Will 2023 bring a federal election, and will Pierre Poilievre’s big plan work?

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Jordan Heath Rawlings This has become a cycle that you can rely upon in Canadian federal politics. It goes like this the Conservative Party seeks a new leader and in order to secure the job, the candidate has has to court the ultra conservative base of the Party. They manage to do it and they win the leadership and then they have to somehow contort themselves into appealing to suburban centrists too. And that, of course, ticks off the base who don’t want any concessions. And around and around we go until Justin Trudeau wins himself another minority government six months into Pierre Poilivere’s turn in the CPC hot seat. However, that cycle hasn’t started yet. The other day, Justin Trudeau was at a big Party 2000 wealthy liberal lobbyists saying that we should stop all the complaining. Well, everybody in that room has nothing to complain about. They’re doing very well. It’s been an all you can eat buffet for the lobbyists and the insiders in Ottawa. As we begin the year, the conservative base is still very fired up about their new leader, and rightly so, as he’s been laser focused on them and not the suburban centrists since he won the job last year. But will that matter to the outcome of a federal election? Should we get one in 2023? Can Poilivere gain more from that base than he loses by catering to them? At the very least, it’s a different tack than his predecessors have taken. But can it work? And how? What would an election this year look like anyway, in the middle of interest rates and inflation and everything else that can make this future seem so uncertain? I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Stephen Maher is an award winning Canadian journalist, one of our favorite guests on this show. He’s a novelist, he’s a Harvard neiman fellow and he’s a contributing author to the center for International Governance Innovation. Hello, Stephen.

Stephen Maher Morning.

Jordan I want to ask you because it seems like it’s been about six months now since Pierre Polyv took over Canada’s Conservative Party. Is it fair to say that when he was elected he was done so by a fired up base? And has he delivered for that base both resounding?

Stephen Maher Yes. His candidacy for the Conservative Party leadership was phenomenally successful, more so even than Stephen Harper’s back in the day. The Party rallied behind him and they signed up a huge number of new members, largely people who were sympathetic to the Freedom Convoy. Right. These are people who are opposed to vaccine mandates, for instance. Since then, he has ignored advice from people who would say, oh, well, that you’re giving too much attention to those people and he has stuck with them. And we can see as a result that he seems to have quite a solid connection to that part of the electorate. So there’s a lot that goes into winning a national federal election that we can discuss. But you recently wrote a big piece in the Walrus on polyev, which is why we’re talking today and it was called The Secret to His Success.

Jordan So I’m going to ask you two questions about that. The first is what do you mean by success in this context? Are you talking about simply winning the leadership or what?

Stephen Maher Yes, I suppose I should mention two things in response. One is that I wrote that with pollster Frank Graves and the other is reporters don’t write the headlines, but he has been hugely successful within the conservative sphere. We won’t know until there’s a general election how that success will translate with voters outside of the current coalition. But yeah, no, he has got the party behind him, the caucus. Any grumbling among people who didn’t support him is being done offstage and he seems to be in a solid position.

Jordan So the second question then is simply what’s the secret? What’s making him different as leader from ErIn O’Toole and Andrew Shear, two guys who aspired to the same thing?

Stephen Maher Well, I think that there’s sort of different answers depending on O’Toole and share different characters. O’Toole the convoy did him in. He struck me as a sort of centrist person, someone more likely to appeal to middle of the road Canadian voters. But he produced uncertainty among the sort of more conservative base, particularly in western Canada inside the caucus. And when the convoy arrived in Ottawa, he took kind of a lukewarm view and there was a caucus revolt and they ditched him. So there’s no danger of any sort of Poilievre facing that kind of a revolt from the sort of convoy side of the party because he is being very careful not to let any light get between them and him. He’s under pressure to distance himself from that movement and he does not do so. Here is a somewhat different example in that I think that the party he’s ideologically in a similar place to polyv their friends and allies. But Sheer, I think after running the 2019 election, people just felt that he couldn’t win, that he hadn’t been able to sell the message effectively.

Jordan So as we look ahead to 2023 and in a bit we can talk about will there be an election, what might that look like, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the themes that you and Mr. Graves got at in your piece was the rise of effective polarization in Canada. So can you explain what that is and how do we see it working on the ground with voters at the polls?

