I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I could’ve predicted this outcome for the UK but if we’re using election results and indicators of anything then this is just further proof that our institutions are detached from reality. We heard over and over and over that brexit was the result of idiots not knowing what they were voting for, it was a fringe minority of haters trying to exercise white supremacy, it was foreign meddling and voter manipulation. Well this past election was the second referendum everyone on the left was screeching for. And what’s the narrative now? is this mark zuckerberg’s fault too? clearly what we are being told is not actually reflecting society. but there is still a chance for the opposition to rebuild from the ground up and actually be a tangible alternative option for the country. I say that because the UK just voted as if there was only one option. Or, in far-left tradition, they can triple down on the socialist rhetoric. we’ll just have to wait and see. the next election to watch will be USA 2020. can’t help but feel like this is foreshadowing.
but I’m not at all concerned over Boris Johnson. I think his speech after the election was great and I think he absolutely nailed it when he referenced the north “lending” the tories their vote. unity and revival is quickly becoming the great UK national project and If I were a brit, I’d be open minded to giving Boris a chance. Right out the gates he’s calling the EU his colleagues and friends, not his opponents. That’s the right tone to strike. For all the Trump comparisons to every conservative that walks the earth, he isn’t exactly calling them shithole countries. It seems to me that he doesn’t just want to reestablish Britain’s sovereignty but rebuild a healthier relationship with the EU in general. I think there’s every reason to be optimistic.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and listening since our election and I think ontario is just not ready for a social conservative PM. I think it’s a mistake to think that Andrew Scheer achieved anything. Harper did not lose Ontario in 2015 the way Scheer lost it in 2019. And as far as I’m concerned Alberta and Saskatchewan did not vote for Andrew Scheer. they voted against Justin Trudeau. Scheer is wrong to claim any credit from that achievement. I think it’s just ignorance when people blame the electorate for the outcome they didn’t like. voters are stupid. we’re all stupid. And the system we have may be one of the best in the world but it’s flawed.
The election here was a let down to everybody. All parties failed. We now have a strong bloc comeback. Singh absolutely destroyed jack layton’s legacy. andrew scheer was a disaster. That single debate we got was a total farce and honestly disgraced the entire electoral process. Don’t even get me started on Trudeau. The fact he’s PM today makes that technically a win. But if going from that historic majority to a minority in only 4 years… that’s not exactly the “Strong mandate” he claimed it was on election night. To me, that was like voting for a post watergate Nixon.
We saw this week SNC lavalin guilty on all charges. Not that it seems to matter to any liberal voters. Not that it’ll get Jody Wilson-Raybould her caucus seat back. But once again, literally every single development in that situation only continues to vindicate Wilson-Raybould. Yet all that gets discussed is Jody’s loyalties and whether or not she’s hurt the liberals chances at re-election. I don’t know if anyone’s been following the whole impeachment stuff but one thing we keep hearing is that it doesn’t matter if Ukraine got their resources without delivering what Trump asked them to, it’s still quid pro quo and thus impeachable. So how about our obstruction of justice? I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer.
Conservatives need to regroup and redefine themselves. The constant theme in ontario was that no one knew who scheer was. I think what people were really saying was that no one here really knows what Canadian Conservatism is in general. Alberta is a very different place than Ontario, it always will be. And scheer absolutely failed to advocate for conservative values. The liberals in Canada are becoming increasingly radical and as a result they are developing a certain type of liberal god complex. this is a complicated thing. I think, in a big way, this is a product of 911, the recession, modernization of the economy and social media. Society has become so self absorbed that liberalism is devolving into a sort of mono-culture. And frankly it makes me wonder if the age of secularism is doomed. as secularism itself becomes more of a doctrine of it’s own. Conservatives need to adapt to these changes.
I think it was a huge mistake to not participate in events and debates around the environment and pride. This was not andrew scheer’s election to lose, it was trudeau’s. When scheer ran for leadership there was a reason we didn’t see big names like Peter McKay. Because it was widely believed, apparently, that Trudeau would form a majority for at least 1 or 2 more terms. We don’t need people who are only on board when there’s something in it for them personally. We need leadership from within the party as badly as the country as a whole needs conservative leadership. Social Conservatives have the right to not be compelled to celebrate sin. That’s part of their religious freedom. In that regard, as a christian, scheer was well within his right to boycott pride. But to the rest of the country he was applying for the highest office in the nation. That means you don’t get to pick and choose who you represent. As PM you represent everyone. So, represent EVERYONE!
