No. 12 - Does the Conservative leadership race even matter?
It was a scene that could have been plucked right out of Canada’s political past. Maybe 2002 or 2008.
Jean Charest is glad-handing at an event, surrounded by smiling supporters (within inches of the 64-year-old political animal). No one is wearing masks. COVID-19 doesn’t exist. Just hopeful vibes and some words from a man who wants to again lead Canada’s national conservative movement.
Four days later, Charest announces that he has COVID-19.
His campaign is catapulted into the present. His Calgary launch spreads COVID-19 to some of the unmasked attendees, Charest among them. As he battles the virus, what awaits him is a race to lead a movement that barely resembles the federal conservative scene he left decades ago — one he has promised to turn back into an electoral machine.
Charest’s name began circulating in French media nearly the minute Erin O’Toole was officially out. But in English Canada, his name was met with some variation of “who?” or “really?” and his Calgary launch didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Freelance journalist Jeremy Appel was at the launch and left with two things: a case of COVID-19 and the sense that Charest’s entry into this race is confused, better suited for two decades ago than today. He calls Charest “yesterday's man.”
If that’s the view from Calgary, Charest has a lot of work to do to become a viable candidate.
Especially if he wants to beat Pierre Poilievre, a man who's been auditioning to be prime minister since he tried on his first suit, likely as a boy and at the same moment in time that Charest was already a federal cabinet minister under Brian Mulroney. Poilievre is laser focused on Trudeau as his enemy. In response to a question about whether or not he’s worried that his support for far-right movements is giving them oxygen, sounding as if he was quoting the Book of Revelations he replied, “…I have not said anything to provoke something like that. And by the way, the guy who has done more to provoke division and stoke anger across this country is Justin Trudeau, with his jabbing his fingers in people’s faces and baring his fangs and calling people ugly names even though he’s never met them.”
In the race to become the guy in charge of stopping the finger jabbing and fang bearing, Poilievre might be the early front-runner, but he, and all the leadership candidates, will be up against forces that they can’t control: Canada’s current political context, competing factions within the party and political history.
Thank you. I appreciate your writing and comments. They give me hope. Actually the book is Revelation with no s.