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I have a proposal for conservatives in Canada, that I offer legitimately in the spirit of getting the best for the country: Become the party of democracy. Ditch the crazies (and their reactionary grievance politics), and embrace electoral reform.
I know most people say electoral reform is the kiss of death for them, but I’m not sure I agree:
- If they kick out the crazies, they will be a smaller party and their chances at holding SOME power will increase if we have some manner of PR or ranked ballot in place.
- The Liberals have taken the patriotism brand from them (Poilievre was an idiot for giving that one up to them), but they can take the democracy brand from them easily if they shift their approach - especially since the Liberals have fumbled electoral reform so badly (“We will do what the Liberals couldn’t do…because we’re the party of democracy!”). It also gives them a patriotic ‘foot in the door’, since they can tie democracy to Canadian identity and fundamental Canadian values. Finally, it will distinguish them from the Republicans and the US in general, which is what they need to do right now.
- When people make the claim that the Conservatives would suffer under electoral reform, the calculus assumes that voting habits don’t change…but this is a foolish assumption, particularly in this case, since this maneuver would fundamentally shift the landscape
- Conservatives would be rebranding entirely and would be perceived as a brand new party - truly the party of change.
- Canadian Conservatives would set an example for right wing governments around the world
- They would become a party truly back in the political centre, and would easily steal Liberals back to them.
None of this means they need to abandon their economic ideology, although they may find they need to tweak it.
HOWEVER - this would require:
- Get rid of Poilievre and the others like him (Javani, etc.). They are toxic to good faith politics. They consider their opponents enemies, part of the out-group, and they will never be trusted enough to pull this off honestly. Also, this requires vision and an ability to unify people behind that vision - in other words, it requires leadership - and Poilievre is not a leader. He does not do vision or unity.
- The Conservatives would need to accept and embrace the idea of coalition governments and minority governments, since they are fundamentally the most democratic type of government and would therefore be just as legitimate as majority governments.
- They would need to actually care about democracy, and human rights, since they are fundamentally linked. This means a shift in policy towards indigenous and minority groups (thus why they need to ditch the crazies).
This isn’t to say they wouldn’t get a majority government ever (or indeed that no party ever would). In fact, I believe that the proper Conservative leader could do this in a way that would probably give them a good shot at a landslide victory in the next election. Carney has a very tough road ahead of him, but for sure the one thing that will help him get re-elected is the Conservatives digging in their heels and doing the same thing, but harder. They need to fundamentally change, and a change like this would give them the best fighting chance at looking like a trusted party to take Canada to a better place.
real democracy is incompatible with conservatism
A fraction in the right is bound to happen, you have some who are barely off center and others who are full blown seperatist maple maga, they do not agree on the same things…
Hi from EU! Can someone please explain to an interested outsider what this means?
The two largest political parties in Canada faced off in a polarizing election (at the expense of the smaller Canadian parties): the Liberals (slightly left of centre), vs. Conservatives (right wing big tent party). Canada’s political system works as several simultaneous races for a parliamentary representative for their area, then the political party with the most representatives total selects (or has selected beforehand) a leader who will be the Prime Minister.
Now the Conservatives had been expected to take over due to the previous Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, being blamed for inflation and anything bad by Conservatives, Trudeau not accomplishing much and people being tired of the incumbent. But then, Justin Trudeau steps down and chooses a new leader who calls an election, Trump gets in office and threatens Canada, leading enough people to realize what shit-fuckery Trump style politics in Canada would lead to (not as many as I’d like, but enough).
The Conservatives had a decent vote share, but the leader, Pierre Poilievre who ran on a diet version of populist conservative nationalism, lost his own seat. In the meantime, the province (a sub-national region) of Ontario also held an election. The Progressive Conservative party (right of centre populist) got majority power in the province again due to the party and leader, Doug Ford, campaigning strongly against Trump.
The provincial party had been warning the national one to change tack against Trump, both in private from leaked statements and in public from some current and former campaign managers. The Nova Scotia Premier, (leader of another province, also a Conservative party) also warned them. However, Pierre was too slow to do that, and his campaign style of not letting the press ask questions freely remained, reminiscent of the Trump administration, which partly contributed to Canada’s Conservative relative loss of power.
In Trump-style politics, Dear Leader (Pierre who did not get elected in his own election race) can do no wrong, so now that the election is done, it’s time for the blame game and the knives are out. The crazies of the Conservative party are going to attack anyone, even if they are politically aligned, if they dared to tell the truth about Poilievre’s likeness to Trump leading him to failure.
The Liberals aren’t slightly left of center, it’s a center right party that got forced to do left wing stuff to stay in power.
I’d say socially they are. Fiscally… only the NDP is consistently really left of center.
A socially left, fiscally right party is just a right wing party
No, it is a socially left, fiscally right party.
Let’s not oversimplify everything to fit it into the axis of “people who sat on the left/right of some assembly 200 years ago”
Exactly.
Great summary! I can’t see the Conservatives splitting and giving up their chances of gaining power, but I hope this at least tamps down the PPC elements of the Conservatives.
!lemmysilver for a great summary.
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I think the confusion lies around the word “terminal.” Starlink sent internet service terminals to swing states in the US with questionable internet, not voting terminals. As far as I can see, they don’t make voting machines (though that would be terrifying and is probably up next). I wasn’t able to see whether the Canadian government relied on them for internet service surrounding the election.