I’ve had some great conversations since the election and I listened to a gay conservative member talk about how he gets treated when he participates in pride. When he marches in the parade as a gay man, he gets spit on, accosted, things thrown at him, degraded and sworn at. Because of his identity as a conservative. It’s sure easy for Trudeau and Singh to march when they know they’re going to be fawned over for the cameras. It’s not as easy as people think for a conservative to just simply enter an LGBT space. but that’s no excuse not to. It has to be addressed and whether the LBGT community wants to hear it or not, they need to know that conservatives are willing and able to represent their interests.
The same goes for the environment. I think the whole “federation council” was a brilliant move, in embracing nuclear power. That’s absolutely the right move. Conservatives need to be brave and stand up to the liberal media and be prepared to have that uncomfortable conversation about renewables. Even if it hurts more than it helps, people deserve an actual plan on paper with dry ink. People deserve the truth.
Ultimately I was not surprised in ontario’s outcome. Typically when there is a conservative provincial government, we vote liberal federally. And when it’s a liberal provincial government, we vote conservative federally. Out of a sense of balance. But, to me, there’s just no doubt in my mind that Scheer’s leadership lost Ontario. A huge narrative in the media was that Scheer lost votes because Ontario hates Ford. I was highly skeptical on this given the super mandate Ford was handed just a year before this but I think there may have been some truth to that after all.
In the riding I was volunteering for we did find conservative voters failed to turn out. It’s hard to say exactly why but the numbers we gathered leading up to the election did not match the outcome. Stella was an all-star candidate and I suspect there was more of a Ford/Scheer factor to that. But, again, she was also a social conservative. So it’s hard to say exactly. But she definitely wasn’t alone in that outcome. And we ran a super campaign. 4 to 1 signs versus Sven Spengemann, more volunteers, more money, more endorsements. There was no reason why Stella should have lost. So I have no choice but to blame a Scheer/Ford factor.
The other elephant in the room is the absolute manipulative power of an utterly biased media, our institutions and unions. In Ontario 1 in 10 people have their salaries paid for by taxpayers to the tune of 41.4 Billion dollars. Whenever we talk about teachers, about services, about tax revenue and budget items we never seem to appreciate what that money represents. People talk a lot about pharma-care but why are we never willing to also talk about how we pay for these things? It will forever be the conservative burden to be the realist in the room of idealist rhetoric. And when Ontario’s debt-to-GDP ratio for 2017-2018 is $348.79 Billion, representing 8% of Ontario’s revenue, that needs to be where the conversation begins and finishes. It is the 4th largest spending item in our budget. This isn’t about abortions! Not every conservative policy is a slippery slope to handmaidens. We can only afford to be the country of free shit up until our grandkids are stuck with a worse outcome than the boomers left us.
And for all this non-stop obsession with foreign influence, can you find me the russian bots that handed Scheer the election? We all had no problem welcoming Greta Thunberg into the country during our election but that’s totally fine because that’s “progressive” right? The 1.036 Billion the liberals gave the CBC and the $600 000 during the election itself just corrupted our national broadcaster. The CBC sued the conservative party DURING THE ELECTION over fair use content. Some segment the party shared on twitter. The liberals did the exact same thing but all the CBC did was request they remove the content. But when the liberals didn’t remove it, they just gave it up. Would anyone call that election meddling?
How about the government grant money that paid for Laurier University to print flyers telling Muslims to vote liberal? It’s not like Trudeau ever found himself in any ethical conflict before, I’m sure this one was above board… oh wait, right! He’s violated ethics twice actually. Meh, this is all just a conservative conspiracy theory. And just to be clear, the fact the conservatives did not support M103 was because they wanted all forms of hate speech to be included in the motion. Not to exclude “islamophobia” but to simply add anti-semitism and all other forms of hate. They did not oppose researching “islamophobia” at all. To suggest they were “against” the motion is to misrepresent their position and just hope no one fact checks you.
