What Happens When Poilievre Wins?

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What happens September 11th?

It’s an uncomfortable timing that the Tory Party has scheduled their leadership race to end on the 10th, making questions about the day after an unfortunate phraseology, but seriously – what happens on the 11th?

Something like 20-30% of the Conservative Party of Canada membership will vote for a candidate running on essentially anti-Skippyism (Aitchison and Charest), and Poilievre will win the leadership handily anyways. More importantly, there is a cadre of people trying to make the party’s task harder – notably, Jean Charest’s Campaign Manager (and author of the “it’s not about numbers” quote that should live forever) Tasha Kheiriddin, whose new book about a new kind of conservatism just happens to be coming out soon. It’s not just “She could give Skippy a run for his money” Kheiriddin, tho – it’s the whole Conservative establishment at this point, because Marjory LeBreton and Lisa Raitt have hinted that they’d be unable to support a Poilievre-led party.

The limits of the crisis should be apparent – Poilievre will walk into the leadership of the CPC with the clearest mandate of any of its four permanent party leaders when he wins, and he is the candidate of the current Conservative consensus (as upsetting as that is to many people). That said, I don’t have a good answer to what happens when Poilievre wins on the 10th, or what the 11th looks like.

How does, to pick a name totally at random, Ed Fast serve in a party with a leader he’s called economically illiterate? How does Michelle Rempel Garner serve in a caucus full of people who want to get rid of her? How does the Quebec caucus, all of whom have a strained relationship with Poilievre, pretend that everything is normal?

The Tory left are probably in the worst spot they’ve ever been in, because they’re too small to have any sway in internal elections at this point, they have zero charismatic or presentable possible leaders, and they’re about to be swamped by a membership that actively hates them. They’re too small to leave and become an electorally useful force, meaning they’re in a no man’s land. If you are remembering me saying that a new centrist party would be a waste of oxygen and are thinking I am rowing back from this claim, I’m not – it would get ~6% of the vote if it had Scott Brison and Lisa Raitt running it and 4% if it was anyone else.

Nothing in what I’m about to say changes that very basic fact, but the other very basic fact of the next election is that the Tory left is an electorally important enough force that it not turning out, or it voting Liberal, would be a problem. There’s no path to some form of tenuous Tory government without some suburban, left-trending seats, and that’s exactly where the Tory vote is likeliest to be on the left of the party – the tax cuts and shut up about COVID people, as it were. It’s also a fact that a lot of the Tory left are upper income and more likely to donate to political parties, as we’re seeing in the US – Democrats have built a money advantage largely on the back of formerly-GOP women with a decent income who used to donate to moderate Republicans having become radicalized as Democrats in the Trump era.

None of this represents an earthshattering crisis for Poilievre, but it does represent a challenge – and one that he seems manifestly unwilling to engage in. Poilievre’s whole campaign has been my way or the highway, and it’s worked – within the self-selecting electorate of the Tory membership. Whether or not that means fucking anything within the country … I was gonna say it’s up for debate, but it’s not – it means nothing. And Poilievre doesn’t have any concern for the broader electorate.

I know I’m not exactly what you could call a Poilievre fan – I think he’s a fraud and I can’t wait to vote against him – but his appeal always made sense to me. Unlike some members of the commentariat, I never got seduced by the argument that he could be vulnerable – let alone by a fucking National Post columnist – and in terms of his standing in the leadership election, I’ve been resolute that it’s him.

I even get the places where Poilievre will appeal, and I expect to have Poilievre winning more seats in Northern Ontario because of it (assuming the lines are broadly the same). I expect to have a Poilievre breakthrough in Newfoundland, because no matter how you draw the island, there’s gonna be a couple of marginal seats where the Tories should be able to make an advance. I say all of this to say that the Tory Party is probably making the best decision available to it by picking him.

The problem with all of this is that that’s only true because the Tory Left are a bunch of feckless cowards who have no compelling leaders, but that’s besides the point. We’re here now, and it’s going to be Poilievre, and there’s nothing happening that makes me think anybody has thought about what the act of party building will need to be like. Poilievre is being given the benefit of the doubt by the commentariat mostly, I think, out of laziness, but the idea that this party – especially after disqualifying the guy who was going to come in 2nd – is just going to come together as one big happy family is absurdist nonsense.

Poilievre could make all of this easier for himself by stopping to pick needless fights with, well, everyone, but more importantly he could find a position, or a person, to try and find unity with. Where is the promise to appoint a Charest loyalist to a top job, or an attempt to dispel the rumours his backers want to boot Rempel Garner? Where’s even the veneer of some attempt at conciliatory campaigning? Hell, when Lewis Hamilton didn’t come in the points in Imola, at least Toto Wolff had the decency to lie to Lewis and say the car was undrivable (as George came in 4th). Even if he doesn’t mean it, holy shit, he needs to try.

At the end of the day, Poilievre’s campaign has been about managing the day and winning the day. It’s why he has these videos coming out all the time in the morning, so that becomes the story of the day and sucks oxygen away from Charest (and at the time, Brown). It’s a very good frontrunner’s strategy – just manage the day. It’s an absolutely shit strategy for holding a party together for 3 years. If Poilievre wants to have any real shot of winning in 2025, having the Tory left onside is a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement.

And every damn day he keeps punching left, the Liberals should be smiling.