The morning after one of the biggest political rallies in recent Canadian history, Pierre Poilievre was still buzzing.

In the wake of his policy announcement in Edmonton on Tuesday, he bantered with reporters. “When was the last time we had a rally that big in Canada?” he asked. “This is a movement like we’ve never seen. Because people want change.”

Something is happening, that’s for sure.

The 10,000-plus people who

joined the Conservative leader and his former boss, Stephen Harper

, in a vacant warehouse south of Edmonton are on board with the concept of change. In the West of the country, there is deep disquiet about the resurrection of the Liberals and the potential impact on the resource sector.

Harper said that the bulk of the problems affecting the country such as falling living standards, declining employment and housing opportunities, rising crime and regional divisions were created by three Liberal terms in government, “policies the present prime minister supported and wants a fourth Liberal term to continue.”

Poilievre picked up on the theme at his event the next morning, boiling the election down to a fourth Liberal term or change to a Conservative government that would cut taxes, build homes and “unleash” the resource industry. “That’s the choice,” he said.

It’s the strongest message track Poilievre has to play but it is being drowned out by the cacophony of anxieties around Donald Trump’s efforts to reorder the world trading system.

The president has not talked about annexing Canada or mentioned the 51st state canard in recent days but fears of recession, or worse, are preoccupying voters.

The bad news is good news for Mark Carney, who is seen as being best prepared to lead the country into an uncertain economic future.

That is the message track the Liberal campaign has sought to reinforce.

His wife, Diana Fox Carney, introduced him at an event in Richmond, B.C., on Monday night, calling him “cool and calm under pressure,” citing the example of the day after the Brexit vote in Britain when Carney was governor of the Bank of England.

“He had done the work, he was ready and knew what needed to be done to take the country through difficult days when no one else seemed to. That’s where we find ourselves today,” she said.

At his morning event in Delta, B.C., Carney said Trump is trying to fundamentally restructure the U.S. economy and, in the process, is rupturing the global economy, leading to volatility on global financial markets.

“That is putting retirement savings at risk and people’s livelihoods, from the auto industry in Ontario to forestry workers in B.C., in jeopardy,” he said.

The writers of the political satire Veep once appropriated the slogan of Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull “continuity with change” because it sounded “hollow and oxymoronic.”

But essentially, Carney is campaigning on “stability with change.” He is promising to protect what Canadians have, while adapting to the world that is morphing beyond recognition. “Business as usual will not work; the status quo cannot stand,” he said.

His critics accuse him of

engaging in a kind of Project Fear

, the scaremongering that was employed by the Remain side during the Brexit referendum.

But the Remain warnings turned out to be a reality check, not groundless pessimism, and Canadians don’t need much convincing that the Trump administration really does want our water, our land and our resources.

Carney imparts all this in funereal tones, with a face so grave it looks like it should be peering from a coffin.

He talked about “building our way out of an economic crisis,” providing $25 billion in financing for prefabricated and modular housing and cutting development charges and taxes on new homes in half for multi-unit housing.

Retrofits for heat pumps and roof and window replacements will be paid for from the new large emitter carbon credit market (the industrial carbon tax) that

he has yet to explain

.

“These are insurmountable challenges if, like Pierre Poilievre, your only plan involves fiddling with the tax code and slashing programs that work,” he said.

Carney says he is not a career politician but “a pragmatist” who has appeared in the nick of time to address a series of crises, as if some kind of Bat Signal has been projected over the northern skies to summon a saviour during the country’s darkest hour.

It is a measure of the critical situation that Canadians feel themselves to be in that so many are willing to take so much on faith.

The polls suggest that many people who had forsaken the Liberals have come back and see in Carney the experienced centrist they believe the country needs. Those people have, for whatever reason, decided that Poilievre cannot be extended the same level of trust.

The latest 

Angus Reid Institute poll

 suggests 50 per cent of voters view Carney as the best prime minister, compared to just 28 per cent for Poilievre.

There are signs that the Liberal leader’s positive momentum may be slowing: the Angus Reid poll said that the net percentage whose view of him has improved, against those whose view has worsened, is dipping slightly. But he remains firmly in net positive territory, in stark contrast to Poilievre, who polls show has been unable to improve perceptions among people who are not hardcore supporters.

A Trump-like focus on the number of people who attended his rallies is unlikely to change those views.

The Conservatives simply have to put doubt in the minds of the jury about whether Carney has the right stuff if they are to have any chance of victory in the second half of the campaign.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca

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Despite what you may have heard

,

these are not happy times for separatists

— not separatists from Quebec, and not separatists from Alberta. “National unity,” on the other hand, is a much more fraught question.

