
Let’s start with the easy one: Maxime Bernier is certainly out of the tent. The Quebec MP, who narrowly lost the leadership to Scheer, quit the party Thursday and vowed to start his own, calling the Conservatives “too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed.” He timed his departure just as the party’s activists were landing in Halifax for the pre-election reunion.
If he was trying for maximum damage to Scheer, he probably should have shown up and quit on Sunday. At least then news reports would wonder about a possible Conservative schism the whole weekend.
Instead, he launched his broadside on former colleagues from the relative safety of Ottawa. Scheer addressed the matter Thursday, angrily denying Bernier’s claim that the Conservative party has abandoned conservative voters.
The entire caucus, including Bernier’s former supporters, seemed to rally around their leader rather than the runnerup.
But that doesn’t mean the Beauce MP won’t remain a headache for the party. An Abacus Data poll released Sunday showed that Bernier could leach support away from the Conservatives.
After being informed of Bernier’s positions on tightening the border, cancelling retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. and getting rid of supply management, 13 per cent of respondents said they’d vote for a hypothetical Bernier-led party.
While Bernier’s support is strongest in Alberta (18 per cent), the Abacus finding that15 per cent of Quebecers would support Bernier’s nascent party is trouble for the Conservatives, who are counting on making inroads in Quebec in 2019. Leaving aside the drama around Bernier, what did the rest of the weekend tell Canadians about the Conservative vi- sion?
Scheer’s office ignored an interview request from the Star on Saturday and declined interviews with the Globe and Mail and the Huffington Post, while sitting down with most other media outlets that attended theconvention.
But it was apparent throughout the weekend that the Liberals’ plans for a national price on carbon will be the main target for the Conservatives in 2019. From Premier Doug Ford’s speech on Thursday, to Scheer’s keynote on Friday, to the policy voting on Saturday, the “carbon tax” was the most talked-about policy at the convention.
Scheer said he foresaw a “carbon tax revolt” brewing across the country. The party’s grassroots went a step further, essentially saying the federal government should have no role in making climate change policy for the country. Instead, provinces should make their own policies (or have no policy at all), free from federal carrots or sticks, they said.
Killing the carbon tax is so popular among Conservatives likely because it resoundingly hits three chords: cancelling any tax plays well among the grassroots; reducing Ottawa’s role in favour of more provincial autonomy is a longstanding goal of Canadian conservatives; and backing off from aggressive climate action will be welcomed by a number of ele- ments within the party.
Clearly another unifying theme was the issue of irregular migration. While the current numbers of asylum claimants are still well within historical levels, multiple policy motions called for a crackdown. While the NDP called for a suspension of the border agreement with the United States, given tough new measures from the Trump administration, the Conservatives want to extend it to deal with irregular crossings.
Meanwhile, the social conservatives, as always, wanted to reopen the abortion debate by undoing Stephen Harper’s commitment not to introduce new legislation. Perhaps luckily for Scheer, the party narrowly rejected this idea, with 53 per cent of delegates opposing that attempt. That 47 per cent supported it, however, suggests the issue is not going away.
Behind the scenes, party brass also made efforts to limit the influence of fringe elements — including the far-right, racebaiting Rebel Media — at the weekend’s proceedings.
The Rebel was banned outright, although Ezra Levant and his followers managed to make a few appearances on the convention’s margins. Levant hosted a hospitality suite on Friday night, but local alt-weekly The Coast reported only a handful of people attended.
The sensitivity around who can find a home within Scheer’s party is heightened in light of Bernier’s departure and the political dynamic it has created.
As the 2019 election approaches, the challenge for Conservatives will be to articulate clearly who is in that Big Blue Tent and who is out. If they don’t define those boundaries, others will do it for them.