Goldtent TA Paradise

CANADIAN POLITICAL ANAYSIS AND A NEW POLL

1. Fullgoldcrown says:

   August 14, 2023 - 7:57 pm at 7:57 pm

   Key Issues:

   1) After swing-and-a-miss on abortion, this week’s attack on Poilievre is all about ‘conspiracy theories.’

   2) Overview of national polling.

   As their decline the polls shows itself to be a sustained trend, the Liberals – and Liberal backers in the media – are growing increasingly desperate. Last week, they focused on abortion, attempting to claim there were “no pro-choice Conservative MPs.” The attack fell flat, due to it being factually incorrect. So, this week, the Liberals and their media allies are turning to claims that Pierre Poilievre is spreading ‘conspiracy theories.’ We’ll look at their latest attack why this is another sign that the Liberals are losing their connection to Canadian voters.

   After, we’ll look at the state of public opinion polling.

   After swing-and-a-miss on abortion, this week’s attack on Poilievre is all about ‘conspiracy theories.’

   Last week, we watched the Liberals go all out trying to attack the Conservatives on abortion. Top Trudeau aide Katie Telford – who once boasted about being able to get articles written in friendly media outlets – spearheaded the effort by sharing an article written by a freelancer in The Guardian newspaper, which falsely claimed there were no pro-choice Conservative MPs. As noted in last week’s newsletter, the claim was quickly hit with a Community Note on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), and while Telford doubled-down the Liberals have moved on from that attack.

   Having swung-and-missed on abortion, the Liberals are building this week’s attack around a Canadian Press article titled “Poilievre’s Conservative party embracing language of mainstream conspiracy theories.”

   Here is an extended excerpt so you can get a sense of how the issue is being framed:

   “Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been hitting the summer barbecue circuit with ramped-up rhetoric around debunked claims that the World Economic Forum is attempting to impose its agenda on sovereign governments.

   It is, some experts suggest, another sign that some conspiracy theories are moving from the fringes of the internet to mainstream thinking, as people’s distrust of government grows.
   In speeches to Conservative supporters across Canada, Poilievre has promised that none of his ministers will attend the international organization’s conferences, including the annual meeting typically held in Davos, Switzerland.

   “It’s far past time we rejected the globalist Davos elites and bring home the common sense of the common people,” said a Saturday fundraising email.

   The Conservative party also recently sent out mailers with a poll asking people to tell Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who they think the prime minister should stand with: working Canadians or the World Economic Forum.

   The wording implies Trudeau’s cabinet is beholden to the latter.

   Poilievre did not agree to an interview on the matter. His spokesman instead pointed The Canadian Press to a clip of him at a rally in Penticton, B.C. in July, expressing concerns over the government invading people’s personal privacy and financial decisions.

   “There will be no mandatory digital ID in this country, and I will ban all of my ministers and top government officials from any involvement in the World Economic Forum,” Poilievre said, chuckling as he received lengthy applause for the remark.

   Canada has long participated in WEF events. Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet ministers attending the summit regularly. Trudeau attended in person in 2016 and 2018 and his ministers have attended as well. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland went to the most recent annual summit in January.”

   “Duane Bratt, political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said some people have long embraced conspiracies, but now they have moved into mainstream politics.

   “The big shift that we have seen is that it is now being promoted by someone who could be prime minister,” said Bratt.”
   Missing nuance
   Now, you can see how this being framed. Poilievre is being denounced as a conspiracy theorist, but there is a significant nuance missing here.

   As I’ve noted before, critics of the World Economic Forum come in two forms.

   The first is the reality-based criticism that the WEF often promotes an agenda that would centralize decision-making and economic power in institutions that are not directly accountable to the electorates of individual countries. That criticism also accurately notes that the WEF regularly discusses ideas that would result in reduced privacy, a reduction in the right to private property, restrictions on freedom of expression, and climate policies that would weaken the Western world while allowing countries like China to continue ramping up their emissions.

   The second form of WEF critic is indeed based on unproven conspiracy theories. Those critics posit that the WEF is a secret world government, that it controls the Canadian government, that it caused the pandemic, and other assorted nefarious things. None of that is proven, and there is no evidence any of that is true. Those WEF critics have gone beyond legitimate criticism, and instead blame the WEF for almost everything they see as negative. As I’ve noted before, holding up the WEF as an all-powerful bogeyman is not only factually incorrect, but is also demoralizing and counterproductive. After all, if the WEF really did control everything, what would even be the point of getting involved in Canadian federal politics at all?

   As you can see, Poilievre clearly represents the former group of WEF critics – the reality-based group.

   Interestingly, before the recent attempt to label all criticism of the WEF as ‘conspiracy theories,’ some NDP politicians had made similar critiques.

   Here’s NDP MP Charlie Angus in 2017:

   Here’s U.S. Democratic Party politician Bernie Sanders – beloved among the left in Canada – also criticizing Davos:

   Both Angus and Sanders – being socialists – criticize Davos (where the WEF conference is located) more from an anti-wealth, anti-capitalism perspective, while Poilievre criticizes it from a more anti-centralization perspective.

   Still, this goes to show that criticism of the WEF is quite widespread and is obviously within the norm of debate in a free and democratic society.

