Goldtent TA Paradise

SOME GOOD CANADIAN POLITICAL ANALYSIS

1. Fullgoldcrown says:

   February 27, 2024 - 10:51 am at 10:51 am

   Exclusive In-Depth Political Analysis 2024 Edition 9

   The Liberals swept to power in 2015 in large part due to a massive surge in support among young voters, and a massive surge in overall young voter turnout.

   The Conservatives won 5.6 million votes in 2015, just 200,000 short of the 5.8 million they won in their 2011 majority victory.

   But the Liberals won 6.9 million, up from just 2.8 million in 2011, and a huge surge in the youth vote was a key reason why.

   Had the Liberals sustained their support among young Canadians, they could have locked in near-permanent majority government status.

   People tend to be more likely to stick with the first party they vote for, so having millions of first-time voters cast a vote for the Liberals just as the millennial generation became the largest in Canada was an opportunity for the Liberals to dominate Canadian politics for a generation.

   And we are indeed seeing a youth-driven voter realignment.

   But not in the Liberals’ favour.

   Instead, we are witnessing what may be a historic generational shift towards the Conservatives, one that could not only set the Liberals on a path to a crippling defeat but give the Conservatives the chance to become the ‘natural governing party’ of Canada.

   Here are four reasons why this is happening.

   Progressivism without progress
   Young people are naturally drawn towards a progressive worldview.

   Politically astute progressive parties focus on the idea of a prosperous future in which everyone is taken care of, and everything is ‘fair,’ and the mistakes of the past are left behind.

   Though it is simplistic, it appeals to young people.

   And, when combined with a robust free market and capitalist economy, centrist progressive parties can do a decent job at governing from time to time.

   However, the problem emerges when progressivism starts drifting towards full-blown socialism and the eco-radicalism of politicians like Justin Trudeau & Steven Guilbeault.

   Economically illiterate policy combined with a dogmatic worldview is not exactly conducive to economic growth.

   And so, young Canadians are looking at the Liberal government and seeing that they have delivered progressivism without progress.

   Instead, looking at drug overdoses, per capita GDP, crime, and housing affordability, we can see that life in Canada is getting progressively worse, pardon the pun.

   This has the effect of making Trudeau’s continuing progressive rhetoric seem not only empty, but also dishonest.

   When you can’t deliver progress, it’s tough to retain any credibility as a progressive leader.

   After over eight years in office, young people see Trudeau as just another manipulative politician.

   Jagmeet Singh’s failure
   Jagmeet Singh should have been the most well-positioned to take advantage of Justin Trudeau’s collapsing youth support.

   It isn’t happening.

   A recent Abacus Data poll shows the Conservatives at 36% among 18–29-year-olds, with the NDP and Liberals nearly tied at 22% and 21% apiece.

   Now, if you told Jagmeet Singh a few years ago that he would be ahead of the Liberals among young voters, he would have assumed he was on the way to forming government, or at least gaining a bunch of seats.

   But 22% won’t cut it.

   In effect, the Liberals and NDP are both being rejected by young Canadians who are increasingly turning to the Conservatives.

   And Jagmeet Singh has nobody to blame but himself.

   If there’s one thing young voters are looking for its authenticity.

   Having grown up on social media platforms that give them a closer and closer look at the lives of those they follow, and with more personal and emotional appeals becoming the norm, young people can easily tell when someone is being insincere.

   As mentioned above, Justin Trudeau is no longer trusted by most young Canadians.

   And Jagmeet Singh has a similar problem.

   Singh keeps the Liberals in power, then pretends to oppose them. This double-game has been so poorly executed by the NDP that it’s impossible for anyone not to see how dishonest it is.

   Singh also panders far too obviously.

   His effort to pick a fight with Galen Weston, his claim to stand against ‘greed’ when he lives his own luxury lifestyle, and his jumping on every left-wing populist bandwagon is embarrassingly transparent.

   In effect, Singh is ‘trying too hard.’

   Singh is also advancing a set of policies that are basically just Trudeau’s policies but a little further to the left.

   He offers nothing new, just more of the same.

   And so, as young people reject Justin Trudeau, they are also rejecting Jagmeet Singh and the NDP.

   Thus, the NDP Leader has squandered a once in a generation opportunity for his party and helped pave the way for Pierre Poilievre to become the choice of a new generation of voters.

   Poilievre’s bet on youth
   I have been writing about the burgeoning political realignment in Canada for quite some time, particularly as Pierre Poilievre ramped up his campaign for CPC Leader.

