Scheer is still fighting last war — which he lost

Pity Andrew Scheer.

First, the Conservative leader lost the last federal election. Then his own party told him it was time to go.

Now, as the Conservatives engage in a contest to pick a new leader to replace him, Scheer is left temporarily holding the fort.

You’d think he would just keep his mouth shut until the new leader, whoever that might be, takes over in August.

But that, it seems, is not Scheer’s style. He continues to demonize Justin Trudeau, even though polls suggest that most Canadians think the Liberal prime minister is doing a reasonable job.

Scheer is also taking to task the popular Canada Emergency Response Benefit, a program intended to help those unable to work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a press conference this week, Scheer claimed — with little evidence — that the program is being abused by “fraudsters” and “criminals.”

The CERB provides $500 a week, for up to 16 weeks, to those who have lost wages because of the pandemic. Citing Statistics Canada figures, the National Post reported this week that in April, the number of people who applied for CERB exceeded by about a million the number officially counted as unemployed or underemployed.

Economists and statisticians are divided as to what, if anything, this means. For instance, not all of those who apply for CERB receive the benefit. As well, the StatCan unemployment figures are not ironclad.

They are based on a relatively small polling sample with a double-digit margin of error.

But Scheer’s problems here have more to do with the politics of the aid package. For most workers hammered by the pandemic, the CERB has been a godsend. It may suit the Conservative base to focus on those who abuse the program. But I doubt that most beneficiaries think of themselves as fraudsters and criminals.

Indeed, popular reaction to social programs generally has changed. The virus has reminded us of their utility. They are no longer so easily dismissed as boondoggles for the unworthy.

But Scheer, and those Conservatives whose views he represents, don’t seem to understand this.

So, too, the deficit. For Scheer the deficit remains a bugaboo. On Wednesday in the Commons, he chided Trudeau for running massive deficits in order to fight the virus.

It’s an argument that would have had considerable traction in the past. But it does not now. Even economists who usually espouse fiscal conservatism say that governments must be willing to run huge deficits if the economy is to survive.

For Trudeau, it was easy to dismiss Scheer. The Conservative leader, he told MPs, was making “the same, tired arguments,” that his party used to make under Stephen Harper. Scheer, he said, doesn’t understand that the world has moved on.

And that is Scheer’s problem. He is still fighting the last war. He has never accepted the fact that Trudeau won the last election. As a result, he can never treat the Liberal government as legitimate.

He focuses on issues, such as keeping the Commons physically open, that most people don’t care about. He treats programs that people do care about, like CERB, as hotbeds of fraud. He remains fixated on debt and deficit.

At one level, most of this doesn’t matter. Scheer is on his way out. But until August. he is the voice of his party, a voice that is increasingly strident and out of date.

Conservative backroomers Jenni Byrne and Kory Teneycke, both former spear carriers for Harper, have called on Scheer to step down immediately. Yet tellingly, none of the candidates for the party’s leadership have publicly echoed this demand.

For all of his faults and missteps, it seems that Scheer still speaks for an important element of the Conservative base.

Andrew Scheer is the voice of his party, a voice that is increasingly strident and out of date