In the wake of the federal election, Michael Harris writes that the Conservatives are choosing to deny reality:
Everyone knew that the old Harper formula for winning a federal election—splitting the vote on the left and appealing to suburban voters with tax cuts, etc.,—was impossible to employ in the COVID-crisis. Harper’s Tim Hortons politics was staler than yesterday’s Timbits. But Canadians did not buy O’Toole’s adjustment—a progressive conversion on the road to the election.
O'Toole tried to drag his party to the centre. But voters simply weren't buying his rhetoric:
Voters remembered the other Erin O’Toole, the one who sat in Stephen Harper’s cabinet, where he played the social conservative true-believer with the best of them at every vote. And at the time, they were a pretty right-wing group, with members like Pierre Poilievre, Jason Kenney, and Rob Nicholson sitting around the table.
Voters remembered the Erin O’Toole who sounded a lot like a Harper Kool-Aid drinker when he needed the support of the party’s base to become leader. It was not accidental that this Ontario dude kicked off his leadership bid in the Mecca of social conservatism, Calgary. That was CPC virtue-signalling at its best.
The party is now trying to change the face of the leader. But, after three defeats, you'd think they would cotton on to the fact the problem is the party -- not the leader.
But like their cousins south of the border, Canada's Conservatives operate on their own set of alternative facts.
Image: McClatchy Washington Bureau
