The politics of the post-COVID era could lead anywhere

OTTAWA—Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s re-election told us a lot about the emerging post-COVID political landscape. Ford held onto his right-wing support and benefitted from general indifference among a large segment of the province’s voting public. In essence, provincial voters saw the ballot as a matter of least-worse choices. And, at a time when the average Ontarian is struggling with record high living costs on top of 27 months of the COVID crisis, voters seem to have forgotten that Ford spent the early part of his first mandate undermining the services Ontarians depend on. Of note, the Progressive Conservatives’ successful campaign certainly wasn’t about asking Ontarians to sacrifice for the good of each other or the human race or the planet. Ford’s idea of fighting climate change? Build more highways so people won’t sit in traffic emitting pollution as long. And paving over more of the province was, in fact, his most popular campaign promise, according to one poll. The election reinforced the fact that pocketbook issues are top of mind these days. And it demonstrated that a conservative like Ford can keep the support of traditional fiscal conservatives while capturing sufficient votes from the new faction of alienated, angry right-wingers dead set against anything liberal or progressive. How much influence this apparently expanding group will have going forward is unclear. But, bolstered by the flood of misinformation, extremist hatred, goosed-up vaccination resentment, and anti-authority zeal flooding in from the United States, they are certainly testing the parameters of public discourse here. And federal Conservative leadership frontrunner Pierre Poilievre has fully embraced this populist frenzy. The general thinking has been that choosing the chief trucker convoy apologist as Conservative leader would be a huge gift for the Liberals. But that may prove fanciful. Peddling conspiracy theories and anti-elitist claptrap, Poilievre has—despite being an elitist himself—apparently succeeded in bulking up the party membership in advance of the Sept. 10 vote with 300,000 or so new members. This has contributed to a level of interest in the Conservative race that leaves no doubt that something is going on out there. We saw a glimpse of it again on the Canada Day weekend, when hundreds marched through downtown Ottawa—in protest of something. It seems nutty, but there appears to be a very large pool of angry people who are ready to take out their frustrations on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not. This is the mood Poilievre has been stoking as he generates overflow crowds. Of course, it was obvious back in the early months of COVID-19 that trying to protect Canadians from the pandemic was probably going to be a thankless task. Trudeau was heavily criticized for not doing enough to keep COVID under control. Now he is accosted at every turn by people who claim he did too much and encroached on their freedom to infect each other. Never mind that vaccine mandates saved an estimated 70,000 lives. Similarly, demands for more spending to protect jobs and businesses during COVID were heard from all quarters. Now, it’s widely believed the Liberals spent too much and unleashed runaway inflation by doing so. That this handy criticism ignores global post-pandemic supply chain snarls, worldwide inflation, and the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine is immaterial. On top of that, no one really has any idea what people are thinking about in socioeconomic terms after COVID. Have people decided they are not wild about 9-to-5 jobs? Do they want more money? Are they looking for less pecuniary values in life? And, have the shifts in the economy and the social fabric fed by globalization and the technology revolution produced a potentially game-changing wave of contempt and distrust of mainstream parties and government? It’s not surprising that radical change may be in the works. Besides crushing price increases and COVID, we are trying to come to terms with an energy shortage, melting glaciers, and the end of a 60-year break from war in Europe, accompanied now by a renewed threat of nuclear conflict. In short, it’s not 2015 anymore—when Trudeau won big by promising progressive policies and more attention to the needs of average people. Six-and-a-half years later, the question is not whether things have changed, but how much things have changed. And where is Canadian political life headed in what appears to be a divisive, post-truth era in which traditional notions of policy may be drowned out by unending, deluded rage. Poilievre is a wild card. But even so, for the Liberals, continuing to operate the government on cruise control and assume national issues will play out over the next few years in keeping with the patterns of recent decades is taking a tremendous risk. Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times. The Hill Times