There is a significant group of voters who, in view of the next general election, are looking for a political option. Let’s call them “Mulroney’s orphans.”
People – all over the country, not just in Quebec – believe that the Trudeau government is worn out after almost nine years in power, that it is time, for example, to redress the balance in public finances, but that they are not don’t really feel comfortable with what Pierre Poilievre is proposing.
Politics has changed a lot since 1993, when Mr. Mulroney left office. In particular, the right has become radicalized, partly under the influence of what happened south of the border.
The shift to the right was first marked by the creation of the Reform Party and the election of a strong contingent of deputies, while in Quebec, the Bloc took a significant part of the “blue” vote.
But Reform has never managed to be anything other than a Western regional party, and if the Bloc has had great success, it can no longer occupy the majority of Quebec seats in Ottawa as in its heyday. .
Which means that there is a rather centrist electorate who recognize themselves in the conservatism of Brian Mulroney, but who are not necessarily ready to follow that of the current Conservative leader. Some examples :
First, the environment. Mr. Mulroney’s death reminded us how he was a pioneer on the environmental issue with his work on issues such as acid rain or the ozone layer. However, the current Conservative Party spends more time flirting with denialist positions on global warming, for example. Mr. Mulroney understood that the environment is a subject that goes beyond the left-right divide and that a conservative party could take it on in a positive way.
Budgetary rigor is a traditional subject for conservative parties. Today, many voters are rightly concerned about the Trudeau government’s significant deficits. Mr. Poilievre’s party says it wants to restore “common sense” in public finances, but the method chosen – “each dollar of new spending must be accompanied by a dollar saved” – unfortunately looks more like a slogan than a a serious accounting method.
Likewise, if no one likes taxes, the usefulness of some of them can be understood by taxpayers. The carbon tax may not be popular, but the idea of a pollution tax is still gaining ground. “Abolish the tax” is a slogan, not a political option.
It took political courage to introduce a visible tax on goods and services, like the GST, which replaced an invisible tax on manufactured goods. Mr. Mulroney paid a heavy political price, but almost everyone today recognizes that it was the right thing to do.
Canada’s place in the world: Brian Mulroney, we talk about a lot these days, was often a leader on the major international issues of his time. The fight against apartheid – he opposed Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – remained famous. But he was also one of the first Western leaders to reject the logic of the Cold War and to support Mikhail Gorbachev and then Boris Yeltsin. We can also talk about his role in the creation of the International Organization of La Francophonie.
Pierre Poilievre’s party rather gives the impression of being hostile to international institutions where Canada has a seat, such as the G7 and even the UN. He has even already promised to fire any minister who attends the Davos summit. A populism which brings few dividends in the electorate, but which risks diminishing Canada’s influence internationally.
Governing at the center: the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party with the Reform Party restored the unity of the right in Canada, which was a prerequisite if it wanted to regain power. But the political anchoring of the new Conservative Party of Canada is much more to the right than that of the old Progressive Conservative Party.
However, Canada is governed at the center, which Brian Mulroney understood well. When cuts are necessary, they are made with a scalpel, not an axe.
Mr. Mulroney privatized around twenty Crown corporations, including Air Canada and Petro-Canada. The decisions were briefly unpopular, but the privatizations were well done and, despite some speeches at the time, no one wanted to renationalize these companies which could be better managed by the private sector.
We are far from Mr. Poilievre who wants to privatize or close the CBC, the English network of Radio-Canada, which according to him would be a “great waste of money”, while retaining RDI, the Information Network, essentially for French speakers outside Quebec.
This is exactly the kind of ideological and revanchist proposal that Brian Mulroney avoided. Mr. Poilievre should remember that, as Mr. Mulroney demonstrated, we do not win by dividing, but rather by adding.
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