Leger’s latest results

on Quebec sovereignty, released late last month, suggest the referendum the Parti Québécois has promised to hold in its first term in government might yield a 68 per cent “no” to separation vote. That’s 10 points worse than in 1980. Fully 30 per cent of respondents who intend to vote PQ in the next provincial election intend to vote “no,” as do 56 per cent of those intending to vote Québec Solidaire and a whopping 79 per cent intending to vote for the governing Coalition Avenir Québec.

These aren’t just losing conditions. They’re obliteration conditions.

Recent polls have Mark Carney’s Liberals eating Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet’s lunch in Quebec, at 44 per cent to 24 per cent, according to polling analyst Philippe J. Fournier’s running average. The Conservatives are just behind at 23 per cent — which would be a great result for the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre.

A Poilievre government might be good news for nationalists. On federal-provincial relations, he is a proud non-interventionist, even (at least sometimes) when he disagrees with provincial policy. But if anything, a federal government that respects Quebec’s autonomy is a

threat

to separatism, because it denies nationalists their most traditional foil: Ottawa’s supposedly appalling disrespect..

If I were concerned about Quebec separatism, I would consider all this good news. Better a federalist party than a separatist party. But I’m not concerned about Quebec separatism, for the same reason I’m not concerned about Alberta separatism: Not enough people support it, and there’s no obvious prospect of that changing.

The Angus Reid Institute published a poll on Sunday finding only 30 per cent of Albertans would vote for sovereignty

even if the Liberals formed the next government

— just 25 per cent otherwise. Losing conditions, if ever there were any.

That came days after Preston Manning

wrote an article

warning of resurgent Western separatism. He warned “large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it.”

I’m not sure polls back this up any more than they do the Quebec narrative. But many Laurentian types are appalled by this talk, needless to say —

in his pro-carbon-tax era

, Manning was, for a time, their kind of conservative — but 30 per cent really isn’t that many people in the midst of historic economic upheaval.

Indeed, “national unity” is a much bigger question than “sovereignty,” and I think it would be silly not to worry about it at least a bit. (Although I will note that despite its size and widely varying regional interests, the PR firm Edelman’s “trust index” in 2023 found

Canada to be only “moderately” polarized

, similar to much smaller and less economically diverse countries like the Netherlands, France, Ireland and Germany.) The double standard with which Central Canadians, Liberals in particular, treat the ideas of Quebec and Western separatism, has always been utterly flagrant. Quebec separatism: Mortal threat, to be countered however possible

(see: Sponsorship Scandal).

Alberta separatism: Just stupid.

To take just the first and most execrable example that showed up on my timeline on Tuesday morning, Ontario Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden

sneeringly congratulated Poilievre for his Monday-evening endorsement by Stephen Harper

. “(Harper) joins felons like Conrad Black, conspiracy fraudsters like Alex Jones, nazi-saluters like Elon Musk, and far-right influencers Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro. Good company!”

Would he say something similar if François Legault endorsed Poilievre (

as he more or less did Erin O’Toole)

? Like fun he would.

Legault has done things that Alberta Premier Smith would never do include banning police officers, teachers and certain other public servants from wearing turbans, hijabs, crucifixes or kippahs on the job — as the Quebec government did with Bill 21.

Smith has said Alberta will join on Quebec’s side once Bill 21 gets to the Supreme Court, in order to stand up for the notwithstanding clause that shields the law from the Charter. That’s understandable, if not ideal. Mind you I’m not sure Mark Carney knows what Bill 21 even is: On Friday

, the Toronto Star’s Althia Raj reported, he actually said he had “no opinion” on the matter

.

If this is where Alberta and Quebec finally join forces in earnest to fight the feds, in the courts or in general, it would in one sense be natural. But it would also be far less than ideal. Freedom of all sorts, not least religious, should be Alberta’s nationality as well as Canada’s. And indeed,

a Leger poll in February 2024 found Prairie voters were the most opposed of any region to both Bill 21 and Bill 96

, which attacks minority language rights. (Both are now law in Quebec.) Forty-four per cent of Albertans said they felt the laws were discriminatory, and only 18 per cent said they weren’t.

Meanwhile Poilievre, while himself quite rightly a defender of the notwithstanding clause (he would probably need it to mop up Canada’s justice system, for starters), has made no bones whatsoever what he thinks about Bill 21.

Asked by Radio-Canada in an interview last week about the bill,

he cited a Sikh member of his security detail who wears a turban.

“He’s ready to save my life. He’s ready to save the life of my children by giving his own. Should I tell him he can’t have a job because he’s wearing a turban?” Poilievre asked rhetorically. “I don’t agree.”

Not agreeing is fine, so long as there is basic mutual respect. Central Canadians clearly feel Western Canadians are out to lunch on the subject of sovereignty, in a way they don’t feel about Quebec sovereignty. But they’re the same exact thing. If Alberta and Quebec do join forces against Ottawa in earnest, Central Canada will only have itself to blame.

