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Waiting for Poilievre

Under Poilievre, the Conservatives threaten to be one of the most reactionary and dangerous governments in Canadian history

Canadian PoliticsSocial Movements

Trudeau may be gone but the wind is still in the sails of the Conservative Party. Photo courtesy Pierre Poilievre/X.

It would hardly be groundless pessimism to conclude that a majority Conservative government headed by Pierre Poilievre is an overwhelming possibility for the next Canadian election. The polls clearly and consistently confirm it. Ipsos now gives the Conservatives a 25 percent lead over the Liberals, reflecting the fact that the stormy resignation of Chrystia Freeland has made the situation even worse than it already was.

The long delayed but inevitable decision of Justin Trudeau to relinquish the leadership of his party can only be considered a salvage operation. Replacing him was essential and the hastily improvised effort to select another leader will offer some justification for the prorogation of Parliament until March, but none of this will be enough to save the Liberals. This manoeuvre will just delay a looming parliamentary reckoning for a couple of months. It is highly unlikely that a new leader, drawn from a rather discredited pool, could even come close to reversing the decisive lead that the Conservatives have established. Throwing Trudeau overboard will at best enable the Liberals to secure the role of Official Opposition, but even that is far from certain.

It is clear from initial media reports that Poilievre has no desire to be gracious and that he will use every opportunity to ensure that Trudeau’s unpopularity is transferred to whomever takes his place. After a decade of increasingly discredited Liberal governments this may not be such a difficult political task. Trudeau is gone but the wind is still in the sails of the Conservative Party.

The Liberals have exceeded their shelf life as a governing party, but their decline is also part of an international trend where the political centre finds it harder and harder to hold off challenges from the populist right. The inability of the Biden-Harris administration to forge an effective alternative to Trump is an obvious case in point. The Conservatives in Canada are poised to benefit from Trump’s victory.

Attack dog

A regime with Poilievre at the helm will certainly be determined to impose a brand of hard-right politics. In the wake of the Conservative leadership race in 2022, I wrote an article for Counterfire in the UK in which I argued that “the coronation of Poilievre as the leader of the Conservatives is the culmination of a protracted struggle for control of the party between a relatively moderate wing who wanted to preserve the role of sober and trusted political steward of Canadian capitalism, and a right-wing element ready to accommodate the reactionary anger that is growing at the base and on the periphery of the party.” Now, on the cusp of political power, the Conservatives are preparing for their long-anticipated role of attack dog. Poilievre will be anxious to prove that he is ready to act decisively. He will want to move quickly, defying oppositional voices and implementing bold measures, much as Trump will be doing south of the border.

The Canadian press recently reported on a lengthy interview that the notorious right-wing ‘public intellectual’ Jordan Peterson conducted with Poilievre. The pair was immediately praised by Elon Musk, the obscenely wealthy patron of the far-right internationally, and it rather tellingly featured an ad from “an Indiana-based Christian anti-abortion group that seeks to protect ‘pre-born’ babies.”

In the course of the wide-ranging interview, Poilievre demonstrated just how different his conservatism is from the relatively restrained and cautious brand of an earlier period. He had no conciliatory words to offer regarding climate change and the environment. On the contrary, he criticized the major oil companies for caving in to the supposedly unrestrained environmentalism of the Trudeau Liberals. Poilievre vowed to give fossil fuel companies a free hand and “cause a massive resource boom in our country.”

Poilievre accused Trudeau of advancing “an extremely radical ideology” and imposing “basically authoritarian socialism” on Canada. Such over the top rhetoric, in which liberalism is presented as an extreme form of radicalism, is the trademark of Donald Trump and the similarities in their approaches are hardly coincidental.

Signalling major social cutbacks and rampant deregulation, Poilievre promised “to cut bureaucracy, cut the consultants, cut foreign aid, cut back on corporate welfare to large corporations. We’re going to use the savings to bring down the deficit and taxes and unleash the free-enterprise system.” He also made clear that his austerity agenda would be complemented by “the biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history, a massive crackdown.”

In the interview, Poilievre advanced a “Canada first” agenda that would “put aside race, this obsession with race that wokeism has reinserted.” Clearly, in line with the approach of other hard-right governments, the objective will be to intensify the injustices and inequality that are generated by racism while doggedly denying that the problem even exists.

On the international stage, we may expect right-wing zealotry to be given full rein under Poilievre, and this is particularly true when it comes to support for Israel. No level of atrocity inflicted on the Palestinians will cause Poilievre to waver and we may expect full-blown efforts to intimidate and suppress the Palestine solidarity movement.

We should also consider the influence that Trump’s administration will have on Canadian politics in the period ahead. The Trudeau government has already strengthened measures to bolster “border security, strengthen our immigration system and contribute to ensuring Canada’s future prosperity.” Poilievre will doubtless be disposed to go much further in this direction. Across a wide range of policy issues, the initiatives that will be taken by the Trump administration will bring out the very worst in a Poilievre government and, it might be added, his federal regime will bring out the worst in its provincial counterparts.

Fighting back

There will, of course, be attempts to stop the Conservatives or at least minimize the scale of their victory. However, it’s a safe bet that, when the dust settles, their MPs will outnumber the combined strength of their rivals. Since the impending Conservative government will be exceedingly destructive and dangerous, we have to think about how our unions and social movements will need to respond to it. The apparent lack of preparation is deeply worrying.

I well remember the period of shocked passivity in Ontario that marked the first months of the harshly right-wing Mike Harris Conservative government in the 1990s, when some of the most detrimental measures were enacted with scant opposition. There seem to be some lessons to be learned from this, particularly since, in line with the Trump playbook, the Conservatives will put a premium on making dramatic moves during their very first days in office. Poilievre proclaims that he will not retreat or compromise but this is all the more reason to deny him any grace period to inflict harm on workers and communities unchallenged. To resist effectively, however, we would need a strong and united working class movement capable of building and mobilizing a powerful coalition of forces against the Conservatives.

But while we are not nearly as prepared to challenge Poilievre as we should be, that is no reason for resignation. It is quite feasible to convene planning meetings at the national, provincial and local level and begin to develop a plan of action to confront what threatens to be one of the most reactionary and dangerous governments in Canadian history.

With Trump returning to the White House and Poilievre waiting in the wings here in Canada, workers and vulnerable communities on both sides of the border face major attacks. A failure to mount a muscular counteroffensive will mean crippling defeats. The capacity to fight back effectively will be at a premium. In the coming undisguised and untempered class war the most vital question to be settled is whether we can unleash a movement capable of emptying the workplaces and filling the streets.

John Clarke is a writer and retired organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). Follow his tweets at @JohnOCAP and blog at johnclarkeblog.com.

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