TRUDEAU’S WEAKNESS BECAME SCHEER’S CURSE IN 2019 ELECTION
In politics, second place sometimes feels like a win.
Just ask the NDP, who stormed to a surprise second-place finish in the 2011 election as Stephen Harper went on to claim his coveted majority. Despite falling (way) short of the ultimate prize, Jack Layton’s famous “orange crush” relegated Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals to third place with a paltry return of 34 seats, the lowest total in party history. A loss felt like a win.
Of course, one of the Liberals to survive the Ignatieff interregnum (and immolation) was Justin Trudeau and the rest, as they say, is history. Layton’s untimely death from cancer and his successor Tom Mulcair’s tack to the centre opened up the left flank for Trudeau, something the rookie leader exploited in capturing his surprise 2015 majority on the back of a deficit-fuelled platform.
Second place in the 2015 election went to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, whose 99 seats — when stacked against the last time a Conservative party was voted out of office with just two in 1993 — certainly felt like a win. Harper left a united movement with a real shot at returning to power in the not-too-distant future.
But when Trudeau started walking on water and looking invincible in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory, that second place started looking a whole lot more like a booby prize.
The remaining big beasts of the Conservative movement suddenly developed a bad case of the bone spurs.
Enter Andrew Scheer.
Scheer threw his modest hat in the ring and took out 12 other Tories to “win” the right to take on the Trudeau juggernaut. Luckily for Scheer, that juggernaut was already looking slightly less juggernaut-y following a series of Trudeau missteps involving the Aga Khan and his private island. Nor did things get better when Trudeau visited India and put the collection of battleground-riding photo ops ahead of serious statecraft.
Then came SNC-Lavalin, where Trudeau changed the law of the land to the benefit of a bent company over the objection of his attorney general, then badgered her to give the company the result he wanted, namely a deferred prosecution agreement to beat jail time for bribing Moammar Gadhafi for the pleasure of building his torture palaces. Jugger? Nowt.
And Trudeau’s weakness ultimately is what pooched Scheer and his Conservatives. They smelled Trudeau’s blood and hid their light under a bushel in response.
The bet was made that keeping things micro and making no sudden movements would be enough to spear the dauphin. There was no talk of reinventing or reimagining conservatism for the 21st century or any policies that would cause a non-base voter to have a look.
Now, had Justin Trudeau been miles ahead going into the election, Andrew Scheer would be getting plaudits for boosting the seat total by 20 and getting a larger share of the popular vote. It would have been a good second place, but it still wouldn’t erase the problems now facing the party. Where Canada is growing, the Conservatives are (mostly) falling behind. The Tories can feel confident of hoovering up rural and Western votes but, right now, they have precious little to offer the people in Canada’s biggest cities.
The task at hand for Conservatives is discovering a game plan for urban Canada (while Trudeau faces the opposite task).
So forget Andrew Scheer. The current leader might be right and he might be wrong, but until the Conservatives find something better to sell, finding a more charismatic or astute tactician won’t be enough. A salesperson selling last year’s model can only get so far.
Pace the base, this doesn’t mean offering up something that’s Liberal light.
There has to be room for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party in Canada, or at least a Conservative one that can convince Canadians that being gay and in a committed relationship isn’t a reason for moral panic.
The same goes for abortion. Instead of batting about moral frames, why not put a legal framework forward to fill the vacuum? It’s time to show some courage and gore some sacred cows.
Coming to a social consensus moves the debate to economic matters (which includes climate change), where bright sparks such as Sean Speer of the Munk Centre (my former colleague in the Prime Minister’s Office) are busy outlining public policy areas that require conservative approaches, areas like the future of work and regional disparities that will bedevil Canada if they don’t get sorted. The current economic settlement has undeniably served some well, while leaving others behind. It’s time to speak up.
If conservatives don’t put forward a vision for the future, they shouldn’t be surprised when those to the left of them grasp the nettle and settle things for the worse.
Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.