This is nothing at all to speak to the massive independent campaigns launched by unions. The autism society, teachers unions, and other groups paying for anti-Ford ads displayed on billboards, inside malls, even on bus terminals. During Ford Fest the media reported that houses along the street where Ford fest was being held all put up protest signs on their front lawns, signalling to supporters that Ford was hurting Ontario. It was all organic and a great victory for free speech. Despite the fact the signs were all the same and even installed on properties that were condemned and uninhabited. No way the autism society constructed this themselves, it was all a very organic protest, I’m sure.
The teachers union absolutely used their strike to protest conservatives during the election. Unions in this country are legalized mafias and actively seek to interject themselves in elections to manipulate voters. I, myself, was at a unifor building to do work and found a picture of andrew scheer with devil horns posted on their official daily work board with big bold words “anything but scheer”. Is it right for a union to tell their members how to vote? And are we actually going to pretend that the reason why liberals have been BLOATING government and funding unions is an indirect way of buying votes? They’re just so blatant about it and the mainstream media is just absolutely ignoring this.
On top of that, we actually have no way of knowing what role social media played in our election. Did they disproportionately empower liberal voters over conservative? Could our election have been practice for the lead up to the US 2020 election? There’s just no way to know for sure but with opposition stacking up like that, conservatives truly have to work uphill to pull off any victory. With all the odds against conservatives, it’s a wonder the liberals only received a minority. But, no, none of that qualifies as election meddling for the media to be critical on. This only ever happens on the right side of the political spectrum. Canada Proud was on facebook and bought some billboards. OH THE POPULISM! Let’s be clear, Andrew Scheer did not divide this country. Trudeau did.
I still believe we need vote reform. And I think people won’t like to hear this but I am coming more and more convinced that Canada needs an American style republic. That seems, to me, to be the only way of voting FOR local representation, for a party and for a leader all separately. I don’t think our parliamentary system is the best system. And the more I learn about the American system, the more it makes sense to me. There are protections in place to check corrupt leaders. The only reason Trump does what he wants is because theyve amended things to the point where he can rule basically unopposed through executive orders. There are a lot of flaws that would need to be worked out but I really think they have a better system. At least the US got a Mueller report. Trudeau just simply used his majority power to snuff out absolutely any shred of transparency over what appears to be literal corruption.
In the lead up to electing a new leader I hope conservatives will find a better way of electing candidates. They NEED to implement a process of elimination. I don’t care if they use the big brother format and make a reality show out of it. if they simply ballot rank a slew of candidates they will absolutely leave the door open for special interest groups to swing the results and will likely end up with yet another social conservative only 51% of the party wants as leader. I am very empathetic to social conservatives. They’ve been absolutely purged from all other parties and now only have representation within the conservative party. And even now the conservatives are asking them to take a back seat even still. But they need to appreciate that the election will be fought in ontario. So we need a conservative brand that works for Ontarians. There are other forms of advocacy social conservatives can invest in to make change. They’re going to need to spend the next decade on PR.
Until they can convince Ontario that they’re not coming to make us all handmaidens, people just will not stop fear mongering and slandering. It’s a distraction that is very effective in Ontario, we just do not like or trust social conservatives. period. SO much so that Ontario is even willing to give Lisa Raitt the boot. So-Cons fail to appreciate how significant that loss was.
If Conservatives can put forward a woman (preferably from ontario) who can speak fluent french, spend the next year working on policy and establish a national project everyone can get on board with then I promise you the next election will see a conservative majority. The liberal party needs to be absolutely broken before it can be rebuilt. If they can’t pull it off, well, then I think this country really will be in serious trouble. Agree? disagree? What are your insights about the election? Who do you think will win the Conservative leadership? Sorry for the long rant. Had to finally get this off my chest.
In the meantime I think it would do us all well to focus a little more on what we share in common. Stop treating each other so poorly. And for the love of god diversify our news sources to get a better grip on reality. Despite Trudeau’s virtue signalling that we are a people without culture, that’s actually not true. We vary so much between the east and the west. Confederation was not a bad idea and this country can show the rest of the world exactly how we can actually all get along. If we can’t make it work, I’m convinced no one can. I think we can actually learn a thing or two from the Brits across the pond.
The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy. In its long history Europe has experience of heretics who turned out to have a point.
– Boris Johnson
Rule #8 