The Decibel - The Conservative leadership race is Poilievre’s to lose

Episode Date: September 10, 2022

The Conservative Party of Canada will announce a new leader on Saturday evening. This comes after more than half a year of campaigning. Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber, Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis and Pierre Poilievre were all competing for the job, but it’s widely expected that Pierre Poilievre will win the race.The Globe’s writer-at-large and longtime political columnist, John Ibbitson explains why Mr. Poilievre is the favourite to win, what it signals for the future of the Conservative Party and the broader implications to Canadian politics.

Hi, I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and you're listening to The Decibel, from The Globe and Mail. We don't usually have an episode on Saturday, but today, the Conservative Party of Canada is announcing a new leader, and we wanted to bring you this episode ahead of the results. The party said that it's made changes to today's convention in response to the passing of Queen Elizabeth on Thursday. This Conservative Party event is the culmination of a leadership campaign that lasted more than half a year. Five people are in the running to become leader. But Pierre Polyev is widely expected to win. There is a large number of conservative voters in this country who are enthusiastically committed

to Pierre Polyev as someone who represents their values and as someone who they believe can defeat the liberals in the next federal election. We haven't seen that before. John Ibbotson is writer-at-large at The Globe and a longtime political columnist. He's here to tell us why Polyev is favored to be the next Conservative leader, and what that could mean for the future of the party and the broader political landscape of Canada. This is The Decibel. John, thanks so much for being here. It's great to chat with you again. It's great to be here. So we're chatting with you ahead of the leadership election, but I will mention that The Decibel

is doing a Twitter space on Monday to break down the results of the election. But first, John, I'm hoping you can help set the scene for us, because Pierre Poliev is widely expected to win the conservative leadership race. Why is he so clearly the favorite? Well, he claims to have signed up more than 300,000 members. And that seems to be true, because the party has membership like we have never seen before. No political party has as many members as this party has recruited in the last few months. And those appear mostly to be Polyev supporters. So if you assume that's true, and I think it is, then yes, Pierre Polyev is set for an emphatic win, probably an emphatic win on the very first ballot.

So apart from the speeches, there isn't much suspense. So you said potentially a win on the first ballot. So maybe you can just kind of break down the different scenarios for us. What are the possibilities that could play out on Saturday? And what does each one mean? So if no candidate gets more than 50% on the first ballot, then the candidate who receives the least number of votes is dropped off the ballot. And that person's second choices are redistributed among the remainder until somebody finally gets 50% plus one. That's what we saw when Andrew Scheer won the leadership. That's what we saw when Errol Toole won the leadership. Ballot after ballot after ballot,

with one person being dropped off and another person being dropped off. And finally, somebody crawls over 50%. That doesn't appear to be the case with this one. This one's going to be more like Stephen Harper in 2004, when he emphatically won the leadership of the new Conservative Party on the first ballot. It is almost certain that Pierre Polyev will emphatically win the leadership of the Conservative Party on the first ballot. And what if he doesn't get over 50% on the first ballot? What else could play out then? Then he gets over 50% on the first ballot. And what if he doesn't get over 50% on the first ballot? What else could play out then? Then he gets over 50% on the second ballot. There's no suspense here. I mean, look, the supporters of Jean Chaudet, the former Quebec premier, maintain that there is a path to

victory. All of the ridings are equally weighted. So it is possible for you to lose on the popular vote and still win by picking up more ridings. And then Sheree Kemp says, look, if we win all the ridings in Quebec, because I used to be the premier there, and if we win these ridings here and these ridings there, we could ourselves crawl over 50% after several ballots. That's their path to victory. But that path to victory would defy a mountain goat. It is exceedingly unlikely that it could happen. Nothing is impossible in politics, but I don't think anybody should be breathless with suspense. It's going to be Polyev and it's likely going to be on the first ballot. Okay. You mentioned Stephen Harper there, someone else who won the leadership on the first ballot in the early 2000s. Harper has endorsed Polyev. What does that mean to you?

It's unconventional in that a previous leader rarely actively intervenes in a leadership campaign. Many of them have intervened from the sidelines or behind the scenes. But it was, I think what it was, it was Stephen Harper announcing that I don't want to see Jean Charest lead this party. There's a lot of bad blood between Stephen Harper and Jean Charest. Personally, because Stephen Harper negotiated a new formula for provincial revenues, federal transfers to provincial revenues.

And then Jean Charest used that money for a tax cut when he was premier of Quebec. Stephen Harper was quite annoyed with that. Beyond that, Jean Chouret represents the kind of centrist, progressive conservatism, red Toryism that Stephen Harper detests. He created the Conservative Party in 2004 as a solidly blue Conservative Party. He thinks that Pierre Pauliev will lead a solidly blue Conservative Party. And so he just wants everyone to know that he does not want to see Jean Charest lead his party. He wants to see Pierre Pauliev lead his party. It's just another nail in the coffin for Jean Charest.

