First Official English CPC Leadership Debate

On Wednesday, the Conservative Party of Canada hosted their first English leadership debate for the current leadership race. The debate took place in Edmonton, Alberta and was moderated by former journalist and anchor, and current Chair of Public Affairs and Communications for Global Public Affairs, Tom Clark. It featured the top 6 candidates: Leslyn Lewis, Patrick Brown, Scott Aitchison, Jean Charest, Pierre Poilievre, and Roman Baber. The debate had its fair share of interesting moments but did feel like a game show at times with the sad trombone sound effect being used and the gimmicky rules that saw candidates lose speaking time based on the behaviour of the crowd. All that aside, let’s take a deep dive into the most important takeaways from this debate.

Here's what Moe Knows:

1. If any of these candidates win leadership and then the following general election, the Trudeau-imposed carbon-tax is as good as dead. Scott Aitchison, Jean Charest, Pierre Poilievre, and Leslyn Lewis all explicitly stated that they would remove the carbon-tax if elected as Prime Minister. Roman Baber and Patrick Brown didn’t say whether they would cut or support the federal carbon-tax but it’s highly unlikely they would support it after seeing how popular the idea of repealing it is among conservatives. Charest and Aitchison both proposed to implement a federal carbon-tax that follows Alberta’s provincial model where only large emitters are taxed and not everyday Canadians.

2. Division is a hot button issue for each candidate. At some point during the debate, every candidate mentioned how Canadians have become divided over issues like COVID, vaccine mandates, east vs west, etc., but what they failed to really explore is the divisions that exist within the CPC itself, best embodied by the two lead candidates: Jean Charest and Pierre Poilievre. Charest sees Poilievre as being too radical, too far right, and too conservative while Pierre sees Charest as a former liberal, red tory, and not conservative enough. Poilievre said that the party needs to be united and encompass all the “hyphenated conservatives” like social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, progressive conservatives, and the like. It’s worth asking if the CPC has reached a point where “big tent” conservatism no longer works and the party just isn’t able to assimilate every unique form of conservatism anymore. Similar to what’s happening in Alberta, it’s clear that radical elements exist within the party and these elements are likely going to turn swing voters away from the party at a federal level. “Big tent” conservatism worked under Harper due to his strong leadership; none of the candidates on that stage come close to matching Harper’s leadership and control over the party. If the CPC can’t even figure out what kind of party it wants to be and what kind of voters it wants to attract, how can it possibly hope to attract voters that are already unsure of which party deserves their votes? They need to figure out their identity, fast!

3. Leslyn Lewis is the only candidate to explicitly state that she is pro-life. I respect her honestly, but this, coupled with the fact that she can’t speak French, will most likely end her leadership campaign. It all but guarantees that in a general election, she’d be unable to rally Quebec voters to her cause which would severely limit her paths to victory. Conservatives want a leader that will be able to generate enough support to form government and Lewis is simply not the one for the job. It is interesting to think about whether or not this would be such a campaign killer had that SCOTUS draft not leaked.

4. Arctic sovereignty was another popular topic during the debate. The candidates were asked about their plans for Canada’s North and Brown, Charest, and Aitchison all mentioned Arctic sovereignty specifically at one point or another, with Aitchison’s sentiments drawing agreement from Baber. The candidates mentioned building military bases in the Arctic that feature deep-water ports, production and deployment of submarines and icebreakers to patrol the area, solidifying agreements with the US on North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and defending against potential Russian aggression. Look for this to continue being a key issue as Arctic ice continues to melt.

5. The convoy continues to cast a shadow over Conservative politics. The candidates, chiefly Lewis, Baber, and Poilievre took turns criticizing vaccine mandates, provincial lockdowns, and the federal government’s handling of the occupation in February, while also jockeying to be seen as the staunchest defender of rights and freedoms and the most passionate supporter of the peaceful convoy protesters. Again, problems arise from this way of thinking, primarily that the majority of Canadians disagreed with the convoy. How can any of these candidates believe they can reach across political aisles and attract voters to their party when they’re championing a cause most people don’t identify with. Poilievre attempted to distance himself a bit from the convoy by arguing that he only supported the peaceful demonstration, but this is a bit of revisionist history. He supported the convoy while it served his means, like putting pressure on Prime Minister Trudeau, but as it evolved into a full blown occupation, he tried to withdraw his support. The problem is that his own tacit approval, and the approval given by other MPs, contributed to the evolution of the convoy into the occupation it became. It will be interesting to see if and how the convoy issue remains relevant to the leadership campaign as we get further and further removed from it and no resolution from the public inquiry expected until next February.

