Beware of by-elections. They do not all predict the future, even in the short term. They are not all held in constituencies that can be described as a barometer. They are often shunned by the majority of voters.
But the fact remains that Monday’s election results in Mississauga-Lakeshore should tell Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre that he needs to change strategy and, above all, change tone. But first, let’s set the scene.
This is a riding that has voted Liberal for 30 years with one exception, the 2011 election, when it switched to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
But it should be remembered that 2011 marked the great debacle of the Liberals, who lost 43 seats and were replaced as the official opposition by Jack Layton’s “orange wave”.
Note that Liberal candidate Charles Sousa — a former provincial finance minister — boosted the Liberals’ vote share and gave them their best result in 20 years.
During this time, the share of the Conservatives fell slightly, from 39 to 37% of the vote. All with a turnout of 26%, a bit low, but still within the norm for a by-election.
Still, all of this is a pretty bad result for the Conservatives and their new leader, Pierre Poilievre.
A by-election is the time to show your displeasure with the ruling party. We no longer count the partials that have been used precisely for this, even if it means returning to another party during the general elections.
However, not only did the voters not do that, but we can interpret the result as support—perhaps not overwhelming, but support all the same—for the government in place.
Mississauga-Lakeshore is a fairly typical suburban riding of Toronto or any other big city, like the ones a party absolutely has to win if it wants to take power.
It wasn’t the ideal riding for a first test, but it wasn’t “mission impossible” either. For the Conservatives, it was above all the first test of their new leader in front of Canadian voters. A test that Mr. Poilievre will have failed.
Clearly, voters in the greater suburbs of Toronto — the region that makes or breaks governments in Canada — do not recognize themselves in the Conservative leader’s message or in the means he is taking to try to get it across.
In fact, since the beginning of his campaign for the Conservative leadership, Mr. Poilievre has attacked those he calls the “gatekeepers” or, in French, the guardians. Those who provide access to information, those who decide winners and losers, in short, everyone Canadians should be angry with, according to Mr. Poilievre.
Among these is the parliamentary press, which the Conservative leader has carefully tried to avoid, believing he could circumvent mainstream media by using social media. Even before Monday’s election, he had recognized that it was not going to work to his advantage and he made himself available to accredited journalists in Ottawa.
Likewise, he based his campaign for Conservative leadership on a rejection of anything that could be considered elite: the Governor of the Bank of Canada, whom he wanted to fire; the Davos Economic Forum — he was going to fire the first of his ministers who wanted to go there — and he preached “monetary freedom” by making himself the apostle of bitcoin, in any case, until this one loses about half of its value.
In a Conservative Party that has made a major shift to the right since the departure of Erin O’Toole, these were perhaps promising subjects. But, for the majority of Canadians, it was rather removed from their daily preoccupations.
Now he’s trying to talk about inflation — “justinflation” as he calls it — but while the economic situation is a big concern for Canadians, they don’t seem to think Justin Trudeau is primarily responsible.
Pierre Poilievre is more eloquent on the housing crisis, but it should be noted that even in one of the most affected regions, such as southern Ontario, the conservative approach has not been successful.
Even if the government is in a minority and elections can, theoretically, be called at any time, there should still be quite a bit of time for the aspiring prime minister to refocus his message and find more promising themes.
But that means changing your tone. During the Conservative leadership race, Mr. Poilievre chose to be the angry candidate. But there is no evidence that the majority of Canadians share this anger. And now the Conservative leader should take note.