So what are Pauliev's politics? Like if we're looking at him being the next leader of the Conservative Party, what does this guy stand for? If you just look at it in terms of policy, it's a solidly blue Conservative platform. He's not a Donald Trump. Some people say, oh my God, it's Donald Trump, come north. No, that's not the case. For example, he supports high levels of immigration, whereas there is a frankly racist tinge to Donald Trump's politics. He supports LBGTQ rights. He supports a woman's right to choose.

So on the hot button social issues, there is no hot button. He talks about getting rid of the gatekeepers. I assume that means he would deregulate the federal government. He would slash environmental regulations. He would slash regulations limiting development. That is a conventional conservative policy. Conservative governments tend to go in and remove the red tape that progressive governments put in place.

In all of those respects, he is a conventional blue Stephen Harper type conservative leader, apart from all the weird stuff. What do you mean by the weird stuff? He has said that no cabinet minister in a polyeth government will go to the World Economic Forum. Well, why not? The World Economic Forum is just a gathering of the high and mighty every year in Davos. But as we know, some people on the fringes believe that the WEF is part of some grand global conspiracy to, I don't know, oppress our freedoms or something like that. And he's pandering to that. Lesley Lewis, another one of the candidates, is actually quite open in her WEF conspiracy theories. He has at least said, I'm not going to let any cabinet

ministers go to Davos. Okay, fine. More seriously, he opposes vaccine mandates. If he had been prime minister, there would not have been the kind of restrictions on people who refuse to get vaccinated that the federal government imposed. That means a lot more people would have died than did. So that's kind of serious. He wants to fire the governor of the Bank of Canada. And, you know, on certain days, I sympathize with him because I don't know about you, but everyone who earns a wage has taken a serious pay hit as a result of inflation. Everyone who has a mortgage is living in fear of when that mortgage comes due for renewal because of the interest rate hikes. So yes, Tiff Macklem, the governor of the Bank of Canada, is responsible for those policies, but it is wise and has been

seen to be wise since the 1960s for the federal government to stick to fiscal policy and let the Bank of Canada stick to monetary policy. Inter policy and let the Bank of Canada stick to monetary policy. Interfering in the Bank of Canada by firing the governor is a very bad idea. That's what I mean by the weird stuff. Okay, interesting. I think that that first one that you said about not letting any cabinet ministers go to Davos, that's an interesting statement because it's kind of dancing around that conspiracy theory. Isn't that kind of what he's doing there, John? He's not directly talking to it, but to people who are in the know, they know what he's referring to there. There is, within the Conservative coalition, a slice of people who believe this stuff,

who have deep suspicions about vaccines, who believe that there's a tremendous campaign underway to restrict our personal freedoms, a conspiracy really to become an autocracy. And they fear Davos. They fear vaccines. They believe the mainstream media are also part of the conspiracy. And it's no coincidence that Pierre Pallieva said he would defund the CBC if he becomes

prime minister. He is pandering to that group who are part of the conservative coalition, but he is not pandering just to that group. We'll be right back. All right, let's talk a little bit about some of the campaigns and how they played out here. We'll start with Polyev since we're already talking about him. Was there anything that surprised you about his campaign? Well, we were all surprised at the first day of the convoy protests, the occupation of Ottawa, when he announced his full support for those protesters. Only those who were obeying the law,

he stressed. But in principle, he supported the convoy. And that surprised us all and made us realize this really is a populist campaign that he plans to wage after that it all became kind of typical um if you believed that if you believed the the truckers were protesting their right to be free to make their choices including their choices for whether to take a vaccine while still being able to cross the border then everything else that followed after that made sense. And there have been no surprises since then, other than perhaps the rhetoric. He wants everyone to know that he does not like Jean Chouet. He does not like his policies. He does not think Jean Chouet is a conservative. He wants no part of Jean Chouet

inside the Conservative Party. In that sense, it was a nasty personal campaign. But then Pierre Polyev has always had a reputation for being a bit of an attack dog. And in this campaign, he was a lot of an attack dog. Well, let's talk about Jean Charest then, because he was seen as a favorite at one point. How did his campaign go? Badly. Jean Charest was clearly seen as the centrist, electable alternative to Pierre Paulievre, the guy who had led the Progressive Conservative Party, the guy who had been the

