History repeats itself in the federal election campaign

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The most intriguing bit of recent political news was that Mark Carney had been asked by then-prime minister Stephen Harper to be his finance minister in 2012. He was asked to be in Harper’s cabinet before Pierre Poilievre was.

I wrote in December that Carney would make an excellent finance minister in a Conservative government, just as Harper had put Liberal David Emerson in his cabinet in 2006, first as trade minister, before promoting him to foreign affairs. I had no idea then that Harper had already proposed that very thing.

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Even apparently fanciful future things can be a return to the past. There was a touch of that when Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that his recent telephone call with Poilievre was the “first time I ever spoke to him.”

What those words mean is puzzling, as Ford has been premier since 2018 and Poilievre has been Conservative leader since 2022, and they have been photographed at events together. Ford’s meaning though is clear enough: Poilievre is not my guy.

That, too, is a return to the past. It is unlikely in the extreme that Poilievre consults Canada’s 16th prime minister, Joe Clark, in his attempt to become the 25th. Clark may not be able to offer constructive suggestions, but he can certainly commiserate over shared unhappy experiences.

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Clark’s party leadership (1976-1983) coincided with two prominent Conservative premiers, Bill Davis in Ontario and Peter Lougheed in Alberta. They were titans, as Ford and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith manifestly are not, but a similar dynamic has returned.

Davis, a centrist who tilted left, sided with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on the great national issues the day, energy policy and constitutional affairs. He was cool to Clark and kept his distance from the federal Tories. Only as he was headed for the exits did Davis put his campaign infrastructure, the formidable “Big Blue Machine,” at Brian Mulroney’s service, a not inconsequential contribution to the latter’s massive 1984 victory.

Ford has refused to help Poilievre’s campaign. He has also adopted the Davis approach to governance. If an ostensible conservative governs from the centre-left, there is no room left for the actual leftists. Davis won four straight elections, two majorities and two minorities, on that model. Ford has won three consecutive majorities and wants to be premier forever.

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He has a better shot at that if the Liberals retain power in Ottawa. The last time the Ontario PCs won an election when the federal Liberals were not in power was 1959. So electorally, Ford prefers the federal Liberals, and likely on principle too, being rather liberal himself.

Clark’s other headache was Lougheed in Alberta. A centrist who tilted right, Lougheed was happy to be in Clark’s camp, but his robust defence of Alberta’s energy interests made it awkward for Clark in Ontario and Quebec. What was good for oil-producing Alberta was not aligned with the interests of the oil-consuming east.

Hence Clark, in taking on Trudeau père, was squeezed between his provincial cousins. Sound familiar?

Danielle Smith was the only premier not to sign on to the Team Canada front against the Trump tariffs. She has insisted on exempting Alberta energy exports from any retaliatory measures. That might sound to some like Alberta oil gets protected while Ontario autos get whacked. Clark would remember how well that played.

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Smith brings another problem for Poilievre. In an election where fighting U.S. President Donald Trump is the dominant issue, Smith likes making friends at Mar-a-Lago. She had Kevin O’Leary and Jordan Peterson squire her around the man’s compound, desperate for a place at court.

Her fondness for MAGA world was prominent in the first week of the federal election campaign — first her telling Breitbart News that she urged Trump officials to delay tariffs to help Poilievre, and then her appearance with Ben Shapiro in Florida.

Smith’s political interests depend upon harnessing MAGA energy to sweep rural Alberta, where Trump fealty is politically advantageous. In the 2023 election, Smith won a slim majority while losing every seat in Edmonton as well as the majority of seats in Calgary. It’s no MAGA, no majority for Smith. But MAGA means no majority, or even no minority, for Poilievre.

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A year ago, Smith feted Tucker Carlson in Edmonton. It didn’t play well even in Alberta, but Smith is only playing to a minority of Albertans. Just this week, Carlson said that he doesn’t “want to fly on a plane with (COVID) vaccinated pilots because I think it’s too dangerous.” That sort of thing does not really fly in either the U.S. or Canada. But neither Smith nor Carlson are playing to a wide audience. Poilievre must. Smith doesn’t help him.

So much of the last few weeks has been supposedly unprecedented. But few things really are. The Liberals are trying to win a fourth straight mandate, which they have already done four times. They are attempting a successful leader switch, which they have mastered since Wilfrid Laurier to William Lyon Mackenzie King, followed by King to Louis St. Laurent, Lester B. Pearson to Trudeau, and Jean Chrétien to Paul Martin. And the Conservative leader battles rivals while being undermined by false friends.

National Post

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