Maximum effect
Maxime Bernier cannot be easily written off as a political footnote, writes national affairs columnist Tim Harper,
It would be tempting to dismiss Maxime Bernier as Kellie Leitch in a finely cut suit.
It would be easy to ignore him as a rebel with a doomed cause or a narcissist who could not accept defeat, a failed Conservative leadership candidate so sure of victory he barely deigned to address the convention that chose Andrew Scheer.
Maybe we did watch Bernier take a dive into a deep pool of political obscurity Thursday, that suit aflame as he tried to take his former party and Scheer down with him.
But it is more likely none of this is true.
We witnessed an audacious political gambit that will mean many things over the short term, none of them good for Conservatives or those who were hoping to see a national debate on immigration and refugees in 2019 that was rational and measured, devoid of virtue-signalling or fear-mongering.
In announcing he was leaving the Conservatives to form his own party, Bernier cannot be dismissed as a political footnote. He has fundraising prowess and a base that is not confined to his home province of Quebec.
He won 49 per cent of the 2017 leadership vote, although it must be noted he ultimately lost because support of other candidates went to Scheer.
Bernier has proven to be a master of media manipulation, hijacking the national political agenda in the slow days of mid-August, then removing his final veil as his former colleagues settled in for a key convention some 1,400 kilometres away in Halifax.
His declaration that the party he has represented in Ottawa for 12 years has abandoned its core values and is too “intellectually and morally corrupt” to be reformed had the sound of martyrdom. That is not bold; that is the torching of a bridge that will alienate, not spark a call to arms.
But there is a constituency for those who believe politicians are beholden to polls at the expense of ideas and principles, oppose the party’s fealty to supply management and the roadblock that has placed to a NAFTA resolution, corporate bailouts and, yes, those who despair at the Liberal brand of “extreme multiculturalism.’’
Bernier will give voice and provide a home for them.
But it is inevitable that his arguments on diversity and multiculturalism will also give voice to intolerance in this country, and could force Scheer’s party to move to the right on immigration at a time when the debate over asylumseekers has already fostered extreme language on both sides.
It’s easily forgotten that interest in Leitch’s “Canadian values test” landed her on the cover of Maclean’s and was solidly backed by a majority in a Forum poll done for the Star.
With her snitch-line background and crocodile tears over that policy, she was the wrong candidate for that agen- da. There will be a constituency when Bernier questions whether Canadians want to “emphasize our ethnic and religious differences, and exploit them to buy votes ... or emphasize what unites us and the values that can guarantee social cohesion?”
It is Bernier’s contention that the vast majority of Conservatives believe the country is headed in the wrong multicultural direction, but find it politically incorrect to raise the question. Bernier has never been afraid to be politically incorrect.
Canadians’ views on asylumseekers and irregular border crossings are evolving along with attitudes across the European Union, where the refugee question has given rise to rightwing leaders and forced others — notably Germany’s Angela Merkel — to shift liberal positions to protect their political careers.
Just a day before Bernier’s announcement, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel talked of how the Trudeau government had off-loaded asylum costs to Quebec and Ontario, had normalized an abnormal asylum process and shunted people to hotels or from shelter to shelter. She announced a listening tour on immigration, but many of those she wants to hear from will now be listening to Bernier.
For his part, Scheer painted his nemesis as someone who made up his mind a long time ago — not nine days ago after a phone conversation between the two, as Bernier maintained — to leave the party. Scheer repeated the obvious, that Bernier will now help Justin Trudeau. That is not a good thing for this country, regardless of your political sympathies.
The Trudeau Liberals deserve a strong challenge from a united Conservative party, not a cakewalk against a split right. We have seen Liberal majorities born of a split right in very recent history.
If history repeats in 2019, Canadian voters will be the losers.