Stephen Maher Well, effective polarization, this is an expression that comes from academic research is the idea that certain groups of voters become increasingly hostile not just to a party but to other groups of voters. Right. I mean, you see it as clear as day in the United States and Canada has lagged on that front. But the pandemic and the mandates and the political debate about those mandates has led to a rise in effect of polarization. I think it was crystallized by the convoy in a way and that you have these people coming from across Canada to Ottawa and if you observe their internal communications on their telegram channels and their bulletin boards and so on, they would say well, these people are complaining that we’re inconveniencing them. And good because they’re a bunch of liberal Ottawa dirt bags anyway. And then you had the reaction of the people of Ottawa. There were times when there was almost violence between the citizens of Ottawa and the Occupiers. So I think that provides a pretty clear example of how effective polarization has developed in Canada. I don’t think we’ve seen anywhere near this level of the threat of political violence. There were times in the national unity struggles in the 70s. We have a big divide now with chunks of voters looking at each other with suspicion and hostility.

Jordan And when we talk about Poilievre and his strategy, I want to be clear here that I’m not trying to do the is he like Trump? Thing that we love to do in Canada with many of our conservative politicians. That’s not what I’m getting at. But how does Poilivere lean into effective polarization in a similar way and can it work here? I know you’ve mentioned we’ve kind of caught up to the US. Over the pandemic, but it maybe still feels to me like the climate isn’t quite the same or at least we don’t want to feel like the climate is the same.

Stephen Maher What Graves and I try to do in the article is put Poilivere in the context of international populists. And there’s been a movement in the last decade of sort of authoritarian populists in a number of countries from the Philippines to Brazil. And in some ways Poilivere resembles them in that he’s using the classic populist playbook where you say I am with the people, I represent the will of the people, and the elites are denying the people what they want and what they should get. On the other hand, there are several ways in which he is not following this pattern. He does not use vulgar, sexist or racist language as a rule. There are people who would point to things he said in the House when he was a young man, but he’s not doing any of that in a calculated way. As part of his appeal to the electorate and also on immigration, he is not delivering anti immigration messages. So you might call him a semi populist. I think of it as populism light. And one of the things that’s going on here is that in Canada there does not appear to be at this time an electorally workable coalition that involves anti immigrant messages in comparison with most similar countries. We have greater ease and comfort with high levels of immigration for historical reasons. We just set a record last year, I believe. That’s right. And there is virtually no one elected to public office in Canada who speaks against that.

Jordan So one of the reasons I didn’t ask if Poilievre was like Trump is because whenever we have a federal election he will be the third Conservative leader. That Justin Trudeau. If he is indeed the leader of the Liberal Party at that time, or whoever is, he’ll be the third Conservative politician the Liberals have painted with that brush. It’s been really effective for them. Can it still work particularly against Poilivere?

Stephen Maher I think it may work better against Poilievre than it has in previous elections. Poilievre is doing very well with his base but the polling shows that his negative numbers outside his base are, from his perspective, worryingly high. In particular, as this works out electorally, we’ll want to see what his candidacy does to New Democrats who may be tempted to vote Liberal to stop him. Some of the polling that Graves did for this Walrus article he found that Poilivere had 70% unfavourable numbers among New Democrats right at a riding level. Having covered, you know, a number of federal elections and paid attention to what happens at the rioting, he then becomes quite vulnerable to Liberal rally around the Liberals arguments. So I think that he faces a difficult challenge in extending in winning more seats. On the other hand, the polling also shows that Canadians are tired of Justin Trudeau, or a large number of Canadians are. Leaders have a sort of best before date and he’s been in office for quite a while. So you have these two competing factors and anyone who tells you in advance of an election how they will play out is talking through their hat. You just can’t know, really.

Jordan Former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair recently said that he thinks we will get an election in 2023. Do you think we will? And more importantly, if we do, what do you expect from it? I’m not asking you to make a prediction, as you just mentioned, and talk out of your hat, but what would that election be like this year?

Stephen Maher What Poilivere would try to do is to make it into a referendum on Liberal economic management and we have unusually high inflation. For the first time, he has done an excellent job of crystallizing a message around affordability and housing. And this is especially likely to appeal to young men. There’s a huge gender divide among the youth vote with the women supporting the Liberals in the NDP and Conservatives supporting Poilivere. And you would see the Liberals trying to hang the convoy around Poilivere’s neck like a stinking albatross.

Jordan I think one of the things as we talk about effective polarization is we talk about this divide and how it happens in the US. And then creeps up here and speeds up. One of the things I’ve taken some comfort from, I think, and I think a lot of people have, has been the difference in the faith in the electoral system and government institutions in general. Where does Poilivere fit into that? Will he be attacking that? Will that hold up?

