A kinder, gentler Poilievre?/YouTube screencap

By Geoff Norquay

January 8, 2024

The Conservatives currently find themselves in an enviable position. Courtesy of the Liberals’ freefall in public support, the Conservatives are leading in the polls by an average of 12 per cent over a tired and becalmed government, and largely in control of the national political narrative. Of course, the minority Liberals may not have the luxury of waiting until October 2025 to go to the polls; still, no Official Opposition in Canada has ever found itself with a lead so large this far out from the next national vote.

Last summer, the Conservatives began an apparently successful remake to soften Pierre Poilievre’s image; the black glasses are gone, he is dressing more casually when not in the House, and he is speaking more softly, more slowly and less stridently. He is also building more hope into his messaging: “Everything seems broken in Canada…but we can put the pieces back together….” Towards the end of last year, the party launched a series of innovative 15-minute mini-documentaries, narrated by Poilievre and filled with facts, figures and charts. It’s an approach that many observers believe will change the nature of political discourse. Already, they have been viewed by millions of Canadians.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are confronted by the kinds of challenges faced by all mature governments in Western democracies after seven to nine years in office. Increasingly, they are forced to confront their own policy mistakes and ethical misjudgments, blaming the previous government is no longer a serious option and their “best before” date is fast approaching. The brand of hope, change and promise that Justin Trudeau brought into office in 2015 is severely tarnished, and the polls report that voters have decided “It’s time for a change.” Inflation and the skyrocketing cost of living are only adding to the government’s misery. That’s where the Liberals find themselves today.

A simpler way of saying this is that given the passage of enough time, most governments ultimately defeat themselves – unless the Official Opposition self-destructs. So, what kind of domestic policies must the Conservatives put in the window to consolidate the gains they have made in 2023 and position themselves for the next election? And what must they avoid to prevent from getting in their own way?

First, maintain the pressure on the twin issues of the cost of living and housing supply and affordability. Economist Trevor Tombe of the University of Calgary recently calculated that, “From February 2020 to the summer of 2023, the total impact of consumer price increases was akin to a nearly $100-billion drop in aggregate household disposable income.” The Leader of the Opposition has been brilliant at capitalizing on the painful impacts of the rising cost of living on Canadians, and he should keep on laying these at the door of the Liberals.

While most price increases are likely to ease in 2024, the largest factor still pushing inflation up is the rising cost of shelter, and this is guaranteed to continue to inflict even more pain on Canadians. The Royal Bank of Canada forecasts that between 2024 and 2026, 58 per cent of mortgages with a value of $900 billion will have to be renewed. Depending on how quickly interest rates decline, the result may be “payment shock” for millions of families.

Second, continue to address the Liberals’ mismanagement of immigration, which has weakened the strong public consensus that increasing Canada’s population is essential to our future economic prosperity. The Liberals were oblivious to the fact that annual immigration of 500,000 people, plus the more-than-a-million non-permanent residents (temporary foreign workers and foreign students) per year entering the country might need a place to live. Canadians know that there is fundamental misalignment between immigration and housing supply, and the Conservatives are exploiting this reality. It will take years to dig the country out of this hole, and while the Liberals are committing billions to build houses and rental accommodation, chances are those units will only begin to come on stream in time to benefit a Poilievre government.

Already, the leader of the opposition is advancing practical policy alternatives, such as linking the level of immigration to the availability of jobs, the number of homes being built, and the number of doctors that will be required, as well as placing the onus on universities and colleges to prove there is housing available for international students before they are admitted to the country.

Third, keep up the pressure on “axing the tax.” In creating their carbon pricing programs, the Liberals decided that every tonne of carbon was a nail that required hitting with the same “one size fits all” hammer. This ignored the fact that provincial economies are interdependent and regional energy mixes are radically different from each other. Not only have the Liberals lost two key court challenges over the unconstitutionality of key environmental initiatives, but they were also forced to blink on carbon pricing to save their Atlantic caucus from being annihilated in the next election.

