Der Untergang von PPC trug zum Aufstieg von Tory bei
https://www.aldergrovestar.com/columns/painful-truth-ppcs-downfall-contributed-to-tory-rise-7984330
Der Untergang von PPC trug zum Aufstieg von Tory bei
https://www.aldergrovestar.com/columns/painful-truth-ppcs-downfall-contributed-to-tory-rise-7984330
8 Kommentare
In order to have a downfall you first have to have risen or be elevated. The People’s Party and Bernier failed to do either.
There was no downfall. Just a crappy party filled with ignorant bigots that never did or accomplished anything.
The PPC enjoyed a rise from pandering to anti-vax and anti-lockdown sentiments, plus being farther to the right of an Erin O’Toole lead CPC, who was a moderate. Essentially, these groups didn’t want a moderate as Prime Minister, so they voted PPC.
Poilievre came into the picture and pandered to the conspiracy theorists, the anti-vax with rhetoric making it about not forcing it on them, the convoy types, anti-Ukraine sentiments, and more. I don’t believe Poilievre is far-right himself but him pandering to these groups made it easy for the accusations. And hurt him in the last election.
I have zero affinity for the politics of the PPC. However, I think that they have significantly altered the Canadian political landscape since 2020, likely most than any other party. While they did not take a seat, they likely took a lot of politically inactive blue-collar folks and politicized them. Had Bernier won his seat and been able to platform himself in parliament, he may have kept them. But a well-organized and established CPC did not have to change much of their tune to scoop them, and likely made them party loyalists.
While Carney was able to catch the attention and votes of many, those voters are likely going to be less loyal than those former PPC voters, making the CPCs hand much stronger (and likely why Poilievre’s place as leader is not under credible threat). The PPC widened the political landscape and pushed the overton window to the right.
I do wonder how much this demonstrates a miscalculation from the NDP, who have generally tried to nab already politicized individuals from the Liberals. I wonder if they had charted a different path during COVID, alongside having some form of political credibility and organization, missed out on generating new and loyal voters. That said, I think that the general political culture of Canada is neoliberal/quasi-libertarian, so it would have been difficult to do so.
It’s been clear from 2022 that Poilievre’s strategy was to crush the PPC, but whether it was it was worth it is up for debate.
It started back even before he became leader when he supported the convoy. This allowed him to connect with various right wing influencers who became key to his campaign, as well as endeared himself to PPC types who supported the convoy. But it also came at a cost, since this is the primary reason that he lost Carleton
The next key moment was the portage-lisgar by-election, which is when they really crushed the PPC. The party decided to nominate, Brandon Leslie, a 30-something SoCon, over Cameron Friesen, the former minister of finance. One of these appealed to PPC voters, and the other appealed to moderates. The party also ran to the right of Bernier during the by-election, criticizing him for marching in pride parades and attending the WEF.
After this point the PPC was basically dead, and had almost entirely been absorbed by the CPC. This allowed the Conservatives to win seats like Windsor, Welland, and Timmins, but it also made them lose seats too. I would bet their campaign post-mortem will identify this as a mistake.
At the end of the day, this comes down to Poilievre/Byrne believing that it’s better to convince voters to move to where you are, rather than move to where voters are. This contradicts basically every successful political campaign there has ever been.
In my riding, a very blue one, the CPC candidate beat the LPC candidate by less than what the PPC candidate received in 2021 (7.9%). The PPC didn’t field a candidate this year.
Considering their national vote percentage last election, it’s astonishing to me they didn’t field anyone here. It certainly felt like they were planning to fold to me when I didn’t see a PPC candidate on the ballot here.
I always got the sense the PPC were tories and libertarians masquerading as alt right conspiracy theorists. I’ve done a handful of political alignment quizzes, just as an example, and I align with the PPC ahead of both the Conservatives and the Liberals. Even Bernier after the election called PP a ‚fake conservative‘ and basically saddled the Liberal win with him for failing to define conservatism within an entirely Canadian context and letting Carney and the Liberals stoke annexation fears when America and Trump are actually our friends. Nonsense, since Mad Max has regularly spoken at CPAC and other MAGA rallies and events over the last few years, but certainly interesting that the CPC fumbled the lead. Net was wide open for a moderate that not a lot of people loved but the vast majority wanted in the name of stability.
they could probably be a successful populist party if they got rid of Maxime Bernier that guy is simply a terrible party leader
They are also simply an unprofessional party
Bernier has probably one of the most self-sabotaging politicians in Canadian history. Look at him in the early to mid 2010s and he was largely seen as the dark horse of the CPC cabinet, had some moderate appeal on certain policy areas and was addressing things that a lot of the other political parties weren’t talking about that the time (eliminating interprovincial trade barriers, abolishing supply management, ending corporate welfare, talking about working with FN leaders to come up with a better alternative to the Indian Act etc.) Even after 2017, all he really had to do was just keep his head down and he’d likely be a shoe in for the next party leader after O’Toole etc. but he couldn’t even do that. (which honestly was a blessing in disguise since it revealed his massive ego and what a tinfoil hat he was).
Then when He formed the PPC, instead of a building a inclusive party that could build bridges to the politically disenfranchised, he went full fringe and at best siphoned off the fringiest and most bigoted votes from the CPC, alongside some of the more conspiracy oriented GPC fringe voters. (which he lost anyway after Poilievre wooed back the populist right wing vote that found Scheer too milquetoast & O’Toole too moderate).