One of the Ontario co-chairs of Jean Charest’s Conservative Party leadership campaign says new leader Pierre Poilievre may have found the recipe to deliver a majority to the Conservatives in the next federal election. According to Joel Etienne, a Franco-Ontarian lawyer in Greater Toronto, Pierre Poilievre’s team “understands the new way of doing politics”.
The Toronto representative for Jean Charest’s campaign believes that Pierre Poilievre was able to win the leadership with 68% of the vote because he delivered a clear message to party members across the country. “In a cacophonous world, getting the attention of individuals is almost impossible to do, and he was able to do it”, analyzes Joel Etienne in an interview with The duty, tuesday.
Although he now praises the new Conservative leader, Joel Etienne first ran for leadership himself before joining Jean Charest’s team. Not having been considered an official candidate by the Conservative Party, even though he says he has collected enough donations, Mr Etienne abandoned his own campaign this summer. According to a report written by Mr. Etienne’s team, a copy of which was obtained by CBC, the Conservative Party of Canada (PCC) would have made it difficult for candidates with atypical profiles to work “to help its favorite candidate”.
A more direct campaign
According to Joel Etienne, one of the strengths of Poilievre’s campaign is also to have been able to recruit members and raise funds directly, without going through local captains, observes the lawyer.
In this respect, Pierre Poilievre, who recruited more than 300,000 new members, distinguished himself from the two former leaders of the party, and even from Jean Charest. Joel Etienne explains that Jean Charest’s team relied, among other things, on cooperation with Patrick Brown’s campaign to recruit members. But the latter maintained close relations with local representatives, a traditional approach that Pierre Poilievre exceeded.
“There are a lot fewer pitfalls working this way,” says Joel Etienne. “It’s incredible that to implement a political vision that wants to give more local and desacralized democracy, you have to have a centralizing campaign, but that’s the reality,” ironically Joel Etienne, whose father, Gérard Étienne, once wrote in The duty.
According to Joel Etienne, Jean Charest was unable to win because of the approach of his main opponent, but also because his vast experience was not known to new Canadian and millennial voters. “What I had perceived as being a common knowledge, says Joel Etienne, referring in particular to the role of Jean Charest during the 1995 referendum, 90% of the people around me in Greater Toronto were not aware . “For the new Canadian voter or the millennial, none of that mattered. I had not predicted it, ”he continues.
The Franco-Ontarian lawyer now supports Pierre Poilievre and congratulated him on social networks following his election. The new leader, he said, was not “the voice of the extreme” during the campaign, despite his unwavering support for the Freedom Convoy. Joel Etienne does not know if he will be a candidate again in the next federal election. “I’m sure a ton of people will want to be candidates. What will my place be in his team? We’ll see. »
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.