The Conservative leadership debates begin this week. Tonight the contenders will debate in French. Tomorrow they will debate in English. But, Susan Delacourt writes, the contenders have much more to worry about than their debating skills:
Languishing in opposition is always tough on parties, but being the chief critic of the government during a pandemic is a special kind of political purgatory. For at least the first couple of months of the COVID-19 lockdown, Canadians weren’t in a mood for the kind of partisanship that usually prevails in Ottawa.
Worse, how do you criticize a government that is churning out money and aid to frightened Canadians?
Worse still, COVID has exposed the shaky foundations of the world the Conservatives have had a considerable hand in building:
Where the Conservative party will stand in a post-pandemic Canada should be the question of the summer. The old reliable party positions — smaller government and lower taxes — don’t entirely fit with how the pandemic created the need for lots of government and lots of debt, which may require higher taxes to fix.
The pandemic has also exposed tension between international and domestic forces, the haves and have-nots in a world of income inequality, not to mention health-care spending and the social safety net. Oh, and climate change hasn’t gone away as an issue, either.
Under Andrew Scheer, the Conservatives have spent their time agitating for more time in Parliament:
Last week, he and the other federal Conservatives turned that into a deal-breaker, refusing to grant quick passage to pandemic-relief legislation because the Liberals wouldn’t budge on holding more sessions in the Commons.
Here’s the fundamental problem: pandemic-preoccupied Canadians aren’t agitating for more Parliament. They’re worried about their health, their economic future and matters being raised by the surging debate over racism in Canada. More Commons sittings just aren’t currently on the agenda of the average citizen.
In short, the Conservatives are floating on a sea of old ideas. Their biggest problem is proving that what they stand for is relevant in this brave new world.
Image: Bleacher Report
