Every Wednesday, our parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa Marie Vastel analyzes a federal political issue to help you better understand it.
The identity of the Conservative Party of Canada under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre remains to be defined. The new leader has given no indication of whether he now intends to lead the party by sticking to the right or whether he will set aside some of his more controversial ideas. But already, his leitmotif in defense of the average citizen who suffers from the rising cost of living has the potential to garner support from all his political rivals.
Chief Poilievre’s victory speech is no longer quite his leadership campaign speech. Gone are the conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum and support for the so-called “freedom convoys”. Shelved, too, the promise to dismiss the independent governor of the Bank of Canada. This realignment did not prevent the Quebec deputy and first supporter of Jean Charest, Alain Rayes, from slamming the door of the Conservative caucus. The orientation of the party no longer suits him. Pierre Poilievre surrounded himself, to form his leadership team, with elected officials who supported his candidacy and subscribed to the leader’s tone from the start.
The other political parties know no more what to expect than the Quebec Conservatives, who are watching Mr. Poilievre’s arrival with apprehension. His rivals nevertheless reacted as soon as his election was confirmed. Justin Trudeau said “slogans, empty phrases, reckless attacks” do not form an economic plan.
The Liberals saw the popularity of Pierre Poilievre coming. They assure, behind the scenes, that they do not underestimate him. Their strategy is to let him go to rule on their side. “The contrast will be obvious,” says a high-ranking liberal source.
All the Liberals consulted this week, however, also agree that Pierre Poilievre’s promise to tackle inflation and the cost of living – although they reject his “simplistic solutions” – resonates with the population. And that they must answer it now.
The risk of the desire for change
The Conservative Party leadership race has swelled the ranks of its membership, which has reached a record size. In Quebec, they were 36,000 to vote.
The tidal wave that the Poilievre team likes to talk about only amounted to a few hundred votes per Quebec riding. Only 14 counted more than 700 votes, all candidates combined, and two counted more than 1000 (Lac-Saint-Louis, in the west of Montreal, and Pontiac, in Outaouais). In Ontario and the West, ballots were mostly in the thousands per riding.
But the fact remains that Saturday’s vote showed a certain openness to Mr. Poilievre’s message in Quebec, since hundreds of citizens took the trouble to buy a membership card, photocopy their identity card and to send it in with their ballot to speak. And it is especially in liberal constituencies, and not the conservative strongholds, that this number has been the highest.
More and more liberals thus speak of a necessary refocusing on the political spectrum. If the Conservatives abandon the center, there are orphans there that the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) should win back. “The economic update and the upcoming budget are two great opportunities to signal this return to common sense,” said a Liberal. And to respond to the anxiety aroused by inflation, experienced by a population which may be beginning to be tired of a government in power for seven years (and which will have been there for ten years, at the time of the elections).
The set of measures unveiled Tuesday by Justin Trudeau is a first step, which some would have liked to see a little earlier.
A fiscal refocusing does not mean that the PLC denies its progressive positions on the social level. The axis is no longer simply left-right, according to many.
In the New Democrats
The New Democratic Party (NDP) could therefore find itself seeing its electorate plundered not only by the Liberals, but also by the Conservatives. Because the promise to help workers who are struggling to make ends meet is a longstanding New Democrat promise.
Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford succeeded in stealing traditional union support from the provincial NDP in the Ontario election. In Quebec, Quebec solidaire voters will switch to the Conservative Party of Quebec this time.
New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice refuses to worry. He argues, like the Liberals, that Pierre Poilievre’s solutions are incomplete. Beyond deploring the rise in the price of groceries, the NDP is the only party that wants to attack big business and the ultra-rich, says its deputy leader. And Mr. Poilievre does not come without a record to defend, as a minister in Stephen Harper’s government, when it comes to workers’ rights. “He has too many balls, and his solutions are not suitable for people,” says Mr. Boulerice.
The NDP will have to find the right balance, however, because setting up Pierre Poilievre as a scarecrow risks helping the Liberals first, who would benefit from the strategic vote aimed at blocking his path.
The president of the firm Abacus Data, David Coletto, noted on Tuesday that 22% of Canadians have a positive impression of Mr. Poilievre – the same percentage as his predecessors Erin O’Toole and Andrew Scheer at the start of their mandate – but that they are more likely to have a negative image of the new leader, at 27%.
The Bloc Québécois is not left out. The nationalist electorate in Quebec has always swung between the Bloc and the Conservative Party. The Bloc members believe, however, that Pierre Poilievre deprived himself of their support by saying that he would not reconsider the decision of the Trudeau government to intervene against the Act respecting the secularism of the Quebec state (formerly Bill 21). when it ends up in the Supreme Court.
Mr. Poilievre’s party also seems to be returning to the roots of the Reform Party, which does not correspond to the values of Quebecers, mocked a Bloc source. “The Progressive Conservative Party seems dead on Saturday night. »
The next few months will tell where the Conservative Party will stay under Pierre Poilievre and who, of its three federal rivals, could be the most annoyed.
But already, the anti-abortion group Right Now points out that its favorite candidate, Leslyn Lewis, has garnered more votes than in 2020. And Alberta MP Shannon Stubbs was delighted that her party was “conservative again”. What comfort Alain Rayes in his decision.