Bribes (Between The Lines Of Age)

The LPC's Correct Tactical Choice

(Tomorrow I’m having Evan Sambasivam on the Scrimshaw Show to discuss his bid for Toronto Council and talk about the city, Mayor Chow’s first year, and other things. The transcript will run on the site tomorrow, but do subscribe to my channel to get the audio, eh?)

The Liberals made a smart decision.

I know, I know, I’m as shocked as you are, but the Liberals were baited by the Bloc into supporting a costly, $3B increase in OAS that would help a small number of genuinely poor seniors and mostly just give more money to (on a cash basis) middle class seniors, many of whom have property wealth that isn’t in the relevant calculations. It would be a massive wealth transfer up the age scale, benefiting a group that has already gotten quite a bit from this government. And the Liberals didn’t bite.

The Liberals voted against this non-binding motion, which did pass, allowing themselves to finally claw back some amount of economic credibility with younger voters. I must confess I don't find the Tories’ decision as baffling as some do - their whole MO is embarrassing the Liberals. Of course they’d vote for a non-binding motion. But I do think they screwed up, because this is the first time the Liberals have any chance of getting back on the front foot with the voters that just lost them LaSalle and St. Paul’s.

..

I’ve been hard on this government in recent … I was going to say weeks, but it’s really been months. I’ve been hard on them for a reason - they’ve been lifeless and unable to tell the difference between good ideas and bad too often. This week, they showed themselves able to make a clear distinction and at least recognize when there’s an opportunity for themselves.

Let’s be clear - this handout is an electoral bribe. The Bloc have positioned this as a way to help the poor but it’s crap. This is a way to reward their most loyal constituency. The old love the Bloc because it combines two key constituencies - hardcore separatists who will never give up the ghost of 1995, and cultural conservatives who view the English and immigrants as a threat to Quebec and the French language. The reason I’m pleasantly surprised is that usually these kinds of bribes work.

The old and the soon to be old are the most coddled political constituency. God Forbid we tell the boomers that their McMansions might see a triplex down the street, but the young had to sacrifice years of their lives to stop a virus that mostly didn’t affect them. Our benefit is a government that refuses to say they want lower house prices, because once again God forbid we dare anger the old. It’s nice to see the Liberals get that the old should be the ones to swallow an imperfect set of options for once.

The political incentives are clear - the young are the group that has swung most to Poilievre since 2021, so his recklessness in voting for this motion is nonsensical. It makes a certain amount of sense from a tactics stand point, but it’s yet another example of Poilievre being a smart thinker at winning the day and not at all thinking coherently for the broader consequences on election day. The difference between tactics and strategy is on display here - Poilievre is trying to win every day. That doesn’t always mean winning when it matters, or winning as big as you wanted to, as Ed Miliband and Keir Starmer show. (Yes, Keir won a massive majority. He also won 35% of the vote and is already facing a disloyal backbench and huge backlash from the electorate.)

The party needs to use this as an excuse to make a pitch to young voters, and to frame the next election as a coalition of the old versus the Liberals who, whatever their faults, now understand what their voters want. The thing about the young’s flirtation with Poilievre is that there are still fundamental disagreements between the recent graduate in St. Paul’s who just elected a CPC MP in June and the Conservatives. The Tories are essentially renting these voters, disaffected by Trudeau but opposing much of the Conservative agenda on social values. If the Liberals can convince these voters the Tories are both wrong on trans rights and Palestine and whatever else and will cater to Boomers, then they have a chance.

What the government needs to do from here is clear, at least to me. They need to lean into the framework of generational equity, they need to accept that many childless young are fucked right now, and use the fall to set up a 2025 budget that addresses their concerns. They also need to come out and explicitly say that their goal is to reduce house prices. Their refusal to do so has become a barometer of their unseriousness on the housing file. As a signal that they get it, and they mean what they say on the housing front, it’s a path forward.

There are plenty of other policy ideas - a Housing Accelerator Fund-esque bribery scheme to cities to lower their development charges is one idea that I keep coming back to - but I’ll leave those to the policy wonks amongst us. To the extent I can claim any amount of expertise, it’s on the crass politics. And this is at least a wedge issue where the Tories are on the wrong side and the Liberals are on the right one, and where the public actually believes it’s a live issue. The problem with the abortion rhetoric is that Canadians don’t think Poilievre would actually roll back rights. Here, we have a unanimous CPC vote we can use as proof.

It’s not a solve, but the Liberals need to lean into this. The LPC need to tell their older supporters that they’ve benefitted from this government plenty, and it’s time for the limited benefits available to the government moving forward to move down the age scale. By all means, let’s help the poorest seniors. But the Liberals were right to vote down the Bloc motion, and this could be the start of a Liberal revival back to the high 20s.