Dear Erin,
I hasten to write to you in your capacity as leader of the Conservative Party through the Dutyfor I fear that if I put my missive in the post, it only reaches you after you have been removed from your post. And since, on balance, I prefer you to your predecessor Andrew Scheer and your aspiring successor Pierre Poilievre, there is not a minute to lose.
I have nothing to write to you that will be able to save you from the insults that await you. I just want to let you know that I pity you. I see what you tried to do. I see you failing. I therefore believe it is useful for your sanity to let you know that, even if you did it wrong, this failure was programmed. It does not depend on you.
You summarized your goal in an interview at National Post “I want to make sure our party is modern and inclusive, and if people are against it, deep down they don’t want us to win. You tweeted Monday that your opponents were leading the party “into a cul-de-sac that would turn the Confederation Party into a right-wing NDP,” thus a party permanently in opposition.
You became leader in 2020 by accusing your then rival, Peter Mackay, of wanting to bring the party back to the center, of making it a “diet Liberal Party”. In the aftermath of your victory, you seem to have realized that MacKay was right about everything. Before your first congress, you gave your militants this caustic speech: “We have lost two elections in five and a half years. During this period, we had four chiefs. We need to present new ideas, rather than presenting the same arguments as before, hoping that perhaps this time more Canadians will come around to our positions. »
Infinitely sad
There is something infinitely sad in this quote. You admit that it is impossible to convince enough Canadians of the correctness of the Conservative positions to take power. So you have to change your positions. This was not Stephen Harper’s strategy. He had avoided venturing into the field of abortion. But on other issues he was as conservative as he wanted to be. He had decided, not to change his convictions, but to find more voters in agreement with his. He had instructed his then excellent minister (and now poor Alberta premier) Jason Kenney to find Conservative voters in ethnic communities. Until then, these denizens of Canadian multiculturalism had been taken for granted by the Liberals. But there are a lot of people there who have views about society that are akin to those of the Conservatives. It is for many this active recruitment that has made it possible to widen the pool of electors in the Toronto area. Harper also attacked the liberal strongholds represented by the Catholic and Jewish communities. Historically, among Christians, Protestants were more conservative and Catholics more liberal. By taking extremely pro-Israel stances, Harper managed to win some of the Jewish community’s vote. Thanks to the debate on gay marriage, he also succeeded in dislodging the PLC among Catholics outside Quebec.
But this option of broadening the base seems behind us. For two decades, voters have been moving to the left. On abortion, cannabis, gun control, LGBTQ+ rights, the environment, there are now centre-left majorities where there were previously center-right majorities. The results of the last elections and the polls offer a clear picture of the distribution of forces: 60% of voters voted for parties that are to the left of the Conservatives and only 5% to the right, for Maxime Bernier. If the latter progresses, which is likely, it will be to your detriment.
Alternative Liberals
The unifying slogan of your most active activists, like that of the truckers present in Ottawa, can be summed up in two words, unpublishable here: “F**k Trudeau”. You have the lucidity to understand that this is not enough. In the last ballot, you had in your quiver WE Charity, SNC-Lavalin, the ” blackface », the costumes in India and the trip to the Aga Khan. “Trudeau was still re-elected, you said. We are never going to convince Canadians to vote for us just by trusting that Justin Trudeau will continue to disappoint us. His scandals, as outrageous as they may be, will never be enough to defeat him. »
In short, if Conservative ideas can’t attract enough votes and if Trudeau-inspired disgust can’t disappoint enough Liberals, what do you have left? Become less conservative. Become alternative liberals. Be pro-choice, but sotto voce. Propose a carbon tax, but less heavy. Walk in gay pride, but in small numbers. Gun control, but halfheartedly.
That focus failed to make you a prime minister last year, and that very failure gives your opponents — your predecessor and your successor — the nails to drive into your coffin. You are however right. Either your party becomes a right-wing NDP, and its MPs will always be right, but will never be in power. Either he pushes his ultras into the arms of Maxime Bernier, becomes once again the party of Mulroney and Clark, hence “progressive-conservative” and waits patiently—a decade perhaps—for attrition to sap support for the government and lead the voters to vote for the alternative liberals, the “diet liberals”, which you will thus have become.
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