   Unlike previous Conservative Leaders, Poilievre refused to go along with the conventional wisdom that youth voters were out of reach for the party.

   Instead, he recognized early on that many of the main issues on which the next election would be fought are issues that directly impact young Canadians.

   Young people have been putting off family formation, are locked out of home ownership in large numbers, are increasingly suffering from drug overdoses, and are falling behind economically, putting Canada on the path to having an entire ‘lost generation’ with dire long-term consequences for the nation.

   All of this happened under a Liberal government that purported to give young people what they wanted – economic redistribution, ‘climate action,’ and endless virtue-signalling.

   Poilievre’s bet was that young people – having seen the real-world results of many of the policies they once supported – would be open to a Conservative alternative.

   And so, Poilievre astutely managed to convey core Conservative policy principles (lower taxes, fiscal restraint, ‘live-and-let-live’ rather than state intervention) while matching those policies to the problems people were facing in their day to day lives.

   Rather than abandon Conservative principles to appeal to young voters, Poilievre stuck to his principles while presenting them in a new and more effective way.

   And it has worked.

   Poilievre’s ‘difficult’ relationship with the legacy media has also worked to his advantage, as he has used social media effectively to reach people directly. With young Canadians more likely to get their news and information from social media platforms and online, Poilievre built up an advantage in terms of reaching young voters, and he has made the most of that advantage.

   It is striking to watch the Liberals constantly talking about trying to save legacy media outlets of the past, while Poilievre communicates through the media platforms of the present and the future. It’s a total inversion from when the Liberals took office promising a ‘tech-focused’, ‘pro-science,’ ‘pro-innovation’ economy in contrast to the supposedly ‘out-of-touch’ Conservatives.

   Now, the Liberals look like they are stuck in the past, while Poilievre and the Conservatives embrace the future.

   Canada is declining while the Liberals & NDP are in power
   There is another fundamental reason young voters are set to realign towards the Conservatives.

   Canada is objectively in a state of decline, and the Liberals & NDP are in power.

   At a certain point, no amount of political spin and blaming the previous government can stop people from connecting the dots.

   Voters can see that life in Canada is getting worse.

   Voters can see that Justin Trudeau & Jagmeet Singh are in a position of power.

   Voters can see that Pierre Poilievre has not been in power as things are getting worse.

   Voters can see that Pierre Poilievre is the only major party leader offering something different than what Canada has seen since 2015.

   That leaves Poilievre as the ‘default choice’ for everyone seeking change.

   And the number of people who want change far outweighs those who support the status quo.

   What makes this moment different is that – as mentioned previously – young Canadians are the hardest hit by many of the problems in the country.

   They are even more desperate for change, and desperation can push people to abandon traditional political loyalties and create more openness to new ideas.

   If housing was affordable, if crime was going down, if per capita GDP was going up, then young people would probably be sticking with the Liberals even if they found Trudeau’s personality grating.

   But the Liberals don’t really have any big achievements to campaign on, and the underlying state of the country can no longer be blamed on everyone else.

   For lack of a better word, the Liberals ‘own’ Canada’s decline.

   This would create an opportunity for whoever was leading the Conservative Party, but because Pierre Poilievre has been so focused on addressing the problems facing young Canadians, and because he is so effective at communicating on the platforms used by young Canadians, the Conservatives are on the verge of turning that opportunity into a generational realignment in the politics of our nation.

   Overview of national polls
   A small change in the national polling average this week, with the Conservatives ticking up 1 point to 42%, while the Liberals & NDP remain unchanged at 25% and 19% respectively.

   The Conservatives are projected to win 210 seats, with the Liberals far back in second at 62.

   The Bloc would win 38 seats, and the NDP would win 26.

   The Greens would win 2 seats, and the PPC would remain seatless at 0.

   To get a sense of how bad things are for the Liberals & NDP, they would win a total of 88 seats combined, 82 short of a majority.

   This speaks to the overall rejection of the leftward shift by both the Liberals & NDP, and to the massive political opening this has created for the Conservatives.

   What also stands out is the lack of ‘outlier’ polls.

   There isn’t one poll in the last month that has the Liberals even close to the Conservatives.

   Polls from various outlets including Abacus, Nanos, Leger, and Mainstreet Research are all converging around the Conservatives being at about 40%, the Liberals at about 25%, and the NDP at around 18-19% give or take a few points either way.

   If these numbers don’t change anytime soon, it will be interesting to see if the Liberals & NDP – despite renewing their pact until 2025 – start turning on each other in some sort of ‘stop the Conservatives’ effort.

   Spencer Fernando