Right now, Conservative voters are being treated as if they lack any leverage. That can change rapidly.
April 28, 2021
In politics, it is always dangerous when any large group is treated as lacking leverage.
The moment that starts to happen, politicians begin taking them for granted.
And when politicians take a group for granted, they demand their votes, their support, their volunteer hours, yet feel they owe them virtually nothing in return.
This can often go on for a long-time, as loyalty to a party brand, and antipathy to a shared opponent is a potent method of inducing the desired behavior – in this case how someone votes.
However, over time the feeling of being taken advantage of generates rising resentment, and that resentment does not stay suppressed forever.
We are seeing that resentment now among many in the Conservative Party, and among those who have left.
It had been building for some time, beginning with perceptions (fair or not), about Maxime Bernier being sidelined after nearly winning the leadership race, rising as the West was increasingly damaged by Liberal government policy that the Conservatives were unable to stop, and with Erin O’Toole’s abrupt shift from ‘True Blue’ in the leadership race to the same ‘Liberal Lite’ attitude he accused Peter MacKay of possessing.
Of course, the biggest tipping point was O’Toole’s blatant flip on the carbon tax.
There is simply no way to get around the fact that he blatantly lied to Conservatives, and then tried to use the same rhetorical games as Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley to claim it wasn’t a tax.
Further, not only did he break a promise – a promise he had made repeatedly – his ‘plan’ is a clear violation of Conservative principles, as it takes your money and puts it into an account that can only be used for things the government agrees with – with O’Toole and his colleagues presumably picking which items are ‘green enough’ for you to be ‘allowed’ to spend your own money on.
Stunningly, most Conservative MPs didn’t even hear about the plan until it was leaked to the CBC, and announced by O’Toole shortly thereafter.
For many, this was a tipping point, a point at which they could no longer pretend they didn’t see what was going on.
Erin O’Toole has settled on a strategy of completely taking Conservatives for granted, offering them little – if any – actual ‘conservativism,’ yet demanding their votes, their money, and their effort.
Lets look at a few key areas of Conservative thought, and see what O’Toole is offering.
Social conservatives
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