Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s path to power may be by prosecuting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s past eight years in government, but his road to victory is painted NDP orange.
Appealing to working-class voters in rural and northern ridings — like those held by New Democrats across British Columbia and Liberals in northern Ontario — is part of what Poilievre sees as a winning formula.
That offensive was on full display on Vancouver Island recently as he traversed NDP turf, rallying supporters in Nanaimo and snapping photos with mill workers in Port Alberni. He also stopped at a steel plant and port in B.C.’s Lower Mainland to rub shoulders with workers, images of which lit up his social media.
“We’re seeing Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative party, on the floor of shops and factories,” said Allie Blades, a strategist who worked on his 2022 leadership campaign in B.C.
Blades, who works for Mash Strategy, said it’s a populist approach that so far has served Poilievre well.
“It’s a switch that the Conservatives, I think, have done very rightly and strategically,” she said. “We’re seeing the floor versus the stage.”
The shop floor, of course, is traditional New Democrat territory — home to a critical voting bloc the NDP is not about to surrender without a fight.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh visited a picket line in Winnipeg last week to support workers in a labour dispute — something his principal secretary says Pierre Poilievre has never done. (CBC News)
“You’ve never seen [Poilievre] on a picket line,” said Anne McGrath, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s principal secretary and formerly the party’s national director.
“You can go to shop floors and look at things on a shop floor, but when push comes to shove and workers need support from their political leaders, we’ve never seen him there.”
Poilievre has clearly struck a nerve by tapping into legitimate public anxiety around affordability, McGrath acknowledged, but his message is “simplistic.” So, too, is the choice facing voters, she said.
“They’ve got the big, loud megaphone voice of the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre, or they’ve got the constructive, positive proposals and actions that they can expect from the NDP.”
Selling that will take “a lot of hard work and [a] clear message,” not to mention outreach to voters, she added. The NDP has already begun to ratchet up its attacks on the Conservatives and flood traditionally friendly territory with mailers.
WATCH | Poilievre continues attack on carbon tax:
‘There will be a carbon tax election,’ Poilievre tells supporters in B.C.
6 days ago
Duration 1:47
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says, despite claims to the contrary from the Liberal government, most average Canadian families are paying more in carbon tax than what they receive in rebates.
Conservatives have strong head start in polls
Their battle looks like an uphill one — not only is Poilievre’s message crisp and resonant, but the Conservatives are flush with cash, said Melanie Richer, a former communications director for Singh.
Poilievre’s populist approach has helped the Conservatives smash fundraising records — funds vital to the leader’s aggressive public schedule and outreach to new voters, like those who typically vote NDP.
So far, he’s held 16 rallies and other meet-and-greets this year, six of them in ridings held by the NDP, compared to eight Liberal ones. Throughout 2023, his first full year as leader, the ratio was 12 NDP, 19 Liberal.
Blades said she believes Poilievre’s success with typical NDP voters in places like B.C. is a result of “down-to-earth messaging” that Singh, she argues, “could never authentically achieve.”
B.C. is a province that is deeply affected by the housing crisis as well as the opioid epidemic, both of which Poilievre blames squarely on two factors: the federal Liberal government and its B.C. NDP counterpart.
While critics pan his crusade against the consumer carbon price as an exercise in sloganeering and misinformation, supporters see it as an optimistic message, Blades said — even in B.C., where a provincial carbon price has been in place for years.
WATCH | Jagmeet Singh on the departure of NDP veterans:
Singh says departing NDP MPs leave ‘big shoes to fill’
3 days ago
Duration 0:42
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said that while it’s tough to see veteran NDP MPs Rachel Blaney, Carol Hughes and Charlie Angus move on from politics, the party has “lots of exciting candidates” ready to replace them.
It also can’t hurt Conservative fortunes that the NDP is bleeding caucus members. Six MPs have already left or said they won’t run again, including three just last week — one of whom was Charlie Angus, a 20-year fixture for the party in northern Ontario.
Richer said it’s time for the NDP to reflect on its relationship with working-class voters, many of whom have been drifting away from the party since the death of Jack Layton in 2011.
“We’re just not connecting with them,” she said.
Richer urged the party to be more vocal about the role it played in securing Liberal commitments on national pharmacare and dental care plans through its supply-and-confidence agreement with the government. So far, efforts to do that have borne little fruit.
She pointed to Manitoba, where NDP Premier Wab Kinew secured a historic election win last year by confronting public anger “and gave people hope instead.”
LISTEN | What’s the future of the NDP?
The House12:44Taking the NDP’s temperature
NDP stalwarts are saying a final goodbye to Ed Broadbent this weekend as the former leader and elder statesman is being honoured with a state funeral in Ottawa. Broadbent believed the NDP is most effective when it poses a political threat. But is that still the case? NDP strategists Mike McKinnon and Melanie Richer talk about the health of the NDP movement.
Poilievre’s office did not respond to a request for comment about whether a Conservative government would maintain a federal dental care plan. He’s also been non-committal on pharmacare.
Union leaders say the Conservative frontman borrows the language of the working class, but in fact poses a threat to organized labour, citing his frequent support for back-to-work legislation over 20 years in Parliament.
The party has been working hard to rehabilitate its image with unions, with its MPs backing a Liberal bill — spurred by the NDP — to ban replacement workers during lockouts and strikes in federally regulated workplaces.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
