No Sweetness And Light

Pierre Poilievre wants an election. He sent a letter to Jagmeet Singh this week, suggesting he should bring the Trudeau government down. Susan Delacourt suggests that Singh may be worried about Doug Ford:

Pierre Poilievre and Doug Ford don’t have a lot in common, except maybe their desire to hold elections early. 

Yes, they are conservatives and chances are that the many Ontarians who have voted for Ford are likely leaning toward voting for the federal Conservatives when the next election comes.

Both leaders in their own ways would call themselves populists, too.

But that’s where Ford and Poilievre have very different approaches. Ford is what many would call a happy populist — a guy who just wants everyone to vote for him, whether that requires giving out his phone number or shovelling someone’s vehicle out of a snowbank.

Delacourt suggests that Poilievre is worried about an election in Ontario:

As my colleagues at Queen’s Park have been reporting for months now, there’s a very good chance Ontarians will be voting in a provincial election before then.

"Sources say Ford is worried that if, as polls suggest, Pierre Poilievre wins an election expected in October 2025, there would be reduced transfer payments to the provinces, a scrapping of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s electric-vehicle strategy that is a cornerstone of Ontario economic policy and other slashed spending that would hurt the Progressive Conservatives,” Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Robert Benzie wrote in May.

Poilievre hasn’t said publicly how he feels about an Ontario vote possibly upstaging the Conservatives’ much-anticipated romp to victory. The fact that Ford sees a Poilievre victory as not great for Ontario, however, is fascinating and further underlines that there are serious tensions between the Ford and Poilievre brands of conservatism.

What remains to be seen is whether an early Ontario election could harm Poilievre’s chances. For instance, what if Ontarians use a provincial election as their chance to vent at Trudeau and get some of the anti-Liberal sentiment we keep hearing about? What if Ontarians decide that as long as Ford remains premier, they might as well have a prime minister with whom he has a good working relationship?

Maybe that’s one of the reasons Poilievre was out there this week, agitating for Canada to go to the polls this fall, not next fall.

It's not all sweetness and light among Conservatives.

Image: reddit