'Why would anyone go out for Diet Carney when you have the real thing at home?'
On convention week, and the state of the big blue tent.
Parliament is back in session (*throws rotten produce*), every day is being met by more elite panic, and the “elbows up” crowd, when they’re not too busy making claims they’re assembling curling-club suicide squads, have taken to outright displays of stolen valour.
In short — and I’m sure you feel the same — it’s all so very tiring.
Thankfully, what has been generative are the people: Good ones at that, who are working hard behind the scenes to pry Overton windows, draft social licenses, and who often go uncredited for doing so.
I’m bound for Conservative convention in Calgary this week, and it’s those ‘movement’ types I’m most interested in liaising with. Canadian conservatives have been so often defined by the party apparatus itself, that there’s been a kind of push-pull of late in media and online circles, decrying the apparent lack of thoughtless jingoism in the Big Blue Tent. We can pretend to blame low-information ‘influencers’ for that effect, or run back the slander of Covid mandate protests as some foreign op (they weren’t), but the small-c’s are asserting themselves in new and often interesting ways, and there was always going to be natural tension between explicit partisans, the old stock and the mushy, transactional, ‘go along to get along’ crowd, the well-meaning partisans, and the indies.
As a kind of independent, a purveyor of alternative programming, I have little interest in pretending the federal Conservatives are still on the ascendancy — they’re not. But they’re also in much more of a holding pattern than they’re being given credit for.
I think it’s fair to assume that Elbows Up 2: Electric Mobility-Scooter Boogaloo is on the horizon, just as it’s fair to afford some grace to an opposition, wholly trapped in not being able to out anti-American its incumbent opponent, no matter how in lockstep their approaches on Trump end up being. He’s wreaking havoc on right-wing change elections across the West, and we’re not special on that front. But he won’t be president forever.
Professional contrarians, bad-faith Tru-anons, and those lobbying for contracts won’t like to admit it, but there’s not a whole lot another campaign manager can do about that. Even Harper, O’Toole, and Scheer were cast as radical reformers when needed. (Remember the “14 words” O’Toole thing? F*ck that was dumb. And now Tru-anon pretend to like him.)
If a year gets tacked on to the reign of Team ‘Don’t ask us about our youth wing, housing, affordability, where we put our flags until now, or crime,’ that just kind of is what it is at this point.
I’d rather see the Official Opposition continue to build what they can for the short and medium term, even if that 38-41% are shamefully labelled as traitors the whole time.
Why would anyone go out for Diet Carney when you have the real thing at home? And as for that sugar-high offered by the genuine article — be it from antagonistic speeches scripted in “ChatGPT-ese”, ever-moving goalposts on tariff deals, or returning to the most Trudeau-y of grocery store ‘rebates’ (a sure-fire admittance our domestic economy remains in self-inflicted crisis) — no one is safe from the crash.
To further expand on the nutrient-deficiency of social panic, and with an eye towards rebuilding a hierarchy of needs — or a food pyramid, if you will — that offers something more substantial for all members of a nation capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, I was pleased to sit down with friends and colleagues Kate Marland and Cole Hogan ahead of our travels to Calgary.
And over on Juno News, a few weeks back I had a wonderful conversation with Stephen LeDrew, former Liberal Party president and Toronto-media mainstay in the 2000s and 2010s. Stephen's wit and candour shine through, and it meant a lot to get to sit down with a man who was so often the soundtrack of trips home from college, or work days in my 20s, given his omnipresence on CP24.
I’ll be back with what I learn in Calgary, and if you’re in and around convention do say hi. Just be forewarned: I am just as interested in spending a few days in the home of Stampede Wrestling as I am in serving as a media observer. Conversation mileage may vary.
Carney’s Chinese deal is fueling Alberta separation.
Apart from that if we end up in an election there will be a 24/7 push from media, China, foreign bots, pollsters and the liberals to demoralize and smear conservative voters. We must stand firm against all fear, rejection and attempts to demoralize.
More than tiring Alex. Waving a red flag in front of the U.S. bull, by cozying up to the red regime, seems mighty risky from both political and economic perspectives. The short-lived push back by Ontario's leader, seemed reasonable. Unfortunately, his appetite for common sense was sated by an unexpected visit to a pizza shop.