If we only look at the polls, it doesn’t seem logical: why is Pierre Poilievre going after Jagmeet Singh? Besides the pleasure of finding an insult that rhymes, what is his interest?
The answer is one word: realignment.
Conservatives here and elsewhere have been working on this for a long time. They want to create a breach in the left-right axis to appeal to the “working” class. And it’s working, judging by the polls.
The notions of left and right are insufficient to understand Canadian politics. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper explained this well in his 2018 essay Right Here, Right Now: Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption. He takes up the distinction between two categories: some come from “somewhere”, others from “nowhere”.
The “somewheres” have a job associated with a physical location, such as a plumber or a care worker. Telework is impossible for them. They are rooted in their community and prioritize family life and respect for certain traditional values.
The “nowheres” are more likely to have a college degree and live in cities. They may work from home or change jobs. They define themselves as global citizens, and prefer novelty to tradition.
Conservatives like Stephen Harper believe the left is ignoring the economic concerns of working people in favor of symbolic issues that are most popular on university campuses. Go to a factory floor and try to sell the Liberal bill on “environmental racism”…
They thus accuse a part of the left of now also being part of the elite. And it works rather well.
In England, the Conservatives made inroads in industrial ridings in 2019. In the United States, Donald Trump dominated the Rust Belt in 2016. And in Ontario, Doug Ford won the NDP seat of Timmins, a mining region, in 2022. He was even supported by eight private-sector unions – mostly in the construction trades.
That’s the kind of success Poilievre wants to replicate. On Monday, he’ll try to wrest the seat of Elmwood-Transcona from the NDP with his candidate Colin Reynolds, a union electrician.
An Abacus Data survey in June documented this realignment.1.
Respondents were asked to self-identify with one of these social classes: lower (lower), worker (working), average, upper-average and upper.
The poll helps understand who these voters identify with, and who they trust.
The more privileged a respondent said they were from a social class, the more they supported Justin Trudeau. Support was also higher among people with social mobility – those who have acquired a higher status than their parents.
With Jagmeet Singh, it was exactly the opposite. The less wealthy a respondent was, the more they trusted him.
The lines of demarcation are getting tangled with Mr. Poilievre.
The upper class is most likely to support it. But they are closely followed by the working class. Then come the middle class and the upper-middle class.
His almost exclusively economic discourse, based on the cost of living and “common sense”, appeals to those who feel they are not rewarded for their efforts at work.
On the left, this criticism is driving people crazy. We recall that Mr. Poilievre wants to thin the state, which would weaken the social safety net. He criticized aid to the poor during the pandemic and was wary of the Liberal allocation that reduced child poverty.
But Mr. Poilievre is not targeting poor families. He is speaking to those who feel their quality of life is not commensurate with their work effort. Those who are skeptical of a government that is better at making promises than delivering results. Those who simply want to live their lives without being overtaxed and judged.
The irony is not lost on those who know Mr. Poilievre: this slayer of the elite has known only one profession, politics, which he practiced in Ottawa, the capital of power. But his supporters point out that he grew up in a modest Alberta family – he was adopted by a couple of teachers. He did not grow up, like Mr. Trudeau, in the house of a prime minister.
Close your eyes and imagine this “working class”. Who do you see? Someone with a helmet? A factory floor?
This group is now made up mostly of sales and service workers. And immigrants are overrepresented in it.
Poilievre had them in mind when he sent this message to Canada Inc. in May: “Fire your lobbyists.” If your requests don’t help “the ordinary people,” they will be rejected, he warned. Shortly afterward, CBC revealed that the Conservative leader had hosted fundraising cocktails attended by a dozen lobbyists, who had paid $1,725 to meet with him. Among them: genuine “elites” such as executives from oil companies Cenovus and Pembina, as well as Pharmascience and AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC-Lavalin).
Mr. Poilievre was part of the Harper government that raised the retirement age to 67 and limited the right to strike – two laws the Liberals struck down. But he is trying to shake off that image.
Last winter, he supported the anti-scab legislation introduced by the Trudeau government, at the urging of the New Democrats and the Bloc. He kept a low profile during the recent rail dispute, and he says he wants to promote negotiations with Air Canada union members.
Poilievre’s opponents accuse him of shouting slogans instead of proposing solutions. Indeed, his plan is flimsy. But he is simply imitating Justin Trudeau in 2015: he is delaying the unveiling of his full plan until the last minute, just before the next election campaign.
And in the meantime, he is proving his former boss, Mr. Harper, right: the realignment is underway.
1. Check out the Abacus Data survey results