Trudeau-Poilievre match up will be a clash of personalities over policy substance

OTTAWA—Pierre Poilievre has pivoted. He has shelved the crazy conspiracy theories which helped him win leadership of the Conservative Party for the more mundane mantra of no to taxes, no to regulations, and yes to balanced budgets. He also acknowledges that “Canadians are hurting,” but instead of promising “freedom,” he is now promising “to transform that hurt into hope.” Presumably Justin Trudeau did not copyright that last refrain. The prime minister used a variation of it in the 2015 election that brought him into government, only his promise was to elevate everyone to the middle class if we committed to “hope and hard work.” The catchphrase worked: it got Trudeau elected. To be fair to his partisans, Poilievre did not actually pivot, he adjusted. He had to. He knows the game: you roll, duck, jab, and you adjust. Bhagwant Sandhu is a retired director general with the federal government. Photograph courtesy of Bhagwant Sandhu Politics is no longer about the dutiful exercise of power. It is about the tactics employed to obtain and retain power. What you do with it is immaterial. The last Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, had the same platform as what Poilievre is putting together, but the budgets never got balanced, and the hard work never paid off. Still, Harper won three general elections. As for Trudeau, pooped-out frontline workers are still waiting to join the middle-class. But he still wants to win four general elections. The Trudeau-Poilievre match up will not feature any meaningful debates to overhaul the way we do policy and run our institutions in Canada. Those looking for any great do-or-die fundamental policy divides will be sorely disappointed. The fight will be framed strictly as a clash of personalities. The contenders will indeed go on about the economy and inflation and the future of our kids, but only insofar as it gels their manufactured personas in the emotional minds of the voting public. Our choice on election day will be narrowed and clearly defined. We can vote for Trudeau, the poignant; or Poilievre, the pugilist. To get there, the attention will remain on domestic pocket-book issues only. It is the best way to jack up fears and anxiety, and thus build the political ground game, to get the vote out. There will be little or no discussion on foreign policy. That subject is too distant and too complex to whittle down to a snappy little one-liner. Foreign policy hence will become a no-go zone. That is, unless it can help project the candidate’s desired image, in which case the two great transgressors, Russia and China, will promptly get tagged. Trudeau will take Russia. The Liberals have invested too much political capital to win the Ukrainian-Canadian vote bank, no need to change gears now. Moreover, it allows Trudeau to show empathy with Ukraine’s dead and dying; helping broker an end to the war will have to wait until after the election. This means that “communist China,” as the Conservatives like to call it, goes to Poilievre. However, given that in 2021 the Conservatives lost two seats in ridings with large Chinese-Canadian populations, Poilievre will not criticize, for instance, China’s unfettered embrace of consumer capitalism and the resultant environmental degradation it is causing. He will fight for the rights of the Uighurs instead. As sarcastic as all this sounds, campaign consultants have long assumed that electoral politics is an inward-looking popularity contest, one where the voters pick the candidate who can best relieve the national nervousness about bread-and-butter items. This is not entirely true in a place like Canada. To us, the candidate’s international perspectives matter. Statistics Canada says that almost 40 per cent of us are either first- or second-generation immigrants, according to 2016 data. We are connected to the world, and we expect our political leaders to care about it. We punished Harper with a massive electoral defeat in 2015, when he turned a blind eye and then tried to exploit the global wave of Islamophobia. Trudeau and Poilievre would be wise, therefore, not to neglect foreign policy from their platforms. Trudeau has the incumbent’s advantage, but Poilievre can catch up quickly. He can pledge, for example, to rebuild the bureaucracy at Global Affairs Canada, or to draft a made-in-Canada foreign policy program, one that repositions us as an independent, mid-sized power. Trudeau hasn’t done it; he’s been busy consuming the American agenda. Poilievre could go a step further and propose, as some have recommended, an international framework to curb super-power rivalries, to stop them from blowing up the world with their non-stop vying for regional spaces and military alliances. We have done this type of heavy-lifting before: the declaration of human rights, the land mines treaty, dismantling apartheid—they were all Canadian-led. Come 2025, or whenever the next election is called, Canadians just might decide to select someone with a little more finesse than the ability to make emotional appeals to their own political base. They may want a thoughtful leader, maybe even a global change agent. Trudeau and Poilievre should start prioritizing substance over soundbites. On foreign policy, they should both start pivoting, significantly. Bhagwant Sandhu is Canadian foreign policy commentator and author. He retired as director general from the federal public service. The Hill Times

Trudeau-Poilievre match up will be a clash of personalities over policy substance

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Trudeau-Poilievre match up will be a clash of personalities over policy substance

The contenders will indeed go on about the economy and inflation and the future of our kids, but only insofar as it gels their manufactured personas in the emotional minds of the voting public.

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