The Liberals might have gotten away with their approach to carbon pricing were it not for rising interest rates and the affordability crisis caused by inflation, which struck just as the carbon tax was beginning to bite. As a result, public support for the carbon tax has plummeted, fuelling the Conservatives’ calls to axe the tax. A November 2023 Angus Reid poll found that since late 2019, the proportion of Canadians concerned about climate change as a top issue has dropped by half, and that more than half of Canadians want the tax to be either abolished or lowered. A Nanos poll in December revealed that 61 per cent believe the carbon tax is either “ineffective or somewhat ineffective” at encouraging people to use less fuel.

As for the future direction of climate policies, Lisa Raitt and Ken Boessenkool of Conservatives for Clean Growth have written, have offered some useful ideas for the Conservatives to consider. They would start by giving greatest priority to economic growth since a strong economy is a prerequisite to strong climate policy. They would also put current environmental policies through the filter of affordability, which would help low- and middle-income people least able to pay for higher costs and ensure climate policy isn’t adding to the affordability problem. This opens the door to greater emphasis on climate adaptation, per Raitt and Boessenkool: “Making our homes, our communities, our cities, and our country more resilient in the face of increasing, and increasingly expensive, climate-driven events.” These are solid ideas on which the party can build.

As they develop their much-needed climate platform, a key issue the Conservatives will need to address is what to do with the tax rebate many Canadians in eight provinces receive to protect them from the costs of federal carbon pricing. If the tax is axed, presumably the carbon pricing rebates will also end, but these particularly benefit low- and middle-income people. Instead of ending the rebate, as economist Jack Mintz has suggested, it could be integrated with the GST tax credit to offset sales, excise and other climate levies.

Fourth, give priority to taking down interprovincial trade barriers. Canada has a thicket of protectionist regulations, tariffs, occupational licensing rules, technical requirements and price-fixing that shelter firms from competition and limit our ability to buy, sell, transport goods and services across the country, and in some cases, work in other provinces. Nonsense differences in credential requirements mean that professionals such as social workers, dental hygienists, paramedics and nurse practitioners cannot easily move from one province to another. These rules sap our already-weak productivity and competitiveness.

During the Harper government, Jason Kenney made an ambitious start on bringing common sense to credentials requirements for foreign-trained professionals entering Canada, but little progress has been made by the Trudeau government. Taking down interprovincial trade barriers will be challenging and will take time due to foot-dragging by the provinces, but it will be worth it. The Business Council of Alberta estimates these barriers currently “impose the equivalent of a 6.9% tariff on goods across Canada,” and their removal could enable national GDP to rise by $80 billion or 3.8% and average wages to rise by about $1,800 per person.

It’s useful to note that Canadian elections are usually conducted according to a cycle of hope and fear. The Official Opposition party typically offers a platform of hope and possibility, while the incumbent government presses the buttons of fear – of the unknown, of change and risk. In 2015, after nine years of the Harper government, it was natural that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals would campaign on hope, and they were very good at it. This time, the shoe will be on the other foot, with hope and change on offer from Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives, while Trudeau and the Liberals will focus on threats to women’s right to choose, firearms policy, the dangers of populism and the possibility of a MAGA-style Trumpist government in Canada. The prime minister is already road-testing these lines.

The likely prospect of Donald Trump being the Republican nominee for president in the United States represents a significant series of threats to the Conservatives in the coming year. A national Leger poll in 2022 on a possible Biden-Trump rematch found that 81 per cent of decided Canadian voters would favour Joe Biden, against 19 per cent for Trump. When the same question was sorted according to Canadian party preference, 44 per cent of Conservative voters and 86 per cent of Peoples’ Party of Canada (PPC) supporters favoured Trump.

All party leaders seek to keep their “base” happy, and the Conservatives’ sensitivity to the PPC is understandable; as Eric Grenier pointed out following the 2021 election, “There were 22 seats across the country in which the PPC vote was bigger than the Conservatives’ margin of defeat,” but opinions are mixed as to whether all these votes were available to the Conservatives.

