A practical voice in the wilderness
Pierre Poilievre's Conservative leadership campaign launch video has been viewed 713,000 times on Youtube. Scott Aitchison's launch has just 2,000 views.
The 49-year-old MP from Parry Sound-muskoka, Ont., admits that winning supporters, and raising money, on a platform of respectful debate, common-sense solutions and compromise “is a bit of a slog.”
“It shouldn't surprise anyone,” he said of the attention given to scrappy candidates like Poilievre who have made a career of impugning rivals, even those in their own party. “There are so many frustrated people out there. I'm trying to break through the anger and saying, `I understand your frustration' but just getting angry doesn't solve any problems. You don't have to attack someone else to prove your point.”
His struggle is typical of responsible politicians in modern democracies — they talk about the trade-offs necessary in politics, while populists promise easy solutions and slogans.
All candidates need to raise the $300,000 entry fee by the end of the month and Aitchison concedes he needs to collect another $100,000.
It would be unfortunate for the vibrancy of the leadership race if his candidacy is not verified. The former mayor of Huntsville, Ont., is unlikely to win the crown but his message needs to be heard.
“Fundamentally, I think that what's been described as `the exhausted majority' is the reality. The majority of Canadians are incredibly reasonable people who just want their government to do what it does well, get on with life and stop the screaming. Politics has become a zero-sum game about winning, which has long-term impacts that are pretty destructive. But it's tough to break through that noise.”
The two-term MP was first elected to office as a local councillor in Huntsville at the age of 21, just six years after he rejected the Jehovah's Witness faith in which he was raised and walked out of the family home. “My father said I had to accept his rules to live in his house. I said OK. The next day I went to school and I never slept a night in that house again.”
He said family and friends used “an excommunication plan” to shut him out. “I was forced to start over again,” he said, before being taken in by a local family with three boys who he says became his second family.
Aitchison's experience in municipal government, where results depend on building consensus, informs his views on subjects like housing. He said his council encouraged house-building by donating city-owned land to developers like Habitat for Humanity and by waiving municipal fees. As Conservative leader, he would tie federal funding to efforts to end exclusionary zoning, to encourage cities to free up development land.
His “YIMBY plan to build more homes” reflects that experience in Huntsville. “I'd challenge people who opposed a new four-unit apartment building on their street because it didn't look like their home, so they'd be ashamed and leave. I have no patience for that garbage,” he said.
At the launch of his campaign last month, he laid out the central theme of his leadership bid. “Canadians are sick and tired of partisan gridlock and ideological entrenchment. The antics in question period are not what Canadians want,” he said — a point he made again during the truckers' convoy, when he said MPS are not sent to Ottawa to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
His focus on “getting projects built and services delivered” was in evidence last December when in his capacity as Conservative labour critic, he approached Labour Minister Seamus O'regan about including extended bereavement leave for grieving parents in federally regulated industries in the government's bill on paid sick leave. O'regan responded positively and the bill was amended. It was a rare example of cross-bench co-operation by two of the more practical politicians in the House.
Aitchison is aware that he is a long shot — relatively unknown with French language skills that are a workin-progress.
“Many Canadians may be wondering about the audacity of some dude from rural northern Ontario, thinking he has the right to be running as the leader of anything,” he said at his launch.
“I have my moments when I could just settle here in my beautiful spot and be content but I wouldn't be happy with that,” he said in an interview on Thursday. “When I think I'm banging my head against the wall, I think back to why I got into this in the first place. You can't stop being that reasonable voice because there are people who need you.”
Aitchison believes Canadians are tired of partisan fighting. Politics has always been adversarial and tribal. But the past decade has seen animosities inflamed and the trust in the politicians, media, courts and health authorities eroded to dangerously low levels.
Social media has amplified polarization and cynical politicians have exploited the anger and outrage.
Aitchison is a throwback to a more inclusive time, when politicians acknowledged John Stuart Mill's truism that “he who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.” It is a message today's Conservative party needs to hear.