Michael Malice had an interesting point while watching the Canadian election, that there are a number of countries all over the world who are experiencing the same thing. Elections in which the voters don’t budge. His explanation as to why is, “the collapse of political discourse, fewer and fewer people listening to one another”. This is true on both the macro level, Canada, and the micro level, the conservative party. The log jams are getting tighter and no one is breaking through.
Then there’s the talk of western separation that always comes up when we look at the electoral map and see tory blue from the Manitoba border to the rocky mountains. It’s a nice dream but what exactly do we think would change if the conservatives everyone just voted for were in charge? Virtually nothing.
Partisans are curious creatures for some reason they seem to think they’ve got a secret deal with their chosen leader or that somehow what that leader stands for doesn’t apply to them. “Oh, he doesn’t really mean it”, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
O’Toole should be taken at his word, he does mean it. A lot of conservative voters probably don’t even realize it but they just voted in favour of quotas for electric vehicles, carbon tax’s, vaccine passports and mandates and a whole slough of other goofy policies straight out of the liberals playbook. Trudeau may only have won a minority government but he won on almost every single important issue before the first ballot was cast.
The job of the opposition party is to oppose, not agree with the government of the day. If you’re not going to do your damn job don’t expect to win elections.