Over the next two years, the Liberals will be laser-focused on any indications the Conservatives are playing to the populists in their right-wing base. To prevent this outcome, the Conservatives must recognize that if they are leading the Liberals by more than 10%, it means they are successfully expanding their potential voter universe by attracting support from former Liberal and NDP voters, 95 per cent of whom favour Biden and not Trump. As a result, the Conservatives face a zero-sum choice: conveying the sense to Canadians that they are like Trump may please their base but will scare away many more potential mainstream votes.

Finally, all these threats to the Conservatives will increase should Donald Trump succeed in being re-elected as president this coming November. Such an outcome would not only be destabilizing to the military alliances and managed trade on which we depend, it would also transform the 2025 election into a plebiscite on who best can protect Canada from the tariff war that a Trump presidency would likely launch.

Despite their successes in 2023, the Conservatives made a couple of mistakes at the end of the year that puzzled many party members and even more potential supporters.

The Liberal fear campaign will also target popular social programs that they have established during their time in office, such as their early learning and childcare program, the enriched child benefit and the dental care program, which is just now getting underway. They will argue that once in office, the Conservatives will kill these programs that are popular with families and low- and middle-income people. The best defensive move the Conservatives can make is to take these issues off the table by promising that these programs will continue.

In addition, the Liberals will shortly make clear their intentions on pharmacare. They will either cave to the demands of their NDP partners and opt for a universal, publicly administered program with a single payer, or they will go with a lesser but more affordable plan that covers people without existing drug coverage – seniors and people who make less than $90,000 per year. (This is the approach the Liberals took in establishing eligibility for the new dental care program.)

If the Liberals go with the universal option, it will come with a huge price tag according to the Parliamentary Budget Office – “$11.2 billion in 2024-25, increasing to $13.4 billion in 2027-28” – (offset by cost savings of $1.4 billion in 2024-25 and $2.2 billion by 2027-28) and the Conservatives will clearly reject it. This position will find favour with a solid majority of voters. A Leger poll completed last month found that only 18 per cent of Canadians favoured a “new, universal, single-payer drug plan.” Those surveyed said they place a higher priority on more funding toward surgical wait times (36 per cent), building more long-term care homes (32 per cent), and expanding mental health services (30 per cent).

Despite their successes in 2023, the Conservatives made a couple of mistakes at the end of the year that puzzled many party members and even more potential supporters. First, with much bluster and overheated rhetoric, Poilievre vowed to keep the House sitting over the Christmas break unless the Liberals axed the carbon tax. After one all-nighter of voting on the government’s estimates that the Liberals successfully turned into a team-building exercise, they came up with a procedural fix to stop the filibuster and left the Conservatives looking foolish.

Much worse were the Conservatives’ votes against the modernized Canada-Ukraine free trade deal on the grounds that it would institute a carbon tax. In reality, the pact only contains a non-binding measure to “promote carbon pricing” and to “address impacts and risks associated with climate change through adaptation measures.” Moreover, Ukraine has had its own form of carbon pricing since 2011 and needs it to be accepted as a member of the European Union, an objective that Canada supports.

Things got worse. During the 30-hour marathon voting session in the House in December, the Conservatives were the lone party to vote against budget increases for the Department of National Defence, which included $118.5 million in additional funding to train Ukrainian soldiers through Operation Unifier, the program put in place by Stephen Harper. This was an unforced error that allowed Poilievre’s opponents to draw comparisons to the pro-Russia MAGA Republicans in the United States Congress. After the Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress expressed their significant displeasure with these perplexing votes, the Conservatives were forced to deploy party spokespersons to try to right the ship.

The Conservatives moved a long way forward in 2023. To remain the party of hope and possibility in the coming year, they must avoid these kinds of counter-productive and inexplicable policy positions that interfere with the successful narratives they are building.

Geoff Norquay is a Principal with Earnscliffe Strategies in Ottawa. He was a senior social policy adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office from 1984 to 1988 and director of communications to Stephen Harper when he was leader of the Official Opposition.