Thursday night’s leaders’ debate was probably the political event of the week in Quebec. On the same day, elsewhere in Canada, eyes instead turned to another historic face-off during Question Period in Ottawa. For the first time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced a Leader of the Official Opposition up to the task. Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole never managed to worry the Liberal leader. But the arrival of Pierre Poilievre signals a new dynamic in the House of Commons.
“It’s good to see the prime minister here, visiting Canada, bailing out his private jet,” Poilievre said as a preamble to his first question. He was thus referring to Mr. Trudeau’s last trips abroad to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London, then to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, before flying back on Saturday in destination of Japan, where the funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will take place.
The Conservative leader accused Mr. Trudeau of making fun of ordinary Canadians, who are struggling to pay for heating, while the Prime Minister’s government jet setter is preparing to further increase, in 2023, the carbon tax and the contributions to employment insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. “Will the Prime Minister ground his jet, put away his hypocrisy and reverse the tax hikes? Mr. Poilievre asked.
Three polls released this week by the firms Abacus, Léger and Nanos put the Conservatives at the top of Canadians’ voting intentions. The Liberals have lost their feathers, while (according to Nanos and Léger) the New Democrats seem to benefit from a certain ambivalence of progressive voters towards the Liberals, despite the Trudeau government’s turn to the left after the last election. and his deal with the NDP to keep him in power. If the trend continues, the Conservatives could take advantage of the progressive and center-left vote split between the NDP and the PLC to win the next election. These elections will likely take place before the LPC-NDP agreement officially expires in 2025.
Mr Poilievre’s election as Tory leader is worrying more and more Liberals, who wonder if their leader will stay the person in the situation. Canadians are increasingly concerned about the cost of living. Economic issues have never been Justin Trudeau’s forte. Mr. Poilievre, meanwhile, eats it. Of course, the Conservative leader’s enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies and his promise to fire the Governor of the Bank of Canada will allow the Liberals to constantly attack his economic credibility. But these arguments risk losing their bite as they are repeated. The Liberals will not be able to use it for long to divert the attention of Canadians who are questioning the economic policies of Mr. Trudeau’s government.
Poilievre’s entourage said this week that he had invited Brian Mulroney and his wife Mila to a dinner at Stornoway, the opposition leader’s official residence in Ottawa, to ask him for political advice. Mr. Poilievre also spoke on the phone this week with Jean Charest, Erin O’Toole and Peter MacKay — a sign of an attempt on his part to repair the broken pots and to unite the party. In an interview at Globe and Mail, the former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister said he warned his interlocutor of the need to occupy the center of the political spectrum, or to “fish where the fish are”. Elections in Canada “are won at the center. You can never win an election from either extreme”. But, always at WorldMr. Mulroney admitted not knowing if the new Conservative leader intended to follow his advice.
It is not clear whether the main interested party knows this himself yet. Thursday evening, after news leaked that Mr. Trudeau had authorized the removal of certain border health measures, including the mandatory use of the ArriveCAN app, Mr. Poilievre posted a video on Twitter in which he congratulations on having been at the origin of this flip-flop by the Liberal government. “We win,” he said. I’ve only been chief for two weeks and Trudeau is backing down on his vaccination obligations and making the disastrous ArriveCAN application voluntary. We continue. »
While some Conservative strategists remain convinced that Mr. Poilievre must stay true to the themes and tone that enabled him to mobilize nearly 300,000 activists during the leadership race, others believe the time has come for him to stand Canadians, most of whom will not have followed the leadership race, in a softer light. Only time will tell if Mr. Poilievre, a teenage follower of neoliberal principles formulated by economist Milton Friedman in the middle of the last century, will prove capable of such a turn. But the Liberals should plan their fall accordingly.