Imagine if the guy who was caught cheating automobile mileage with algorithmic estimates would also cheat votes. I mean what would he have to gain besides securing lucrative government contracts and dismantling agencies investigating his companies? All under the mask of helping save the future and environment with electric cars, I mean saving imaginary trillions in government waste.
Eh, this result has been in the cards (and polls) for months, quite the opposite of the November shitshow.
Stop this shit.
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Cope
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Oh there’s some poor quality gaslighting. Your earlier comment was about election corruption and smacked of being upset.
Cope.
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Who the fuck are you talking about?
The liberals won the election, Carney isn’t a fascist and the meme is about conservative infighting because Ford isn’t Maple Maga.
Rentlar’s synopsis is really good, but I’ll add a tiny bit of backstory. The Progressive Conservative party was the old stalwart, around forever, with not crazy views. Fiscally conservative. In the 90’s a new brand of social conservative came on the scene from Alberta, the Reform party. Suddenly the conservative vote was getting split by fiscal conservatives (bring down the debt) and social conservatives (bring down big gay) and so there was a movement to “unite the right” that is now the current Conservative Party of Canada CPC which just lost the election. It has always been a tenuous alliance and shows cracks occasionally, but stays together because they win elections. Losing has caused the old conservatives and the reform conservatives to infight. Doug Ford is east/old style Pierre Pollivre is west/new style. They both really hate each other which is lovely to see from the other side.
Doug Ford is far from fiscally conservative. I’d offer that he’s a different brand of populist than Poilievre.
Fiscal conservatives are never and have never been “fiscally conservative”. Rather than being conscious of and considerate about how they spend our communal resources, they have always just believed that there should be no communal resources, and the rich should get to run roughshod over us all.
Yes fiscally responsible like a ridiculous hwy that he needs to make new laws to build, a ridiculous tunnel under an existing hwy, removing newly built bike lanes, spening millions to rush booze to shelves to undermine a government labor strike, various land scandas. The list goes on and on highlighting these excellent examples of fiscal responsibility.
True. I meant to highlight the differences and keep it simple. Quite right that Doug isn’t the old party, just a different flavour of the Reform guys.
I’d say Doug Ford is old-style conservative in that he’s not particularly ethical, he’s up for a bit of corruption if it makes him and his friends money, he thinks about business before people, and he doesn’t particularly care if poor people suffer. But he’s also not really that interested in culture wars or enthusiastic about authoritarian fascism, and that’s what distinguishes him from someone like Poilievre. For Doug Ford as long as he can get on with his own schemes, he doesn’t really care how other people live. It’s not compassionate but it’s not hateful, just narrowly self-interested and somewhat amoral, and this is how he’s an old-fashioned conservative. Poilievre by contrast wants to police how people live and govern by reactionary moral judgements, wants to impress Trump and the far right, wants to be perceived as a strongman himself despite having no such credentials and giving off incel-doing-weights-in-the-basement vibes, and wants to punish people. Doug Ford is damaging while Pierre Poilievre is poisonous.
I’d agree, the mobster kind of populist
@ladicius @Sunshine Depicted is Doug Ford, current Premiere of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. He is a leader of a provincial conservative party which typically is politically aligned with the federal conservative party.
A bit of drama within the ranks conservative political sphere in Canada is brewing whereby critics of the leader of the federal conservatives (e.g. Ford) and his allies (e.g. Jivani) are sniping at each other through the press. Here, Jivani is calling Ford a turncoat.
Thinking ford is suddenly a liberal without addressing his ridiculous highway plans, ridiculous tunnel plans, his loyalty to oil coupled with resistance to green energy, gutting of the endangered species act, and greenbelt scandal is ridiculous. Ford is half the problem most people in Ontario hate Trudeau because his polciies failed to help Ontarians, but his charisma managed to blame the feds.
He also promised buck a beer and what we got instead was an increase in beer prices and now you can buy it at every gas station, which i predict in the long term will increase the amount of drinking and driving as well as increase access to alcohol for minors.
Isn’t he related to the crack head mayor?
Rob Ford, the crack head mayor, was Doug’s brother. He died in 2016.
So glad you guys addressed this. I’m in the US and this whole time I was thinking they were the same guy.
Brother.
Jamil is such a needlessly aggressive and whiny little cunt. Dude gives off the energy of a middle school football player flipping his shit over how the other team cheated and the refs are corrupt.
My first impression of him was a few days ago.
“Loud uncooked dough”
This is JD Vance’s bestie we’re talking about. He’s a fascist.
What a time, when the federal Conservatives make Doug Ford look like the voice of reason, and hate him for it.
So fucking weird, right?
Love to see it. Hope they split apart again.
Interestingly, Poilievre got more votes in Ontario than Doug did in the February provincial election. If the NDP vote hadn’t collapsed the way it did he could easily have won.
If I’m reading this correctly, the political right in Canada need the political left to split the vote under a FPTP system in order to succeed?
That’s the reason the PC and Reform parties merged back in the 90s. FPTP incentives two party races, this election is a stark example.
They are always the nastiest - hopefully they will all end up shooting each other.
I mean, if the politician does what you like, what does it matter the colour they wear?
Tribalism. Rachel Notley did great things in Alberta but she was not Conservative so everything she did was labelled bad. Trudeau pays $4B for a pipeline in AB and they still say Trudeau is anti-oil… You just can’t win with Conservatives.
