Conservatism in Canada is currently on a remarkable run, and a depressing one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The best lines and policies it\u00a0has\u00a0pitched to voters are being\u00a0appropriated and stolen<\/a>\u00a0by the Liberals, altered, and presented to the public as if Prime Minister Mark Carney himself had thought of them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Pierre Poilievre and other Conservative party figures can try to gloat through the pain and sneer that they are the faction with the best ideas<\/a>. However, policies are not copyrighted, and the public will not judge Carney for championing an expanded housing supply, accelerated major projects, and stronger national\u00a0defence, among other plans.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Imitation only flatters the people in power, not the opposition, and Carney is reaping the benefits of his own popularity. He can\u00a0pick\u00a0the 2025 Conservative platform clean, without a care in the world, and blend what he takes with his own agenda and the leftovers of the Trudeau government.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is very possible that the current era of Canadian conservatism, with its genesis in carbon taxes and the pandemic, is winding down as\u00a0a viable\u00a0force. In the eyes of an outsider, the Canadian right, or the “movement,” is in terminal decline. In the summer of 2024, it\u00a0appeared to be\u00a0ascendant both federally and provincially. No longer.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Monday, the Liberals swept a trio of byelections with majorities in\u00a0every one,\u00a0retaining\u00a0two seats they had won in the 2025 federal election and seizing one more from the Conservatives in Quebec. An August 30 projection from 338Canada has the Conservatives winning\u00a0just 84 seats\u00a0<\/a>if an election were held tomorrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are the five stages of grief. Those on the right should not waste time on the first four.\u00a0They’ve\u00a0had since April 28, 2025, to accept that the momentum built over the past few years will not produce a Conservative government anytime soon. The wheels have come off the bus, and it is time to start looking for a new vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n To be clear, Poilievre’s economic populism has tremendous merit. Indeed, Canada’s youth are being crushed by a cartel economic model that\u00a0greatly benefits<\/a>\u00a0the asset-rich, while imported\u00a0labour\u00a0and other impediments delay their adulthood and careers.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the best things to happen under Poilievre’s leadership has been the\u00a0broadening<\/a>\u00a0of the Conservative voter pool, encompassing everyone from frustrated younger voters to blue-collar workers rallying to the Conservative standard. Keeping the tent open to them is essential\u00a0going\u00a0forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, the loss of boomers and other older suburban voters was a\u00a0crushing blow<\/a>. Carney and the Liberals still\u00a0possess\u00a0another massive advantage: ownership of\u00a0a largely, semi-fictional\u00a0version<\/a>\u00a0of Canada. When Donald Trump began his rhetorical war on Canada, the Liberals were, for that reason,\u00a0very comfortable\u00a0waving the flag<\/a>, to devastating electoral effect.\u00a0The recent byelections proved that once again.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Canadian right is\u00a0very good\u00a0at attacking Liberal economics and\u00a0spending, but\u00a0is\u00a0rather hapless\u00a0when it comes to critiquing the Liberals’ national narrative, much less offering a strong alternative.\u00a0<\/p>\n Canadians are more emotional than they pretend to be. They have a\u00a0longstanding pattern\u00a0<\/a>of\u00a0somewhat irrationally\u00a0rallying around the flag, especially when threatened with economic or political absorption into the United States. Being irrational is also not inherently bad. Our attachments to loved ones are not perfectly rational, yet who would question enduring great pain or even shedding blood to protect them? Love of\u00a0country\u00a0applies too.\u00a0<\/p>\n Attacking Liberal vanity with a calculator and tax fact sheets will not displace their strange, administrative nationalism that so many Canadians are inspired by, owing to the lack of an alternative. Nor can the right simply copy and paste the ideals of the American Revolution and graft them onto Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n Canada is not a “hotel,” a stock market, or a nebulous bundle of “values<\/a>.” Taken together or individually, these are inherently liberal conceptions of what constitutes a people, and the right should move away from trying to craft its own liberal “idea” of Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n Properly understood, Canada is the sum of its Canadian people, their Canadian history, and their Canadian sacrifices. There is\u00a0great value\u00a0and power there that goes beyond ideology. Currently, Canadians are not even\u00a0granted legitimacy<\/a>\u00a0on their own land if the land acknowledgements recited by the federal government are regarded as the official Liberal position. There is a wider range for Conservatives to pitch a right-of-centre\u00a0and nationalist alternative for Canada than many think.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n How else should they spend their current\u00a0spell\u00a0in the wilderness?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n During the Trudeau era, one of the right’s great coping mechanisms and sometimes-productive distractions were the wave of right-of-centre premiers<\/a>\u00a0who\u00a0emerged. Now?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As recently as the spring, British Columbia promised<\/a>\u00a0to become a laboratory of revitalized conservative governance in the wake of a weak, flailing NDP government. All the party needed was the right leader, and it could become the\u00a0right’s\u00a0political vanguard in the Carney era.\u00a0<\/p>\n That leadership race was won by Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a former federal MP and cabinet minister under Stephen Harper,\u00a0whose experience\u00a0<\/a>in Ottawa was touted as a great advantage. Three months after her victory,\u00a0no fewer than nine<\/a>\u00a0provincial Conservative MLAs have bolted to become\u00a0independents, citing poor ethics,\u00a0coziness<\/a>\u00a0with Alberta separatists, and poor relations between the inner circle and caucus.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives have ruled the province with little difficulty since 2018, but Premier Doug Ford\u00a0seems uninterested<\/a>\u00a0in advancing the cause of conservatism with any great\u00a0vigour. What is electoral success without reform but merely the enjoyment of power?\u00a0<\/p>\n