Trump-style rise not likely in Canada
THIS COUNTRY HAS PROVEN RELATIVELY IMMUNE TO THE EXTREME POPULISM INFECTING WESTERN NATIONS
In the U.S., the politics pages are rife with tales of Donald Trump denigrating the grieving Gold Star family of a dead Muslim soldier, questions about the Republican candidate’s ties to Russia and unconfirmed tales of his seeming eagerness to drop nuclear bombs.
In Canada, the only real political scandal running is the matter of MP Hunter Tootoo’s “consensual but inappropriate” relationship with a staffer; it’s a break from incessant talk about electoral reform and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plans to change how he appoints Supreme Court judges.
Several political strategists have suggested that while there are glimmerings of populism in Canada, none are planning for a truly disruptive Trump-like candidate here.
“The closest thing we have in Canada to a Donald Trump would be a Doug Ford,” said Nick Kouvalis, late Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s former chief of staff. Even then, he said, it’s not an entirely apt comparison.
“If we take all of the racism and bigotry and xenophobic stuff out and just talk about why Trump does resonate with a significant portion of society — and more than just the fringe — it’s because he is connecting with their issues.”
In short, this country’s political system is less crazy. Whether it be a result of our electoral system, a better-integrated multicultural society, stricter financing laws or relative economic stability, Canada has proven to be relatively immune to the extreme forms of populism that seem to so easily infect other Western democracies.
The U.S. has, over the past generation, witnessed a shrinking of its middle class and a worsening wealth inequality. Combine that with a drop in quality of life and witness a society ripe for a strongman populist.
By comparison, Kouvalis said, Canada maintains a relatively strong middle class and a good quality of life. The few emerging populists this country has witnessed have been, for the most part, regional phenomena.
“In Toronto, I ran Rob Ford’s campaign and people were fed up with their property taxes and other revenue tools like the vehicle registration and the land transfer tax. They were upset with all these new increases and it had a dire impact on their disposable income while, at the same time, they saw tremendous amounts of waste and mismanagement in government.”
The late Ford, who in some ways paved the way for Trump with his high drama and viral video antics, was a creature of long-simmering fundamentally economic backlash, Kouvalis said. “It does come back down to the disposable income and quality of life issues,” he said.
Kouvalis said the other area seeing this kind of populist tone is, unsurprisingly, Alberta, where the flagging oil price has thrown hundreds of thousands out of work. It’s no coincidence to see federal MP Jason Kenney adopt populist trappings in his bid to gain the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative party and unite the right.
Kenney has made a great show of his unity tour, complete with true-blue Ram pickup truck — the Albertan stereotype’s conveyance of choice.
“I figured my Dodge Ram would do the job better than a Prius,” he quipped as he launched his bid, which will include couch-surfing in Albertans’ homes. As theatre goes, this has much to recommend it; he’s showing solidarity for the province’s culture and primary industry as he laments the NDP’s carbon tax and blames the ruling government for many of the province’s economic woes.
“Jason Kenney has tapped into (populist sentiment),” Kouvalis said. “He’s a guy who is saying he can fix those things.”
However, Kouvalis doesn’t expect a pan-Canadian candidate to emerge and dominate the political sphere here in the way Trump has — at least, not in the Conservative party.
“The Conservative party membership is really poking to see who can be Trudeau. They know at the end of the day it’s going to take someone who can raise a lot of money and who contrasts well with Trudeau. That takes someone who has a track record for being disciplined, hard-working and successful in life. I don’t think we’re going to have a Donald Trump in the Conservative party.”
Ken Boessenkool, a conservative consultant who has worked with both B.C. Premier Christy Clark and advised former prime minister Stephen Harper, concurs, and is working on an essay to that effect. Unlike the Republican party, Canadian Conservatives under Stephen Harper welcomed, rather than alienated, the working class from which Trump draws so much of his support.
“What’s remarkable about Stephen Harper and what he did with the Conservative party is that he created a platform and a philosophy that went beyond pure economic conservatism. He created a conservatism for workingclass people,” he said. “Our argument is that by the kind of party Harper created and by the kind of leader that he was and the government that we ran, we probably forestalled the rise of Trumpism in Canada.
“Trumpism is an ideologically and intellectually bereft movement of anger directed at elites because they feel left out.”
Canada just doesn’t seem to have the same kind of anger or alienation that fuelled Trump’s rise.
“Trumpism just won’ t work here. There is just not the same development over the years and the Republicans had completely and utterly failed to do what Harper did,” he said.
The two political cultures in the U.S. and Canada might simply be too fundamentally different to adopt Trumpism.
There is one feature the two countries do share that worries strategist Stephen Carter.
“I don’t think we can go full Trump. But I think there is a half Trump,” he said. “You see it with Kenney and the simple ‘taxes bad, government bad’ pound chest, scratch balls. That seems to be his modus operandi. But I would argue that we see a lot of it with Trudeau as well.
“You’ve got a different type of shallowness. No one asks him to explain his positions. He just says the thing he’s got to say and we all love him and he can emerge from a cave without his shirt on and that’s all we need to know.”
Carter doesn’t think Canada will ever see someone threatening to build a wall or deport immigrants, but “the dumbing down of politics remains of the greatest weaknesses of our political system.”
That is something to which Canada is proving not immune. American democracy may be giving itself over to a fit of petulant rage. By comparison, Canada seems to be stable, sane and remote — at least, for now.
THE DUMBING DOWN OF POLITICS REMAINS ONE OF THE GREATEST WEAKNESSES OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. — STEPHEN CARTER, STRATEGIST