Why Conservatives Will Lose the Next Election

By Nathan Giede

Aired March 21st, 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMhNtXP1vG4

Are the federal Conservatives going to lose to Justin Trudeau for a third time? After the mishandling of the pandemic as well as vaccines, with Canadian debt at an all time high, the sluggish economy, let alone the laundry list of offences by Trudeau and co from LavScam, the We Scandal, silencing Jody Wilson-Raybould, the cost of ships, Admiral Norman’s show trial, and so much more, the Liberals should be in third place in the polls. But instead they’re surging.

Some of this is situational. Mediocre as vaccine distribution has been, some vulnerable members of society and healthcare workers are finally getting vaccinated. All that money that went out the door last year, particularly the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit, made a few people richer than they’d ever been before (though tax season is going to be a rude awakening), and so, with jingle in their pocket, or a pock mark on their arm, cautious optimism is growing.

But elections aren’t just about bribing voters - plenty of citizens are happy to take money from one party and reward the next with a majority, and I affirm this trait, as treating all political vehicles with utmost contempt is the only way for citizens to keep their officials accountable. No, elections are about alternatives, and the alternative that is being presented by the Tories is both alienating their strongest supporters, while simultaneously failing to win over new voters.

To be clear, I’ve never believed in “getting out the base” or “splitting the vote.” Call me an idealist, but I really do believe that you can craft a political message that will win you an outright 51% of the vote or even more, in more than 51% of the ridings in this country. But staying within conventional wisdom, the winning strategy of the Tories has been a strong NDP sucking away Liberal support, winning over moderate, swing voters around Toronto, and motivating the base.

Erin O’Toole started losing the social conservative wing of the party days after he was elected leader, saying to the media “I won the leadership...as a pro-choice Conservative.” He did nothing to prevent the cancellation of Derek Sloan, the SoCon candidate in the last race for leaders, who joins Brad Trost, who placed fourth back in 2017, as yet another pro-life Tory taken out by the party. Evidence of denying the nominations of SoCons at the riding level is also clear.

These tactics are nothing new, but under former leader Andrew Sheer and now O’Toole, they are becoming rote actions by apparatchiks within the party. Add to this that any policy that appears pro-Gun or pro-God gets nixed from the final party convention vote through committee vetos or splitting up votes to ensure not enough SoCons are in the room, and one can begin to understand why the faith, family, farms, and firearms crowd is growing increasingly frustrated.

How’s O’Toole’s pivot to the progressive wing of the party and moderate swing-voters going? Is marching in Pride parades, wearing red heels, or tweeting in solidarity with the woke going to result in more votes from central Canada? If that was the case, the polls would read differently, but there’s a deeper practical reality at the bottom of it that O’Toole’s strategists are missing: if you campaign as Liberal Lite, why shouldn’t people just vote for the real Liberals?

Conservatives win when they campaign as conservatives, without apology, acting on the best get out the vote methods, and articulating a vision for the country as a whole. There is no better time than now, while a pandemic is changing the course of all human history, to exhibit real leadership, a path out of our current chaos back into an orderly, unpanicked world. Tories have the people, policies, and party apparatus to get that message out. So what’s missing?

Ultimately, it comes down to Erin O’Toole’s leadership and his failure thus far to unite the various tribes of tories we have in Canada. Unless he’s able to correct course soon, there’s no path from Stornoway to Sussex for Mr. O’Toole - and another failure might just break the party.