{"id":207055,"date":"2021-03-20T17:28:18","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T14:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-conservative-convention-erin-otoole-pitches-for-right-now\/"},"modified":"2021-03-20T17:28:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T14:28:18","slug":"the-conservative-convention-erin-otoole-pitches-for-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-conservative-convention-erin-otoole-pitches-for-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"#The Conservative convention: Erin O\u2019Toole pitches for right now"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#The Conservative convention: Erin O\u2019Toole pitches for right now<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Andrew MacDougall: O\u2019Toole is betting Canadians will first want to walk back to pre-pandemic normal\u2014jobs and security\u2014before running for any kind of imagined future\n <\/div>\n
\n Andrew MacDougall is a director at Trafalgar Strategy, and a former Head of Communications to Prime Minister Stephen Harper<\/em><\/p>\n

So much of politics is meeting a moment but the hardest task in politics is defining the moment to meet. That was the shape of the task laid out before Conservative leader Erin O\u2019Toole as he addressed his party\u2019s policy convention; how could he frame the debate on important issues in terms that would make voters take a fair-minded look at the new kid on the block?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easier said than done. In the hothouse of partisan politics, it\u2019s easy to forget \u2018voters\u2019 includes people beyond the current party voter base. And that goes double for party policy conventions, when the partisan choir sings its standards with a tune most outsiders can\u2019t place. Seen in this light, O\u2019Toole\u2019s frank admission the Conservative Party of Canada \u201cneeds to change\u201d is the most important message to filter out of his address. Four leaders in five years has led to an awful lot of narrowcasting and navel-gazing in the Conservative movement, and Canadians have noticed. It was time for Conservatives to notice it too.<\/p>\n

Just how the party will change is a conversation for another day; O\u2019Toole\u2019s speech was meant as a signpost that something different would be before voters come voting day, whenever Justin Trudeau decides to push for it. In these narrow terms, O\u2019Toole met his moment: he looked like a boss (and plausible Prime Minister) without sounding exactly like the old boss(es). That O\u2019Toole dropped a five-point plan was the one obvious homage to the past, harkening back to the last time voters took a punt on a relatively unknown Conservative leader with five key priorities in the window.<\/p>\n

Now comes the harder work of defining the moment. Here, O\u2019Toole is betting that Canadians will first want to walk back to pre-pandemic normal before running for any kind of future. He believes Canadians\u2014or at least enough of his accessible vote\u2014want to simply get back to work, not invest in a hypothetical future economy in which they may or may not be players.<\/p>\n

There are \u201ctwo paths\u201d, O\u2019Toole warned: Trudeau\u2019s \u201cunfunded, unknown, and untested\u201d changes to a \u201creimagined\u201d economy, where the \u201cconnected few get richer\u201d while \u201cworking families get left behind\u201d. And then there is the Conservative path, a recovery plan featuring \u201csecurity and certainty\u201d, a less glamourous route that will get all Canadians \u201csafely to our destination.\u201d<\/p>\n

How you feel about O\u2019Toole\u2019s framing most likely aligns with how comfortable you\u2019ve felt throughout this pandemic. If you\u2019re an urban-dwelling Amazon order junkie who hasn\u2019t taken an economic hit during COVID-19, it likely fell a bit flat. If, on the other hand, you\u2019re the type who drives into the Amazon warehouse sweatshop\u2014sorry, fulfilment centre\u2014it sounds a bit more relatable. As it does for the hundreds of thousands of frontline workers who lost their jobs during this past hellish year. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Conservative Party as the full-throated defenders of the working class.<\/p>\n

Indeed, O\u2019Toole sounded like an old school New Democrat for short stretches of his speech, touting the benefits of manufacturing and strong wages that can support entire families. Even more impressively, it didn\u2019t sound that foreign to O\u2019Toole\u2019s lips, what with him having grown up in GM country. So it app<\/a>ears to be bye bye, free-flowing global free trade; and hello, onshoring, preferably away from those CCP demons in Beijing.<\/p>\n

The shape and flows of the future global economy is the one bet O\u2019Toole made on the longer-term future. In the O\u2019Toole worldview, the political stagnation at the heart of many Western democracies will only be solved when the dignity of work returns for those who don\u2019t hold university degrees or live in the centre of bustling towns. Already let down by globalization, these are the people O\u2019Toole fears will be left further behind if the already well-off green economy champions like Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney are the authors of the economic future.<\/p>\n

The obvious risk to O\u2019Toole holding this view is that it can sound both anti-climate change and anti-reality. It was noticeable how little O\u2019Toole said about climate change, other than to say he knows it\u2019s a problem that must be addressed. But how will he address it? Will he be making the case to reshore manufacturing jobs by stressing Canada\u2019s higher regulatory standards and the lower footprints of more local supply chains? Or will it be just another flavour of the same environmental weak sauce Conservatives have been peddling in recent elections? It will soon be time to start filling in the details.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to moments. There is a time and a place for big shifts. But is the aftermath of a searing and disruptive pandemic, which itself arrived when inequality was already rife and strong economic growth very rare, really the right time to peddle a massive green transformation? Trudeau clearly thinks the time is right, while O\u2019Toole thinks people want something more basic first. Whoever shapes this pre-post-pandemic moment\u2014near vs. long-term future\u2014will have the better chance of prevailing in the next election.
\n<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more News<\/a> articles, you can visit our General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#The Conservative convention: Erin O\u2019Toole pitches for right now” Andrew MacDougall: O\u2019Toole is betting Canadians will first want to walk back to pre-pandemic normal\u2014jobs and security\u2014before running for any kind of imagined future Andrew MacDougall is a director at Trafalgar Strategy, and a former Head of Communications to Prime Minister Stephen Harper So much of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/CP119323530-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43485,98579,5069,67910,67816],"class_list":["post-207055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-climate-change","tag-conservative-convention-2021","tag-economy","tag-erin-otoole","tag-justin-trudeau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}