Stephen Maher Yes. So the research on populism shows that the rise of effective polarization which creates sort of disorder and intense arguments, can be upsetting to people, which makes them then yearn for a more authoritarian choice. Now, to say that Poilivere represents authoritarianism would be to go too far in that he’s not talking about locking people up or silencing his opponents or taking any kind of drastic steps like that. So I want to be careful about this. But his most important role in Canadian politics prior to announcing his candidacy for the leadership of the Conservative Party was as Minister for Democratic Reform where he proposed changes to the Canada Elections Act that the other parties and civil society groups felt were destructive. And he at that time and later attacked Elections Canada, basically portraying them as a bunch of Liberal lap dogs and that kind of thing. I found it observing it at the time corrosive and worrying in that he was eroding public trust in our electoral institution. Which is not to say that everything that he said was wrong. Any institution can be criticized, and including Elections Canada but by portraying them as a bunch of Liberals, I don’t think that is right. Having observed Elections Canada probably as closely as any journalist in Canada, I do not believe they are Liberal lapdogs. I believe that they are dedicated to running elections in a fair and even handed way. And so I found that disturbing that you have a politician who is willing to advance his own political interests by, eroding, Canadians faith in this institution, which, when we look at what happens in the United States and the way, the trouble they have with their elections. And you look at Canada. I would laugh at anyone who suggests that we have anything to learn from the Americans. People come from around the world to find out how we run our elections and candidates. It’s the oldest nonpartisan electoral institution in the world. It has its problems, but it should be an example to the world. And I found that sort of one of these things about Poilivere where you say, well, he is a very determined partisan character and he may not always balance competing perspectives in a way that most Canadians would like.

Jordan Last question because I guess it could decide whether or not Elections Canada gets a workout in 2023. How strong is the Liberal Party? NDP confidence agreement. And if it falls, what’s likely to cause that?

Stephen Maher Well, senior Liberals have told me that they’re worried that they’re moving through the checklist more quickly than they would like because that’s going to bring them to a point where the NDP presents fresh demands. What I have observed is that the NDP, New Democrats, who I talk to, these are senior people are pleased with it. They’re enjoying the sort of access and influence that they have. I know a lot of Conservative commentators will say, oh, the NDP got suckered here and they’re not getting anything for it, and they look like lap dogs. I don’t think that’s the way the New Democrats feel. The unease seems more to be on the Liberal side, but the Liberals are also relieved not to face that sort of daily game of chicken in the House. But who knows? It’s not knowable that these people play their cards pretty close to their chest. And certainly the traditional dynamic is that these deals are electorally bad for the junior partner. Right. So the New Democrats may face pressure to pull the rug out and say, look, we just couldn’t put up with this anymore. If there is a serious scandal like SNC lavalin level scandal where the Liberals look unethical, then the whole host of cards could collapse in the absence of that, if I had to bet, I would say that the deal will continue through the year and we won’t have an election. It’ll be fascinating to watch and fascinating to see if Poilivere ever does kind of move to court the voters that he would need to win a general. Right? Yeah, I find it interesting. It appears to me if you look at the last election, the Conservatives lost a number of votes to the People’s Party. In most cases, those are not consequential votes. They are a few percentage points in writings where the Conservatives win by a large amount. But I know that that was part of the dynamic that led to the ouster of O’Toole is that that was quite worrying to more Conservative Conservatives. And strategically, you look at it, in a way, it really is bad for the Conservatives to have a populist party on their right. So if they can swallow the People’s Party, get rid of Maxine Barney. There really are advantages to the Conservatives. But to do that, Poilievre is going to have to stay very cozy with that portion of the electorate. The strategy of it makes sense in a way, but I think that’s going to make it difficult for him to make inroads in the greater Toronto area and Quebec, and he can’t win an election without doing so.

Jordan I feel like I’ve seen that movie three or four times now.

Stephen Maher Yes. Everything the patterns keep repeating themselves.

Jordan Stephen, thank you so much for this.

Stephen Maher My pleasure.

Jordanr Stephen Maher writing about Pierre Poilivere along with Frank Graves in The Walrus. That was the big story. For more, you can head to the Big Story podcast dot CA. If you really, really want more, you can subscribe to TBS plus us on Apple podcasts. We released our first bonus episode there today. It’ll be available for non subscribers in a couple of weeks. But really, if you want to get it, go get it. And you also get the benefit of this show with no ads. It’s up to you, of course. Five episodes a week will always be free in this feed. If you want to talk to us about that or anything else, you can find us on Twitter at The Big Story. FPN you can write to us hello at The Bigstorypodcast CA. Or you can call us and leave us a message. 416-935-5935 you can find The Big Story for free. As I mentioned in every podcast player, you only have to subscribe if you want to support us, or you want to not hear ads, or you want to hear me talk about football. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.