Thanks, but no thanks: Conservatives don't need to dilute their principle

The advice so graciously and frequently offered Conservatives by their liberal friends has acquired a frightened (but not frightening) intensity in light of Pierre Poilievre's ability to attract huge crowds across the country: To have any chance of winning the next election, Tories must shun the siren call of true-blue conservatives and move to the centre-left, as Warren Kinsella recently recommended in a Toronto Sun opinion piece. Sure, campaign on the right to win the nomination, but then quickly gravitate to Canada's comfort zone. Setting aside why progressives seem so eager to help Conservatives beat them, two rationales are at play here — beyond the simple pleasure of smugly lording it over their opponents.

First, liberals are genuinely convinced no reasonable person, and not enough unreasonable ones, could possibly be comfortable with right-wing policies at odds with the conventional wisdom of their political, media and academic betters. This serene conviction is unperturbed even when a taxand-spend government fails to deliver for poor, working-class or middle-income Canadians. Yet that should not be surprising: noblesse oblige serves both psychological needs and career aspirations.

Second, Canada's selfstyled natural governing party understands it will from time to time lose elections when voters decide they can't tolerate Liberal incompetence any longer. Pesky business this democracy. So it is vital that core progressive policies not be undermined during the occasional temporary interregnum.

But liberal advice is flawed in two respects, one dealing with who Canadians are and the other with the potential of inspirational leadership.

You will not learn from mainstream media that the average Canadian does not buy into every sacred Liberal shibboleth, including the most cherished cultural and economic obsessions. And despite strenuous efforts, Prime Minister Trudeau has not radically shifted the spectrum of politically acceptable policies (the so-called Overton Window, after the late American libertarian activist Joseph Overton, who introduced it).

Canadians tend to be middle-of-the-road, commonsensical and patriotic. Overwhelmingly, they are not woke iconoclasts eager to tear down statues or postmodern ideologues preoccupied with identity politics and alternative lifestyles. Rather, they are pragmatic, fair-minded people who support Aboriginal reconciliation and acknowledge history's dark chapters but do not believe Canada is systemically racist or genocidal.

Many Canadians worry about inflation, job security, high taxes, affordable housing, community safety and pervasive restrictions on their lives. They resent an increasingly autocratic government whose preoccupations do not resonate with them and that denigrates their aspirations. Pierre Poilievre is tapping into their values and concerns, especially with his emphasis on affordability. (Full disclosure, I support his campaign for leadership but am open to constructive ideas from other candidates, for example Jean Charest's about health care reform.)

Most Canadians do not share the prime minister's hostility to natural resource development. According to last week's Ipsos poll sponsored by the Montreal Economic Institute, 72 per cent of Canadians believe Canada can decrease Europe's dependence on Russian oil and natural gas, 68 per cent agree that Canada must build pipelines to facilitate oil and natural gas exports to European countries and more than three-quarters want the government to facilitate access to natural resources in order to reduce the price of gas. Acting on these views, which Poilievre would do, could generate: hundreds of billions of dollars in economic growth, funding for essential social programs, thousands of jobs, aid to our allies, repaired national unity and reduced net global GHG emissions as Asia replaces coal with Canadian natural gas.

Liberals also underestimate an effective political leader's ability to change public opinion, particularly when existing policies are not working and there is an urgent need for innovative ideas to cope with new challenges. We are at that point.

The pandemic has exacerbated systemic problems of uncompetitive productivity, capital flight, insipid longer-term growth prospects, massive debt, static per capita income and geopolitical threats that, taken together, weaken Canada's economy and standing in the world. We are heading down a dystopian path that can damage living standards, threaten national unity, erode personal freedom and undermine national sovereignty.

Pierre Poilievre has an ambitious agenda to reverse this decline. He would reduce taxes and regulations, take on “gatekeepers” who block housing construction, develop our natural resources, abolish the carbon tax, combat inflation by containing profligate spending, balance the federal budget, facilitate cryptocurrency adoption, foster economic growth, protect civil liberties including freedom of speech, oppose internet censorship, counter wokism, defend our history, rebuild the military and de-fund the CBC. These policy goals are widely shared by Canadians, even though they are anathema in progressive silos where affluent urbanites, legacy media moguls and tenured academics celebrate diversity but dismiss dissenting opinions as “unacceptable,” in Justin Trudeau's chilling parlance. Pace Hillary Clinton's “basket of deplorables.”

An authentic Conservative leader who communicates an ambitious and optimistic vision and innovative policies can win the day. Diluting conservative principles with failed liberal ideology and dysfunctional policies would be both bad politics and bad policy.

WE ARE HEADING DOWN A DYSTOPIAN PATH THAT CAN DAMAGE LIVING STANDARDS ...