1/25 Today 🇨🇦 Conservatives choose a new leader
I was happy to join smart political minds like @MelissaLantsman, @DPinBC, @irbrodie, @howardanglin & @Sean_Speer in @JohnIbbitson’s excellent @globeandmail column on the party’s future
#cpcldr #cdnpoli
theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…
2/25 I want to expand on the points in that column & elaborate on how 🇨🇦conservative philosophy & policy intersect with electoral strategy of the @CPC_HQ
If you ignore strategy you get to watch Liberals govern 😡
If you ignore your principles you get to become the Liberals 😱
3/25 Here’s a start. At the risk of unfairly singling out @konradyakabuski, virtually every assumption in the story below is wrong
Conservative electoral coalition is very different than Brian Mulroney’s day. Too many commentators are stuck in 1980s
theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…
4/25 The notion that a majority or plurality of Canadians yearn for a government that is ‘fiscally conservative, socially progressive’ is false🚫
Only place where this peculiar view dominates is among the credentialed overclass that controls too much of our public discourse
5/25 I’ve often found those calling themselves ‘fiscally conservative, socially progressive’ aren’t fiscal conservatives at all
Instead they’re status-conscious types who like sounding serious without saying anything risky. But ask them what programs they’d cut & you get a 😳
6/25 Let’s dig deeper on fiscal. Essential to recognize the personal relationship that Millenials and Gen Z have with debt is fundamentally different than Boomers.
Their experience is so different, they might as well be living on different planets 👽
www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-210-…
7/25 Boomers came of age and took out their first mortgage an era when prime rates soared over 15%! It scarred them😰
Most Millenials & Gen Z have never known a prime rate above 5%. Have always been in debt & expect to always be in debt. Don’t like it but are resigned to it 🤷🏻♂️
8/25 This has helped shape our generational politics. For 20 years there was a broad political cosensus that tough fiscal decisions that might be unpopular in a vacuum, were both smart & necessary
Just look at Paul Martin’s Liberal (!) 94 budget
financialpost.com/opinion/willia…
9/25 That the Trudeau Liberals abandoned this principle is not (entirely) about their moral failings
It is about a recognition that political consensus in Canada has changed & that people no longer believe there’s a greater good that justifies the cuts
bnnbloomberg.ca/trudeau-plans-…
10/25 But don’t take my word for it. Guess what ‘albatross’ Justin Trudeau spent the entire closing stages of the election attacking Scheer and the Conservatives over?
Was it abortion? 🚫
Climate Change? 🚫
It was all attacking about Doug Ford and CUTS
thestar.com/politics/provi…
11/25 In contrast, social issues don’t shake as many CPC votes loose
If you believe that even mild objections to our wild-west abortion laws are misogynistic OR that we have to destroy oil jobs to stop climate Armageddon, you long ago priced yourself out of CPC voter coalition
12/25 Partisans from all persuasions know the Liberals don’t campaign on social issues to shake voters from Conservatives...
...they do so to terrify progressive voters into holding their noses & abandoning the NDP/Greens for the Liberals in order to block the Conservatives 🤫
13/25 This is not to say that CPC should indulge the most rightward fringe. A Derek Sloan approach 🤯 would be disastarous.
But millions vote CPC precisely because it’s the only party that accepts people with pro-life convictions or unapologetically champions the oil sector.
14/25 Mercifully, the Conservative Party does NOT need to win over Greta Thunberg acolytes 🙏🏻to win an election.
We do however need to win over the votes of a lot of people who’ve been relying on the CERB to pay their bills😓
15/25 Trudeau is SPOILING for a fiscal fight. He laid out his ballot question on Friday saying he looked forward to debating “those in this country who believe we should do less”
If you’re more worried about CPC position on abortion than this, I don’t know what to tell you🤦🏻♂️
16/25 So the new @CPC_HQ leader has an opportunity to break from so old orthodoxy’s and present a new vision that is relevant to today’s voters
I’m proud to have worked for Stephen Harper. But we can’t just trot out warmed over Harper polices from 10 years ago & expect to win
17/25 What does a renewed Conservative policy agenda look like. Bigger brains than mine are on this. I’m partial to reading ideas from smart forward-thinking policy ideas from thinkers like @Sean_Speer , @KenBoessenkool @BenWoodfinden and happy to hear other reccomendations
18/25 For my part, I believe that Conservatives need to embrace smart populism.
Power is now much cultural as it nis political or economic. This power is hoarded by a progressive overclass elite who are all too willing abuse this power to further their own bigotries and biases
19/25 We can’t lose battle with Liberals over caring for economic victims of the pandemic
We need to have a plan for BETTER & SMARTER supports for those left behind. Railing on about ‘disincentives fo work’ or people ‘taking advantage of the system’ plays into Liberal hands
20/25 The Liberals will play the gender card hard. Trudeau is actually quite unpopular among men & needs big margins from female voters. We need to fight for them
So what’s going to be CPC plan for accessible child care? A national socialized plan is a non-starter but so is a 🤷🏻♂️
21/25 How about a plan for the precariousness of work? The Liberals are playing hard for workers in the gig economy.
What to we say to younger Millenials and GEN Z workers who will never have the luxury of stable benefits and a pension?
22/25 How about blue collar workers - private sector union types who get their hands dirty & who’ve never been invited to join soirées and cocktail parties of the overclass
Now that NDP has gone full downtown-woke, there’s no party on the left fighting for blue collar workers
23/25 When it comes to making these kinds of inroads the @CPC_HQ could learn a lot from Ontario where @fordnation and @MonteMcNaughton have done AMAZING work building bridges with blue-collar workers and private-sector union members who have been abandoned by the Liberals and NDP
24/25 Conservatives must always oppose a carbon tax, which remains as morally repugnant and indefensible as it has ever been.
A Canada-First climate plan that stops playing Boy Scout and recognizes that the world’s biggest emitters will never play fair would be a great start.
24/25 Foreign policy that formally recognizes that China is a brutal & insidious empire builder would be a start
As would immigration policies favouring skilled newcomers or trade policies that moderate free-trade zeal with protections for local labour & supply chains
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