6. Two notable buzz words/buzz phrases that popped up a lot were “freedom” and “declining democracy”. Poilievre, Lewis, and Baber were the primary culprits, and each made pledges to restore Canadian democracy and ensure Canada was the freest country on Earth. There are just a few problems with those notions. For starters, while Canada’s democracy isn’t perfect, no one’s is, ours has held up remarkably well, especially when one remembers the occupation of the nation’s capital whose leaders advocated for the overthrow of the sitting government. It’s an especially bizarre assertion when one realizes the only threats to Canada’s democracy come from vaccine mandates during a global pandemic and the way occupiers were treated once their occupation was finally deemed unlawful. The second problem is that one of the “freedoms” Poilievre believes Canadians should have is the “freedom from inflation”, a freedom that exists in no country in the world. He mentions that to combat inflation, he would fire the “gatekeepers” (another buzzword!) at the Bank of Canada, specifically the Governor of the Bank of Canada, and replace them with a different Governor who would somehow end inflation. Not only is this not a tenable solution for inflation, but it would also effectively politicize the Bank of Canada and would conceivably harm the reputation of and the trust in the Bank of Canada as an institution, a point made by Charest in response to Poilievre labelling the BoC as financially illiterate. Undermining public trust in institutions is a sure-fire way to erode Canada’s democracy so it’s not exactly clear how one would simultaneously protect Canadian democracy and degrade it. Again, the party needs to figure out what it wants to be.

7. There was a lot of mention of rhetoric and the role it plays in creating and worsening division. In the first question, Scott Aitchison answered that his vision for Canada was one that was affordable, and he blamed the Liberal government for dividing Canada through their rhetoric. When asked how he would end divisive rhetoric, he had no answer. Patrick Brown was faced with the same follow-up question, and he gave a better answer in that he would develop relationships, fight for every Canadian, and earn their trust. It was interesting, though, that in a debate that was supposed to be about policy, a lot of the Candidates didn’t really offer any real policy insights and instead just spouted their own rhetoric that could be seen as divisive, especially Poilievre, Baber, and Lewis. “Firing the gatekeepers” is not policy; “returning to a credible democracy” is not policy; “Trudeau was wrong about everything that had to do with the convoy, and it was always peaceful” is not policy; simply ending the carbon-tax is not a tenable environmental policy. Granted, there were several bright spots where the candidates discussed specific policies they would implement, including Lewis, Baber, and Poilievre, but mostly Charest and Aitchison, but the debate was filled with a lot of rhetoric and a lot of “us versus them”. It’ll be interesting to see if they can continue to spout their rhetoric while simultaneously criticizing the rhetoric spewing of others once they’re no longer speaking to a crowd that is already inclined to agree with them. Eventually, you have to think that someone’s going to push back and make the hypocrisy clear.

8. The environment may very well be doomed. This is not to say that the current Liberal government is actively protecting the environment and that the situation is so much better now than it would be under a conservative government, but it’s clear that the CPC has not evolved to a point where climate change and environmental policy are atop their list of concerns. Several candidates said they would increase oil and gas output, increase mining, build more pipelines, and that they would somehow do this while simultaneously (our word of the day if you haven’t noticed) protecting the environment. It is not possible to increase oil and gas production and lower emissions at the same time with the current technology and strategies being utilized by the oil and gas sector. Charest had an interesting answer when asked about his plan to reduce emissions where he mentioned that carbon capture and storage, blue and green hydrogen, biofuels, and small modular reactors would all be part of his environmental policy. He seems to be the only one thinking about reducing emissions beyond the carbon-tax.

9. This debate was bad. There were good answers, interesting answers, bad answers, and worrisome answers but the format of the debate was awful. The aforementioned trombone sound, the gimmicky rules, and gimmicky segments that saw candidates given paddles which they could use five times to engage in an actual debate with another candidate. Poilievre used all his paddles up pretty quickly and so had to stand in silence for the last 20 minutes or so. Lewis used her paddles and was unable to respond to statements directed at her. There was a period where the questions directed at the candidates asked them for their favourite genre of music, most recently binge-watched tv series, what book they’re reading now, their political heroes, and which historical figure they’d most like to have dinner with. There were some interesting answers, particularly from Roman Baber, who said he learned English from watching Married with Children with subtitles when he first immigrated to Canada, is an Amy Winehouse fan, and sees Margaret Thatcher as a political Hero, and Scott Aitchison, who revealed he’s recently been binge-watching Brooklyn 99. This is great content. It makes the candidates seem human, makes them more personal and relatable, and provided for some light moments during what was intended to be a serious debate. But it used up a lot of time. Time that could’ve been devoted to asking candidates about other pressing issues like housing, the job market, criminal justice reform, or education. Instead, if these issues were important to them, the candidates were forced to find a way to briefly mention them during their 30-45 second answers to other questions. It seemed wasteful, gimmicky, and very much like the goal was to entertain. Hopefully the French language debate on May 25th will be better.

And that’s it! Those are the 9 biggest takeaways from this debate. It wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t very good either. The best way to sum it up is that it generated interest, but not hope. Charest, Aitchison, and Brown seemed like the ones with the best plans for the country, while Poilievre seemed to be the most popular and the best at generating entertaining moments. It’s shaping up to be an interesting campaign. Here’s hoping something good comes out of it! You can watch the entire debate in full here. Cheers!