As coronations go, Peter MacKay’s is not off to the smoothest start.
This week, his handlers cut short an interview with the CTV after MacKay was asked about his campaign’s obsession with the fact Trudeau likes yoga. The subtext here being that MacKay is a man’s man and Trudeau is, well, let’s not go there. Yup, they’re trying to score points with that again.
Then there are those gawdawful gifs on Twitter that read like they were created by a 12-year-old (no disrespect to 12-year-olds). Then there was this weird Brexit shit. Whomever it is that’s handling MacKay’s social media, please just stop.
MacKay has talked about national unity and wanting to raise the level of political discourse in Ottawa, but it’s not working out that way. His campaign team has been fixated on Trudeau from the get-go and MacKay hasn’t even won the Conservative Party leadership yet. With no other heavyweights to challenge him, it’s easy to miss the fact there’s even a race.
Maybe MacKay should concentrate a little more on that, not to mention his French.
There’s been a lot of talk in Conservative circles about MacKay’s inability to string a few sentences together. It’s not even passable.
The hardcore in the party like Michelle Rempel Garner seem to think it’s not a requirement for those aspiring to be PM. Others argue that if the party really wants to win, they should be electing a leader who is conversant enough in Canada’s other official language. After all, Quebec is not the only province with a sizeable French-speaking population.
There’s a large French-speaking presence in MacKay’s very own backyard in New Brunswick, as well as in northern Ontario and Manitoba, not to mention Toronto and Ottawa.
Census data will tell you that French is the mother tongue of some 20 per cent of Canadians. That’s more than seven million people. A lot of them speak English, too. That’s not really the point.
But the current incarnation of the Conservative Party ready to anoint MacKay leader seems willing to take their chances. He’s got enough cache in other parts of the country, the logic goes.
Besides, these days the Conservative Party needn’t concern itself too much with taking seats from the Liberals and NDP in the province with the re-emergence of the Bloc. Better to focus on the 20 or so ridings in the party actually has a shot at winning.
The Cons have a low ceiling in Quebec. Stephen Harper, for example, never won more than 16 seats and the Cons still managed to form a minority. The days of Brian Mulroney – the PC party won 58 seats in the 1984 election – was a blip on the electoral map.
Back then, Mulroney promised Quebec a new deal, attracting sovereigntists to the fold. There will be no special deal for Quebec under the current incarnation of the Conservative Party. If anything, deep-seated feelings of Western alienation over equalization payments – and Quebec’s opposition to pipelines (it’s a biggie) – has led to growing antipathy toward Quebec. In that regard, the Conservative Party has gone right back to its Reform roots.
The hostility toward Quebec hasn’t been this palpable since Preston Manning was leader of Reform. And Quebec’s special place in the federation was a non-starter. It was only when it became obvious to Manning that the party would never form government without a presence in Quebec, that he changed his tune. See his teary-eyed speech to delegates at the party’s convention in the early 90s.
The move to strike a more conciliatory tone would ultimately cost Manning his leadership to Harper, who was still married to the idea of building a firewall between the West and the rest of the country. It was no secret that Harper loathed Quebec sovereigntist politics – not to mention its leftist political sensibilities. And Quebec loathed him right back.
As far as Harper was concerned, Quebec could go. Paradoxically, Harper’s refusal to engage on any meaningful level with Quebec had the opposite of the intended effect. During his decade in office, the sovereigntist movement in the province was in full retreat, but not anymore. The Bloc is back. And the NDP has basically been decimated.
It would seem like an opportunity for MacKay to rebuild the party’s fortunes if he really wants to raise the level of political debate in the country. But first, he’s got to be part of the conversation. And he can’t do that if he’s essentially cutting off half of central Canada.
@nowtoronto
