Not all battles should be fought, and in recent weeks, the federal Conservatives haven\u2019t always been strategic in those they take on. During the Trudeau years, Leader Pierre Poilievre truly revolutionized how Conservatives do comms. The party could benefit more from Poilievre\u2019s talents if it understood Prime Minister Mark Carney is a less easy target.<\/p>\n
This would include, for example, keeping their powder dry over the Liberal conquest of House of Commons committees. It\u2019s one thing to point out the fact that the Liberals are seizing control of committees by adding enough new Liberal seats to each to torpedo any Parliamentary investigation, something that they can now do as a majority government. And yes, that majority government was obtained in a less-than-honourable fashion, by luring opposing MPs to cross the floor. It\u2019s entirely sensible for the Conservatives to talk about it, even though it\u2019s within the rules of our democracy.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s another thing to go a step further and imply that what the Liberals are doing is illegitimate. Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer seemed to do that last week when he urged<\/a> the Liberals not to \u201cstack the deck.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt the very least, they should preserve the power of the opposition to investigate Liberal corruption scandals and to litigate bad Liberal policy,\u201d he told reporters two weeks ago. He later proposed<\/a> that the Liberals, out of the kindness of their hearts, leave the ethics, government estimates and public accounts committees as they are.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a plea that, of course, went unheeded. The rules of the game are such that majority governments can hand themselves a majority on committees. Like it or not, the job of politicians is to skewer their opponents and deny them opportunity whenever the chance arises.<\/p>\n The Conservatives have made a tripping hazard for their future selves. Imagine that, one day, the shoe is on the other foot: a future governing Conservative caucus grows from minority to majority overnight after finding some new common cause with a couple of centrists on the other side. When or if that time comes, they damn well should reconstitute their committees. Why open themselves up now to charges of hypocrisy?<\/p>\n The better option? Use the opportunity to educate the public on the importance of committees and the coming lack of accountability.<\/p>\n Sometimes acting strategically means not acting at all. When the prime minister took to YouTube in what was essentially a \u201cHere\u2019s what I\u2019m doing; here\u2019s where I\u2019m going\u201d video, it was well-received by all appearances. Mark Carney came across as measured and well-spoken; he referred back to his central banker past without being cringe about it; and he invoked the War of 1812 with a figurine of one of its Canadian heroes, Sir Isaac Brock.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t make Carney a good prime minister, but it does make him a more formidable opponent than Justin Trudeau, who struggled to compete with the Conservatives online after Pierre Poilievre became leader.<\/p>\n If the Conservatives were to engage at all with Carney\u2019s video, their focus should have been on the content. And granted, that\u2019s what Poilievre did \u2014 but he distracted from this by also calling Carney a showboater. Politico\u2019s headline? \u201cPoilievre calls on Carney to stop \u2018showboating\u2019 and focus on fighting U.S. tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe only talks that Mark Carney is doing are YouTube videos where he\u2019s comparing himself to Sir Isaac Brock and holding up little figurines in his office,\u201d Poilievre told reporters<\/a> last week. \u201cSo he told all of you the other day that with his new majority, he was going to stop showboating. And then a few days later he put out a showboating YouTube video.\u201d<\/p>\n Poilievre, UFC attendee<\/a>. Poilievre, Joe Rogan podcast guest<\/a>. Poilievre, apple eater<\/a>. At this point, I can\u2019t count the videos of Poilievre walking around Canada (and more recently<\/a>, the U.K.). He\u2019s stood in front of Vancouver\u2019s multi-million-dollar shacks that young people can\u2019t afford to show just how destitute we are; he\u2019s made a point of working in stark visuals of decline. And he also broadcasts the good: open fields, hardworking people, etc. In a video three years ago, he marvelled<\/a> at the wood he\u2019d used to build a cabin, which had been processed by loggers decades earlier, using it to represent his plans for Canada. Last year, he spoke to<\/a> a bust of Sir John A. Macdonald.<\/p>\n Polievre\u2019s prop game was unparalleled long before he became leader, and the videos he\u2019s churned out since have been excellent. It\u2019s a good talent to have, the drawback being that no showboating accusation against an opponent will ever land.<\/p>\n Alas, there is a similar hazard on high-speed rail now: the Liberals are planning to build a $90 billion line running from Toronto to Quebec City, which is likely to go over budget, which the Conservatives have sensibly called out as absurd. But Poilievre took it further, denouncing the proposed expropriations it\u2019ll take to get the line built: \u201cYour property is not safe under this Liberal government. Conservatives will reinstate your right to have your property. We will stop the confiscations. Property rights are human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s fine to oppose a project whose numbers don\u2019t add up, and a specific plan to expropriate. But opposing expropriation in general as the party with grand plans to build infrastructure? That\u2019s a recipe for hypocrisy or for not getting anything done. The unfortunate downside to widening highways is that some people have to lose their property; it\u2019s important to handle that respectfully and be as fair as possible, but it can\u2019t be avoided if anything is to ever get built.<\/p>\n It\u2019s little gaffes like these that tap the brakes on Conservative momentum. Minor, ill-timed responses to Liberal hijinks do not paint a picture of a poised adversary taking advantage of this time to plan for regime change. Instead, it seems that a lot of energy is being spent on firing off every shot that makes itself available. No doubt it energizes some supporters, but it\u2019s not exactly strategic.<\/p>\n National Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not all battles should be fought, and in recent weeks, the federal Conservatives haven\u2019t always been strategic in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[1643,12338,125,12340,117,111,3203,1214,12339],"class_list":{"0":"post-25206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-carney","8":"tag-conservatives","9":"tag-federal-conservatives","10":"tag-house-of-commons","11":"tag-liberal-policy","12":"tag-majority-government","13":"tag-mark-carney","14":"tag-parliament-hill","15":"tag-pierre-poilievre","16":"tag-public-accounts-committees"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}