Tories wrestle with the path forward

New polling this week from the Angus Reid Institute tells us that the Conservative party continues to struggle to break out of its low 30s trap.

What is the low 30s trap? It refers to the party's ongoing challenges in breaking free from a narrow band of public support that ranges from about 30 to 35 per cent. Notwithstanding the Trudeau government's poor performance on vaccine procurement, still only 30 per cent of Canadians say they would vote for the Conservatives if an election were held today.

These polling numbers must be disappointing: they're a considerable distance from the level of support that the party ultimately needs to win an election. The Conservative party remains in an elusive search for roughly a million or 1.5 million more votes, mainly concentrated in Central Canada.

This persistent voter gap, which was expressed in the 2015 and 2019 election outcomes, and probably even before then, has led to renewed questions about the arguments and ideas that should animate Conservative politics. There's a subtle yet important intraparty debate happening about what Conservatives ought to be saying and doing to reach these incremental voters and break out of the electoral trap that keeps them mired in opposition.

It's not an active debate, per se. There aren't competing sides arguing with one another in the public domain. But one can discern the different perspectives reflected in the party's positioning in recent months.

The first perspective may be described as a doubling down on free-market conservatism. Its chief exponent is Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre, who has consistently (and often effectively) prosecuted the case against the Trudeau government's deficits and debt in particular, and big government more generally. The underlying political assumption seems to be that the Conservative party's basic economic framework remains essentially correct and that voters will be more responsive in light of pandemic-induced examples of government failures.

The second can be characterized as a more heterodox economic populism. It's best reflected in Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole's critiques of trade with China, concerns about deindustrialization and focus on economic inequality — what he summed up in a major October 2020 speech as a policy agenda that “builds solidarity.” The basic assumption here is that conventional conservative thinking on markets and free trade requires adjustments to reflect contemporary challenges, including the decline of traditional middle-class jobs, and that such a rethink will draw new and different voters to the party.

The third perspective is a middle-of-the-road pragmatism that has expressed itself in recent weeks. It can be seen, for instance, in O'Toole's statement following the riots on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in which he referred to the party as “moderate, pragmatic and mainstream,” and “squarely in the centre of Canadian politics.”

This newfound emphasis on moderation ostensibly reflects an effort to differentiate the party from the divisiveness of former U.S. president Donald Trump, as well as a view that a more straightforward conservatism might turn off Central Canadian swing voters.

Which path the Conservative party chooses is difficult to know at this point. One gets the sense that the party is wrestling with these identity questions in real time. Yet in the meantime, the uncertainty can be confusing for voters. Is the party new or old? Conventional or heterodox? “True blue” or centrist?

The answers are invariably some combination thereof — that's natural in the world of brokerage politics, especially with a parliamentary caucus that's more ideologically complex than is often understood. But whatever the party ultimately chooses, an overriding priority must be enlarging its base of electoral support.

A recently announced initiative called Canadian Conservatives Abroad, which aims to organize Canadian Conservatives living overseas to vote in federal and provincial elections, is a positive step in this direction.

The organization, led by a group of distinguished Conservatives, including former foreign affairs minister John Baird and former prime minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, describes expatriates as “one of the last truly untapped areas of the electorate.”

The organizers are smart to target non-voters. Nearly one-third of eligible voters didn't vote in the 2019 federal election. This amounts to just over nine million untapped votes — roughly one-third more than either the Conservative or Liberal parties received.

Drawing some number of them into the Conservative party could thus represent a significant boost to its overall support.

But as important as such initiatives are, they're no substitute for a confident conservative message and an agenda rooted in a clear understanding of itself and the opportunities and challenges facing the country. O'Toole increasingly needs to tell Canadians his vision for the future and his plan to get there. That's the best path to finding the party's missing voters.

Postscript: The Conservative party's efforts to expand its voter base is a long-term project that must consider the needs and priorities of future voters. My wife, Katelin, and I welcomed one such voter this week. Ewart James Thomas Speer was born on Tuesday, Jan. 26, at the Montfort Hospital in Ottawa. Ewart James and his mom are now home and doing well. Dad is overwhelmingly in love with both.

ONE GETS THE DISTINCT IMPRESSION THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY IS GRAPPLING WITH IDENTITY QUESTIONS IN REAL TIME. — SEAN SPEER