SEPTEMBER 21, 2021 – When all is said and done election 2021 will end where we pretty much left off a couple of months ago.
Was it worth it- NO.
For the most part it was a repeat of the same tired policies of the previous election- and once again the majority of voters in Canada rejected the Conservative’s policies.
The CPC will of course pat themselves on the back for getting the highest vote percentage of any party which means zero in realty.
I feel sorry for O’Toole. He started so far behind in the polls and ran a very credible campaign. The knives will be out of course, we are already seeing the gutless “unnamed sources” calling for a possible leadership review.
The Conservatives shifted a bit on climate change, but not enough for the newer generation of voters. Neither does their childcare plan work for the younger urban voters or families living near the poverty line. The Liberal plan simply plays better with modern, younger families regardless of its cost.
The Conservatives also fell apart on the vaccine issue, the one issue that was originally one of their best attack issues. O’Toole’s everyday refusal to answer the simple question of how many of his candidates were vaccinated showed him as weak on this issue and afraid to criticize the antivaxxers in his party. It created an element of distrust in many voters who liked him on other issues. The Liberals took quick advantage of this and the antivax protestors to turn this issue into one of their stronger attack points.
Add in the other two famous Liberal attack points-abortion and gun control and you have succeeded in limiting voters’ choices, especially in the urban centers where there is always a heavy concentration of ridings that vote Liberal or NDP. It is hard to believe that a modern political party still can’t put those two issues to bed once and for all and the Conservatives will still allow these two issues to remain out there to cost them more votes the next time around.
In the next six months watch for right wing elements in the party to try to remove O’Toole. The usual unnamed sources will keep that alive. Watch for the Liberals who don’t like to lose and a minority government is a loss in their eyes; to start playing the same game with their now twice wounded leader. The difference will be that they will have the brains to do it discreetly.
12-18 months for now we will be doing it all over again.
KEITH_BEARDSLEY
Keith is a former political staffer with over 50 years of active involvement in Canadian politics. He is a former Deputy Chief of Staff to a Prime Minister for Issues Management and he was a senior political advisor involved with political research, Question Period, political attack teams and election war rooms for over 20 years. A well-known political pundit, Keith has appeared many times on Canadian political panels.