Canada: A Shift to the Right?

Many countries have seen a resurgence of conservative populism that reflects frustration with their current ruling political class. 

Canada is not immune to this phenomenon and has, of late, seen the emergence of a Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, who sees as his example populist conservative leaders in the United States, Germany, and others, and uses their tactics to rile up his forces across the country.

Traditionally, the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party was a center right party that promoted progressive social programs with conservative fiscal policies. The result was a broad consensus across Canada that its composition as a federation of strong provinces and three founding cultures required some form of government intervention in order to grow and prosper.

This came to an end in 2003 when the party merged with the right of center Canadian Alliance and began moving to the right. Mr. Poilievre finds himself at the extreme of this right-wing shift and has changed political discourse across the country.

Canadian politics used to be civil and respectful much like its southern neighbor up until recently. Since Mr. Poilievre assumed leadership of the Party, his discourse has centered on using ad hominem attacks on his political opponents, using mendacity as a key communications tool, avoiding the mainstream media completely, and waking away when asked questions he would rather not answer. 

Unlike other Canadian political leaders, he has refused to allow security services to vet his past, preferring to forgo the normal security and intelligence briefings provided to party leaders. This has led many observers to question what it is in his past that he doesn’t want to come out to public scrutiny. 

To be sure, Mr. Trudeau’s record is very far from spotless. He has had trips paid for by the Aga Kahn, his family has benefited from funding from the We Charity, and the Trudeau Foundation’s (named for his father) taking foreign political contributions. 

In addition, we all saw how honest Trudeau and his office have been about scandals that included the ousting from cabinet of his Justice Minister and the Prime Minister’s current obsession with avoiding a public enquiry into Chinese involvement in Canadian politics.  

During his leadership bid, Poilievre adopted a populist tone intended to attract disaffected, working-class voters. He supported the truckers’ occupation of Ottawa in 2022 in opposition to the government’s vaccine mandates. He took selfies with many of the protest’s leaders some of whose members flew Nazi and Confederate flags on their trucks and who also engaged in the mutilation of national monuments. 

He has flirted with conspiracy theories by telling cheering crowds his ministers would not be allowed to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos.  Indeed, he recently criticized the Prime Minister for attending the G-7 Summit in Hiroshima.

And yet, he leads the Mr. Trudeau in polls as to which leader would make the better Prime Minister.

Why?

After 8 years of Liberal rule, many Canadians are fed up with the current Prime Minister and his often-perceived poor political judgment. In the eyes of many, Mr. Trudeau has been a very poor PM. They believe that he has mismanaged the economy while moving from scandal to scandal. 

This Prime Minister has really lost the communications battle at every turn. Indeed, I have often wondered who advises him in his moments of crisis and why they are doing such a poor job in reading the public mood. The economy is of major concern to Canadians and Mr. Trudeau’s solution for any problem is to simply throw more taxpayer money at it.

The next Canadian election is scheduled for 2025. It promises to be quite a race as a fresh new Conservative leader takes on the current dean of the G-7. 

What Mr. Trudeau has going for him is that the Liberals and the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) will not likely support a minority Conservative government, leaving Mr. Trudeau with the possibility of forming a minority government with NDP support as is currently the case. This will likely happen unless Mr. Poilievre’s Conservatives win a majority of seats.

Interesting times in Canada.

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Edition: Estefanía Cardeña