Pierre Poilievre is quietly doing what he excoriated his predecessor as Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole, for attempting to do in the 2021 election – to nudge their right-wing party toward the political centre.
The change of direction and tactic occurred in two seemingly separate, but linked, steps in the House of Commons last week.
Step one was to abandon the party’s established stance on a major social issue, perform a volte-face, and drag the Conservative caucus into line with majority public opinion.
Step two was an attempt by Poilievre to dissociate himself from the anti-vaxx movement and from the extreme elements of last February’s “Freedom Convoy,” whose cause he had enthusiastically supported during the occupation of Ottawa.
Step one was revealed on Monday, the first day back for MPs following their Christmas-New Year’s recess, when the Liberal government called for second reading (approval in principle) of Bill C-35. It’s the “Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act,” which writes into the statute books the landmark – and popular –agreement that Prime Minister Trudeau negotiated with the 13 provincial and territorial premiers last March to create a national program of $10-a-day daycare.
This takes a bit of explanation. The federal funding of $30 billion (over five years) is being voted on a year-to-year basis by means of a spending item in the annual budget. That works for now. However, if a restraint-minded party took office, or if the Liberals fell into the hands of a fiscal conservative with dreams of balanced budgets dancing in their head (say, a William Morneau), daycare’s billions would be an easy saving – just drop the funding from the budget. This, if memory serves, was how Poilievre’s mentor, Stephen Harper, got rid of his predecessor Paul Martin’s fledging daycare program when the Harper administration took power in 2006.
During his run for the Tory leadership last year, Poilievre declared that he would abolish Trudeau’s day care program; he repeated the promise after he won. But once C-35 becomes law, as it is sure to, it would take an act of Parliament to undo it. And it would require an uncommonly brave, ideological (or suicidal) government to take away what Canadian families would have come to regard as an essential “right.”
It was clear in Monday’s debate, that Poilievre had been spreading a new message and that his caucus had heard it. The Conservative Party of Canada – or, more correctly, its parliamentary caucus, is no longer interested in abolishing national day care. Perish thought! Conservative MPs stand foursquare with their friends, the Liberals, New Democrats, Bloquistes and Greens!
When C-35 was put to a formal vote last Wednesday, all five party leaders were in their seats. All voted. Second reading was unanimous: Yeas, 323; Nays, 0.
Step two in the Poilievre reconstruction, his bid to separate himself from the anti-vaccination movement and the ugly dimensions of last year’s siege of the capital, also took place last week. It came in an under-the-radar move, a slick bit of parliamentary sleight of hand on Wednesday.
Until then, Poilievre had seem resigned to wearing the public opprobrium he had garnered by his support for the insurrectionists who had swarmed Parliament Hill, defaced the Canadian flag, waved Nazi symbols, hurled anti-Semitic insults, hanged Trudeau in effigy and called for the overthrow of his government.
Poilievre had been in no hurry to recant. Last June, he introduced Bill C-278, a private members bill that sought to make it illegal for the federal government to require public servants to be vaccinated or to impose vaccine mandates for any sort of travel or for employment in federally regulated industries.
Someone must have advised him to give his head a shake and told him that his anti-vaxx bill served only to remind everyone of his foolhardy conduct last February.
Bill C-278 disappeared on Wednesday. Commons rules permit MPs to transfer sponsorship of a measure from their name to another member’s name, and Poilievre used that rule to transfer C-278 to the Conservative MP for Niagara West, Dean Allison, who collapsed it into a private member’s bill of his own. Of Poilievre’s bill no trace remains. It will never come up for debate.
Of course, political memories can’t be extinguished as simply or as easily as piece of paper bearing a private member’s bill. The Liberals will have plenty of videos of Poilievre with his convoy buddies, ready to be deployed if and when expedient.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail and Maclean’s. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com