Yesterday’s man takes a shot at remaking Canada’s future

OTTAWA—One thing is for sure: you can take Jean Charest at his word when he says he’s not afraid of an uphill struggle. I can recall his lonely days as the so-called leader of the Progressive Conservative party after the loss to Jean Chretien’s Liberals in 1993. The joke about being able to hold a meeting of the two-member caucus in a phone booth remains the most memorable aspect of his tenure. Canadians should be encouraged that Charest is taking a shot at being the once and future leader of Conservatives. In the aftermath of COVID-19 and the near destruction of politics by social media, it ought to be all hands on deck for anyone who cares about the country. And it would be nice to say that Charest, who ranks among the most articulate and experienced politicians in Canada, has a reasonable chance of pulling off an upset to grasp his party’s top job. But the reality is that Charest seems to be challenging for the leadership of a party that no longer exists. Mesmerized by the rise of Donald Trump and grievance-based populism, the party has been moving steadily to the extreme right for years and only dug itself in deeper as the politicization of COVID-19 mandates swept in from the United States. Any questions about the Conservatives’ attitudes toward efforts to shift the party toward the centre of the political spectrum should be addressed to Erin O’Toole, who was just unceremoniously turfed out of Stornoway for such heresy. One of O’Toole’s transgressions was opting for a plan to put a price on carbon, despite his base’s outright opposition to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s effort to address climate change with a carbon tax. In Charest’s case, he inaugurated carbon pricing in Canada while premier of Quebec and is certainly not swearing off that. On top of that, he supports Trudeau’s national childcare program and backs gun control. And it’s not clear that he’s popular enough in Quebec to benefit from the favourite son factor. With all of that, you have to wonder if Charest will even see fit to finish the Conservative leadership race, let alone win it. As Peter MacKay learned in losing the 2020 leadership contest, this is a Conservative party anchored by the far right—a base that may be unwilling to dilute its extremist, conspiracy-fed antagonisms and social conservative causes in order to win national elections, as MacKay probably could have done in 2021 had he been party leader. Keep in mind in this context that a recent Léger poll found that among Canada’s Conservatives, nearly half would vote for Trump over the Democrats' Joe Biden if they could cast ballots in the U.S. MP Pierre Poilievre, the embodiment of Conservative aspirations, gave us an early indication of how a leadership contest fuelled by the party’s current attitudes will go over the next six months. As Conservatives began slamming Charest before he announced his candidacy, Poilievre labelled the former Quebec premier a closeted Liberal and began promoting photos of Charest with Trudeau. He also reminded Conservatives of Charest’s approval of carbon pricing (which Poilievre would scrap). Firing back in a reference to Poilievre, Charest accused him of engaging in “Trump-style” politics, adding pointedly: “This is about choosing an adult in the room to be leading the party.” Unlike Charest, who says governments should base their COVID health decisions on science, Poilievre has been at the forefront of what the Conservatives obviously see as a chance to harness widespread public discontent over the seemingly everlasting pandemic by voicing rejection of all COVID mandates. MP Pierre Poilievre, the embodiment of Conservative aspirations, gave us an early indication of how a leadership contest fuelled by the party’s current attitudes will go over the next six months, writes Les Whittington. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Poilievre bolstered his standing among his party’s hard-core by supporting the weeks-long occupation of Canada’s capital by truck drivers and other agitators in an event that won the hearts of chaos-loving U.S. Republicans. No stranger to the power of disinformation, Poilievre has also shown he’s willing to traffic in outrageous conspiracy theories. He has retailed such nonsense as the supposed plot by the World Economic Forum to take control of the global economy on behalf of the elite. “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” out working the fields to support a small group of “landed aristocrats,” according to Poilievre. His main theme to date, making Canada the freest country in the world, is pure demagoguery. If this kind of messaging by the current frontrunner holds sway among a large part of the Conservative base, then Charest’s attempt to offer party members a reasonable set of policies aimed at eventually winning over Canada’s moderate voters is clearly a waste of energy. But of course it’s early days, and leadership races are notoriously unpredictable. The organizational abilities of Patrick Brown (already called a habitual liar by Poilievre) are formidable, and a partnership between him and Charest (even if informal) might prove very effective if the leadership tally on Sept. 10 goes beyond the first ballot. It’s also possible that the horror of the invasion of Ukraine will cause some Canadians to get more serious about this country’s business and modify their sense of grievance and Internet-driven fringe zeal in the name of the common good by September, another possible unknown in a race full of imponderables. Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times. The Hill Times