The Conservative Party's Bad Marriage

Also, Thoughts On Mainstreet

Everyone who has been here for long enough knows the place that Coldplay’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head has in my life, a song haunting in its beauty but also meaningful of a moment in my life. When I was 19, the depths of my parents’ nasty, bitter divorce hit its fever pitch, and after forcing my father to back down on some stunt, my brother and I slipped to the basement and played Mario Party 3 together, listening to music while we did to try and not hear the screaming match above us.

I don’t really much from that night – we got drunk on booze I had bought for the RNC that year – but I do remember this specific sense memory of A Rush Of Blood To The Head playing as we tried to focus not on their bullshit but this (rather rare) moment of brotherly bonding. Everytime I hear the song now, I tear up, because I remember not just the happiness of that moment with my brother, but the horrible marriage that lasted a decade too long screaming right above me.

I’m thinking back on the concept of a bad marriage right now for one reason – it’s the only mechanism I have to describe the level of toxicity in the Conservative Party of Canada, and whenever I hear the rumours that Michelle Rempel-Garner – and potentially 4 other Ontario MPs – might be booted from the Conservative Party Caucus, I just think back to sitting underneath that yelling.

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Now, let’s be clear – I don’t believe the rumours about the other 4 MPs, sourced from a Warren Kinsella-Brian Lilley podcast conversation, and while I believe Rempel Garner might be in trouble (entirely because it’s been reported by an actual journalist), I don’t think that would actually happen, because I don’t think Poilievre is stupid enough to actually split the CPC. Yes, his leadership will see some moderate voters (and maybe even members) leave, but kicking out MPs is a much different place to be in. If they kick Rempel Garner, and especially if they kick others with her, then the next election will have a very well financed party of urban elites masquerading as centrists who will poll at 12% outside of the writ period, 9% in the writ period, and get 6% on the day (assuming they ran candidates everywhere).

Such a party would take some Liberals who now have a home outside the Liberal Party again, but it would take a lot of the Lisa Raitt’s of the party – pro-climate action moderates who feel like the Tory Party is too reactionary now. It would also take a lot of wealthy elite donors, so the party – while an electoral joke – would be well funded, at least.

All of this comes on the backs of a Mainstreet poll tonight showing the Tories down 8% nationally, which is random variance gone way too far and not actually reflective of the national mood, but also an antidote to those treating Nanos as gospel. There have been three National polls released this month, and a straight average of the three – no fancy weights, no fancy anything – would have the Liberals on the same number of seats they had after the 2019 election, and the combined Liberal-NDP alliance on 186 – 5 more than the 2019-21 Parliament and 1 more than now.

Now, does any of this matter in terms of 2025? No, because Bergen is still leader and it’s the summer and all that, but the idea that Skippy will win comes in the form of two arguments – that he and the Tories have traction right now, and that by 2025 the Liberals will be weak and whoever wins the CPC leadership will beat the Libs. If you believe the latter, this is irrelevant, in the same way that this doesn’t vindicate my 2025 belief, but what this does make clear is that the issues that have gripped the political tragics of the commentariat and of Twitter have done the sum of fuck and all to meaningfully hurt this Government.

The Conservatives don’t have compelling answers to the questions that will be the ballot questions in 2025 – Pierre Poilievre won’t be able to compellingly attack the Liberals on economic competence because of crypto, the economy will be better then than it is now, and Poilievre will have to contend with the fact that he has to grapple with two parties that hate each other under one tent.

The way Michelle Rempel Garner wrote about the CPC last week was stunning – it was all things you could infer from the outside, but to see a senior Canadian Conservative say the party was basically ungovernable was still fascinating, especially given she allegedly wants to stay in the party. But what it did was expose a truth that was self-evident. Between now and 2025, the Conservatives will have to vote on a handgun ban, some form of abortion access expansion bill, Pierre’s vaccine mandates for everything Private Member’s Bill, and probably more hot button cultural issues-based legislation. They will have to come out on either side of the child care deals, which Skippy is on every side of. They will have to take stances in the next three years.

If they vote for the abortion access bill and the handgun ban, they might have a chance in the suburbs but the PPC will get 12% of the vote. Vote against, and the suburbs continue to move left and you lose Niagara Falls and Carleton instead of putting Conestoga or Cambridge in play. Split yourself and try and play every side, you get hollowed out at both ends. This is what actually matters about the state of the 2025 campaign, not whether Skippy’s camping video went “viral”.

You want to know how I know this divide is more important? Senior moderate Tories keep saying so – Marjory LeBreton, a former key player in Progressive Conservative politics whose embrace of Harper kept the left of the CPC in the tent in the early days (and who lives 5 minutes down the road from me, apparently) resigned from the riding of Carleton’s Conservative riding association because of the Convoy. Lisa Raitt is tweeting in support of the notion that some Conservatives don’t feel at home in this party anymore, and the wedges will keep coming thicker and faster.

The reason Harper won an election is because his right flank sat down and spent the entire 04-05 period saying fucking nothing, and then waiting until the 2006 campaign started. Harper lost the 2004 campaign because of idiotic statements from the right of the party, and he used that to ensure dictatorial control over messaging going into 2006. Skippy will never be able to control his right flank in the same way, partially because message discipline was easier in 2006 and partially because his right flank are, by a factor of 25, completely fucking nuttier than the 06 version of the Party.

If you want to believe Skippy will become Prime Minister because the wheels will come off the Liberal bus between now and 2025, go right ahead and believe it. You have an argument that is at least supported by history, if not (in my eyes) the facts of these specific people.

But if you say the Liberals are in trouble now, your heads are up your own asses and you’re way too obsessed with things that voters don’t give a fuck about, and assuming that they will care about what you care about. Instead of preening at those who don’t agree with the elite consensus of PM Poilievre how we don’t understand his voters, maybe the fact that there’s no overwhelming anger against the Liberals in any quantifiable sense should make you think that you might be the ones who have a two-dimensional view of the Canadian electorate.