   Funny how this only becomes an issue for the media when Pierre Poilievre mentions it, and only when he is leading by a substantial margin in the polls.

   As you can see, several outlets are running the Canadian Press articles, giving it wide coverage:

   So, what is the key takeaway here?

   The Liberals are rapidly losing their connection to the voters, and they are throwing everything at Poilievre in the hopes some attack brings him down politically.

   The fact that the Liberals launch their attacks and then drop them so quickly is an indication of their desperation.

   Note how Poilievre has been focused on a few core themes for months: Ending the carbon tax, reducing inflationary deficits, making housing more affordable, reducing crime, and holding an inquiry into China’s interference in our democratic institutions.

   By contrast, the Liberals are jumping from issue to issue without any sense of a cohesive plan.

   Fundamentally, this is because the Liberals can no longer compete on the issues. They have had eight years to implement their policies, and the result is a country that is poorer, more dangerous, and more divided than before the Liberals took office.

   In that kind of situation, the best they can hope for is to claim their principal opponent will be so much worse.

   But Poilievre isn’t making that easy for the Liberals. The more he sticks to addressing core issues people face on a day-to-day basis, the more he will deepen his connection with Canadian voters at a time when the Liberals are losing that connection.

   After eight years of being subjected to arrogant lectures, naïve thinking, overspending, and a declining standard of living under Trudeau, many Canadians are looking to turn the page, and this has the Liberals in a panic.

   Thus, we can expect to see a new line of attack next week once the focus on the WEF fizzles out.

   Overview of national polling

   Another week, another solid national lead for the Conservative Party of Canada.

   According to 338Canada.com, the Conservatives have a 94% chance of winning the most seats, with the Liberals having just a 6% chance of doing so.

   There is now a slightly higher chance of a CPC majority (48%), than a CPC minority (46%).

   The Conservatives are projected to win 37% nationwide, ahead of the Liberals at 29% and the NDP at 19%.

   In terms of the seat count, the Conservatives are projected to win 169 (range of 135-201) seats, with the Liberals far back at 111 (range of 77-140).

   The Bloc is projected to win 34 seats (range of 28-39), while the NDP is projected to win just 22 seats (range of 13-39).

   As has now been the case for weeks, the combined Liberal + NDP number is far short of a majority at just 135 seats. Even with the 2 Green seats added, that brings the centre-left + left coalition to just 135 seats, a full 35 short of what is needed for a majority.

   By contrast, the Conservatives are close to a majority on their own.

   The Conservatives + Bloc Quebecois amounts to 203 seats, but any deal between the parties would be unnecessary if the Liberals and NDP were so far back.

   Now, it’s worth noting that there are some psychological thresholds that will impact the future composition of the government if nobody wins a majority. As much as it is subjective, how Canadians view the result, and how they view the ‘fairness’ of what the result leads will go a long way in determining whether the Liberals can hold on after a narrow defeat, or whether the Conservatives take office.

   For example, the Liberals could theoretically try to hold on if the Conservatives won 160 seats and the combined Liberal + NDP number was around 140. They could try to win a confidence vote with the support of the Bloc.

   However, there is every reason to believe such an effort would fail – even if Trudeau is desperate to retain power despite being rejected by most voters.

   First, it’s unlikely the Bloc would want to keep Trudeau in power.

   Second, Canadians would feel that it’s only fair for the Conservatives to take power if they win more seats, more votes, and come close to a majority.

   And third, there would be no way for Trudeau to spin coming in second in the seat count as anything other than a loss. By the time 2025 rolls around, the Liberals will have been in power for a decade. To lose in the seat count (and almost certainly the popular vote) would represent the voters saying it’s time for a change and rejecting that sentiment would be very foolish.

   There is also a clear trend in Justin Trudeau’s popularity that indicates Canadians want to move in a different direction.

   The Liberals won 39.47% of the popular vote in 2015. But that fell to 33.12% in 2019 and then 32.6% in 2021. Those latter two elections ended up being the worst popular vote performances ever for a party that ended up forming government, and the Conservatives won more raw votes than the Liberals both times.

   Could the Liberals really manage to maintain legitimacy if – after 10 years in office – they lost the seat count, lost the popular vote, and still tried to stay in office?

   Unlikely.

   There is also the situation within the Liberal Party to consider.

   Justin Trudeau has moved the party far to the left of where it once stood. The Liberals are now clearly a left-wing party, almost indistinguishable from the NDP with whom they have partnered.

   Justin Trudeau’s defeat of Stephen Harper in 2015 and resurrection of the once-moribund Liberal party bought him a lot of leeway in the party to shift its direction, but now that he trails badly in the polls and the situation in the country has become so bleak, centrist Liberals who have been sidelined for years are surely plotting a return to prominence.

   Would they – and the rising number of Liberal MPs chafing under Trudeau’s leadership – back him to stay in power despite losing both the seat count and popular vote?

   Again, it seems quite unlikely.

   All of this goes to show why it is important to keep looking at the polling projections and particularly the seat count projections. You can be sure that top officials in all the parties – not to mention factions within the government – are looking at those numbers and assessing how much power and influence Trudeau still possesses. Thus, each new poll showing the Liberals far behind the Conservatives will serve to further erode Justin Trudeau’s political position.

   Spencer Fernando