Premier of Quebec for several terms, the guy who could win Quebec voters over to the Conservative Party. They struggled in Quebec since the founding of the party in 2004. The guy who could defeat Justin Trudeau in the next election, or so said Jean Charest. It didn't resonate. With the base, at least, his lack of strong conservative principles and his record as a liberal leader in Quebec doomed him. I said at the beginning of the campaign that anyone who can win the party cannot win the country, and anyone who could win the country cannot win the party. I think I might have been wrong. But if you do believe that, then you believe that Jean Cheney could not win the conservative leadership, but he could have won

the next election. One thing that is clear right now is that at least according to conservative party numbers, the memberships are up drastically. The party says it has 675,000 members, which is up from just under 270,000 from the last race in 2020. This is the largest paid membership for a political party in the country's history. What does that signal to you, John? Yeah, it's the largest paid membership of any political party in the country's history by a long shot. The conservatives had more members even before this sudden rush of memberships. It suggests that there is a large number of Conservative voters in this country who are enthusiastically committed to Pierre Polyev as someone who represents their values

and as someone who they believe can defeat the Liberals in the next federal election. We haven't seen that before. Polyev is the one who's claimed to have signed up 350,000 members, which is a good chunk of that total then too. Absolutely. Again, just the people who have signed up to his campaign outnumber all the people who have signed up to any campaign in any political party in this country ever. It is a testament to the enthusiasm that conservatives, at least, feel for Pierre Polyab. However, the polls show that he is at best tied with Justin Trudeau in popularity. So the party as yet hasn't shown any real traction with the general public. Recent polling from the Angus Reid Institute from late July found that 34% of Canadians said they would support the Conservatives led by either Jean Chappé or Pierre Palliev. And that's about the same percentage of people who supported the party in 2019, 2021.

And both those years, the Conservatives lost an election. So I guess what does what are these numbers say more broadly about Canadian sentiment towards the Conservatives in general? It says that at least on the eve of Pierre Palliat becoming leader of the Conservative Party, not much has changed in terms of broad Canadian support for the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party is strongly supported in the Prairie Provinces and in the interior of BC. It is strongly supported in rural Ontario. It has virtually no support in the city centres of all the major cities in the country. It has very little support anywhere in Quebec. It has some support in Atlantic Canada. What matters, though, is middle-class suburban votes in the large cities,onto vancouver those two cities

especially the 905 the ring of cities that surround the city of toronto though our mainland are the writings that surround the city of vancouver these huge writings contain large numbers of middle-class voters large numbers of commuters, large numbers of immigrants. In every election since Pierre Trudeau, the party that can win over the suburban middle class around Toronto and Vancouver wins the election. The question is, will those voters come to support Pierre Polyev? Those are the voters who stayed away from the Conservative Party in 2019 and 2021, and the Conservative Party lost. Will they support Pierre Polyev, or will they turn away from him again as well? That's the only question that matters.

As you mentioned earlier, Polyev is appealing to people a little further on the right, a bit of a populist streak there. This makes me wonder, too, about the PPC, the People's Party of Canada, under Maxime Bernier, because that's further to the right than the Conservatives. So I guess I wonder if a Conservative Party under Polyev, will that take away support from the PPC, do you think? I think it will. I think part of the intent here was to grab the 5% or so of voters who had drifted away

from the Conservative Party and gone over to the PPC, to Maxime Bernier's party. However, if you think immigration levels are too high in this country, and we have the highest immigration rates anywhere in the world by a long shot, if you think that we should bring in fewer immigrants, then you're probably going to stay with Bernier because Pierre Polyev is pro-immigration. That would be the difference between the two parties. Still, it's reasonable to assume that the Conservative Party under Pierre Polyev will grab some of the People's

Party support. The question is, though, will it grab many people who switch between the Conservatives and the Liberals? Those are the votes that matter. Those are the votes that decide elections. Now, Justin Trudeau has said that he's sticking around for the next election. So, John, if your prediction is right, and Pierre Polyev does win the Conservative leadership race, what do you figure his odds are against Trudeau in a federal election? That's a really interesting question because a lot of us, including me, thought that Justin Trudeau wouldn't stick around to the next election. No one has won four consecutive elections at the federal level since Wilfrid Laurier. And liberals under Justin Trudeau lost the last two elections in terms of the popular vote.

So a lot of us thought that he would step down and give somebody else a chance to either renew the party or face the music. If he, in fact, intends to stay, as he claimed he intends to stay, then it will be a Justin Trudeau-Pierre-Polyev fight. That's what makes it interesting to watch the two of them in the House of Commons, because in some ways, the way they perform in the House of Commons will be a preview of the way they will perform on the election trail.

We'll get a sense of whether Pierre Polyev really has Justin Trudeau's measure, or whether Justin Trudeau is confident in his ability to embarrass and marginalize Pierre Polyev. Lots to watch for. John, it's always great to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, it's been great. And if Jean Chardet wins the conservative leadership on Saturday, please invite me back on so that you can beat me over the head.

Will do. That's a promise. Before we go, I wanted to invite you to that Twitter space I mentioned earlier. It's coming up on Monday, September 12th at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. And I'll be breaking down the results of the conservative leadership race. And we want your questions. So you can email them to audience at globeandmail.com or you can just DM the Globe on Twitter. That's it for today.

I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Kasia Mihailovic is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.