It was last January that an editorial in Canada’s self-appointed National Newspaper declared that, given the 99 percent chance Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives would win the next federal election, “the big question for 2024 is how Mr. Poilievre plans to build the better home he is promising Canadians.”  

“The odds he will become prime minister seem so high that his plans for governing are arguably more consequential than Mr. Trudeau’s,” quoth the Globe and Mail.

The Globe was right about the importance, but here we are a year later and it’s Trudeau’s plans – will he stay or will he go – that dominated the headlines this past year. The big question for 2024 went unanswered, and with a Liberal leadership race now taking the media spotlight it could well remain so.

While learning little about Conservative plans in 2024, Canadians were offered a recitation of the empty slogans (axe the tax, fix the budget, fight the crime, build the homes) and attacks on political foes, journalists, various experts and “wokeism.” Instead of policy, we were fed more distortions aimed at the “wacko” Trudeau government. In addition to the old standby misrepresentations about the impact of the carbon tax on households, there were lies about the status of  dental care and the opioid epidemic, which the Conservatives tried to pin on Trudeau, even though it began when the Harper government was in power.

Some of the stuff coming from Poilievre and his party even rivalled Trump’s deranged ramblings about the consumption of dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio. There were Poilievre’s ravings about how carbon pricing would cause a “nuclear winter” for the economy, producing “mass hunger and malnutrition.” And a Conservative fund-raising pitch claimed that federal support for an  Ontario company growing crickets for pet food proved Trudeau wanted Canadians to eat bugs.  

None of these antics hurt the Conservatives in the polls. According to the poll aggregator 338Canada they entered 2024 with a 12-point advantage over the fading Liberals and ended it with a 25-point bulge. That commanding lead, combined with the anticipated media focus on the Liberal leadership, suggest that Poilievre will continue to get away with his tactic of blaming Trudeau for everything that’s wrong in Canada without offering real solutions. However, in a recent podcast and an Ottawa news conference he elaborated some of his policy approaches, and the additional insights  are not reassuring. There are other issues to be examined later – the response to Trump and the war on “woke” for example – but for now it’s time to consider what more we have learned about the shop-worn slogans.

Axe the tax

Poilievre has left no doubt of his commitment to get rid of consumer carbon pricing but has not yet ruled out industrial output-based carbon pricing – something  that could reduce emissions more effectively than consumer carbon pricing. However, given the way he has been touting oil and gas, any possibility of measures to mitigate climate change appears remote. 

In a widely-viewed podcast interview with right-wing psychologist and windbag Jordan Peterson, Poilievre was all in for fossil fuels while calling those concerned about climate change “environmental loons that hate our energy.” In a “more Catholic than the Pope” moment he also chided “idiot” oil company lobbyists for “trying to suck up” to the Liberal government after failing to support “the right policies in prior years” – presumably a reference to the Harper government’s failed efforts to turn Canada into an “energy superpower.” 

Poilievre may not be a climate change denier, but he is certainly denying the need to do anything about it. Indeed, it’s impossible to imagine the energy future promised by Poilievre without thinking of increased emissions.

And it’s not just oil and gas he loves – it’s all extractive industries. Poilievre wants to roll back the Liberal reform of regulation for megaprojects “to cause a massive resource boom in our country.” He also wants to produce more  electricity from new gas and nuclear power plants to fuel data centres catering to big tech’s Artificial Intelligence ambitions.

Fixing the Budget

The Conservatives never tire of complaining about the Liberal government’s “out-of-control spending, debt, and taxation.” The Peterson interview, released last week and endorsed and propagated by Elon Musk, also provided insight into how Poilievre plans to “fix the budget.” 

“We’re going to cut bureaucracy, cut the consultants, cut foreign aid, cut back on corporate welfare to large corporations. We’re going to use the savings to bring down the deficit and taxes and unleash the free-enterprise system,” Poilievre pledged. On another day, answering one of the few questions permitted at his Ottawa news conference, Poilievre expanded on the tax cut, promising that it would be “massive.”

That’s something to be very worried about. Poilievre’s stated targets for cuts – bureaucrats, consultants, foreign aid and business subsidies – account for only a small part of federal spending.  Almost 70 percent of what Ottawa spends consists of transfers (pensions, child benefits, employment insurance) to individuals, other levels of government (health and social transfers and equalization) and interest on the national debt. Bringing down the deficit while providing a massive tax cut almost certainly would require spending cuts well beyond the areas so far identified.

Poilievre also told Peterson that “we’re going to bring back a monetary discipline to bring down inflation (and) stop the money printing,” arguing that because Parliament does not vote on whether to print money, “the inflation is adopted secretly” (by the Bank of Canada). Peterson did not ask whether that means Poilievre will follow through on an earlier pledge to fire the head of the Bank of Canada.

Build the homes

The Conservatives’ “Build the homes” slogan has lost some of its fizz because the Liberals are already bringing in policies similar to those espoused by the Conservatives. Liberal initiatives include cutting sales tax on housing and pressing municipalities to increase density and speed up approvals – albeit using rewards rather than Poilievre’s preferred penalties to get municipalities to play ball. 

With the Liberals stealing the thrust of his more practical ideas on housing, Poilievre has turned to the bizarre.  Housing, he told Peterson, “should be dirt cheap because we have the most dirt. We just need to get the government out of the way. There is no physical, geographic reason why Canada should struggle to supply people with great opportunities of home ownership and family formation.” That sounds like a ringing endorsement of suburban sprawl – or perhaps a trial balloon for a national plan to create “new towns” somewhere in the wilderness.  

Fight the crime

He told Jordan Peterson that a Poilievre government would bring about “the biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history.” He did not go into detail – saying only that “habitual offenders will not get out of jail anymore.” Poilievre didn’t reiterate an earlier pledge to use the notwithstanding clause of the Charter – a first for a federal government – to protect any crime-related bills from being ruled unconstitutional. However, given past efforts to blame the Liberals for the opioid crisis, and sloganeering about banning drugs and treating addiction, it would be reasonable to expect a Poilievre government would do what that previous Conservative government tried unsuccessfully to do and that is to attack safer supply policies.  

No retreat

Non-conservatives anxious to be rid of the Liberals who will vote for Poilievre thinking he won’t follow through on his more controversial policies should listen up. None other than Poilievre says he is not just putting those ideas forward to please the conservative base, he intends to stick with them. He told Peterson he has no intention of following other conservative parties that he claims, embraced “socialist” policies after gaining power. As he put it:

“This is the mistake that conservative parties around the world have made countless times. They think, ‘Well, anybody who’s got a conservative mindset is already voting for me so I can go off and chase the ideas of my political opponents and then everyone will love me because I’ll have the conservatives due to the fact I have the name ‘Conservative’ and these other people because I’ve embraced their contrary direction.’ Does the temptation exist to try and take on the political policies of the socialists in the short term? Sure but it’s one that I will fiercely resist because I know that by the fourth year of my mandate, people would be enraged because their lives would be even worse.”

So Canadians won’t be able to say they weren’t warned. But as The Tyee’s Steve Burgess writes: “…as we have just seen south of the border, when the electorate is in a mood, they won’t care if the opposition’s political platform stinks as though excreted from a possum’s anal gland. They’ll vote for it anyway.”  

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