WRONG PACKAGING?
COULD A RELUCTANCE TO CHAMPION CONSERVATIVE VALUES BE THE REASON FOR THE PARTY’S FAILURE?
It may be a comparison between apples and oranges, but the contrast was hard for many conservatives to miss.
Two weeks after federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer unveiled his costed platform in the late afternoon on the Friday before Thanksgiving weekend in British Columbia — essentially imposing a media blackout on it — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney went on television to explain in detail why he was going to make budget cuts.
“We spent $2,000 more per person than other provinces do,” Kenney said. “In many government programs we get worse outcomes than other provinces. In other words, in program after program, Albertans pay more but get less.”
While one leader appeared to be defensive and even shy over tackling deficits and spending, the other was putting himself front and centre with voters on this issue.
The difference gets at a fundamental problem some strategists had with the Scheer campaign: It often seemed to be too reticent about conservative values, rather than championing them and trying to win voters to their side.
Scheer’s defenders will be quick to point out the different circumstances. Kenney is a newly-elected premier in a province that returned Conservative MPS in all but one riding during the federal election, often by massive margins. When Scheer released his platform, meanwhile, he was in the middle of a national campaign and trying to reach voters in places like B.C., Toronto’s suburbs and Quebec
But even so, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have been making a political case for increased government spending, promising in 2015 to run deficits when Tom Mulcair’s NDP wanted to balance the budget. The Liberals have made their ideological argument forcefully, while the Conservatives appear to be engaged in a tactical retreat.
Now, after an election night that saw Trudeau returned with a strong minority government, federal Conservatives will be conducting a post-mortem on this campaign. They will have to consider everything from their fiscal policies, to their environmental platform, to the performance of their leader.
And in each area where they stumbled, they’ll have to decide: Was the problem one of strategy, or tactics?
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