National Post

cselley@postmedia.com

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Liberal Leader Mark Carney should feel right at home in Alberta: after all, he was raised there. But his trip there this week feels more like a political minefield than a homecoming. That’s largely due to his recent quip that while he’s happy to dispatch Ontario Premier Doug Ford to advocate for Canada in Washington, he wouldn’t send Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

Since Smith has openly plumped for the election of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, the line got a lot of laughs. But unsurprisingly, she didn’t think it was funny, accusing Carney of dissing a “strong Conservative woman.” While playing the feminist card is a little over the top, Smith’s underlying message — that the federal Liberals disrespect Alberta — has a longstanding history.

During the 2000 election, while campaigning in New Brunswick, Liberal Leader

Jean Chrétien remarked

that, “I like to do politics with people from the east. Joe Clark and Stockwell Day are from Alberta. They are a different type.” He quickly added, “I’m joking,” before saying, “I’m serious.” The next day, he somewhat apologized, noting that he had friends in Alberta, including cabinet minister David Kilgour, whose office received so many angry calls, he arranged a press conference to say that Chrétien was “obviously joking.”

In 2010,

Justin Trudeau told

a Quebec TV host that, “Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda.” When asked whether Canada was “better served when there are more Quebecers in charge than Albertans,” he replied, “I’m a Liberal, so of course I think so, yes,” adding that Canada’s greatest prime ministers were all from Quebec and that, “This country, Canada, it belongs to us.”

The comments resurfaced during Trudeau’s leadership campaign in 2012, outraging westerners, including then-immigration minister Jason Kenney, who dubbed them “the worst kind of arrogance of the Liberal party,” reminiscent of the national energy program, which decimated the Alberta economy in the 1970s. After Justin Trudeau became prime minister, he imposed a national carbon tax and co-led

an international proposal

to end public financing of fossil-fuel projects.

Carney has long been

an advocate of

climate finance, which ties capital investment to climate goals to move to a net-zero economy. This is why despite dropping the consumer carbon tax, Carney maintained the industrial portion to incentivize companies to reduce their carbon footprints. This does not earn him a lot of love in oil-dependant Alberta, something he should be mindful of in the current political climate.

As the Liberal leader is quick to remind us, Canada’s biggest challenge is how to deal with the threat posed by a belligerent U.S. administration. This makes any additional internal strain highly unhealthy. At the moment, those strains are strongest in the West, where there are public figures only too eager to fan them, including Smith and former Reform party leader Preston Manning, who recently

called Carney

a “threat to national unity.”

It’s easy to dismiss Manning’s take as hyperbolic click-bait, but it reflects a belief that the Liberals have long treated Alberta as an afterthought. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also

warned

this week that western alienation is an issue in his province.

As prime minister, Carney must contend with those sentiments, even if he doesn’t agree with them. And if he wants to keep the job, he needs to ensure that he doesn’t get twinned with Trudeau in terms of attitudes on energy and the environment, not just for political purposes, but also for economic ones.

As Canadian industries from automobiles to aluminum buckle under the weight of U.S. tariffs, our energy sector becomes more important then ever. America needs our oil, but we also need to diversify our export markets, which means building pipelines. That will require national consensus, and national leadership. That leadership starts by respecting the West, and cutting out the jokes.

Postmedia Network

Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.

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TOP STORY

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has accused his opponent, Mark Carney, of “plagiarizing” the Tory platform.

The charge of agenda plagiarism has been floating around Conservative circles for quite some time, most notably in regards to the carbon tax. This time last year, the Liberal Party was fervently rejecting Conservative promises to cancel the carbon tax, defending carbon pricing as a policy that would put “more money in your pockets” via rebates. Now, after ending the carbon tax, Liberal Party literature is celebrating it as a move to put “more money in your pocket.”

But at a Saturday appearance in Osoyoos, B.C., Poilievre accused Carney of plagiarism over the issue of apprenticeship grants.

On March 31, the federal government officially ended the Apprenticeship Incentive Grant, a payout of several thousand dollars for Canadians taking up a certified trade, such as electrician or plumber.

One of Poilievre’s first campaign pledges, issued on March 21, after the cancellation was announced, was a promise to restore the grant — along with a package of other policies designed to push more Canadians into the trades.

On April 5, the Liberals rolled out a promise to “provide an Apprenticeship Grant of up to $8,000 for registered apprentices” — albeit without mentioning that they’d just ended a program doing just that.

Said Poilievre: “I can’t help but notice that Mr. Carney is contradicting himself again today as he plagiarizes my latest policy.”

Here are some other Conservative issues that have worked their way into the Liberal platform in recent weeks — and a comparison of how the Liberal version compares to the original.

Ending the carbon tax

The Conservatives talked of “axing” the carbon tax, and Liberals referred to it as “scrapping” the carbon tax. But otherwise, the end result was the same: The removal of the roughly 17-cent premium on gasoline that was imposed starting in 2019 as a way to disincentivize emissions by making fossil fuels more expensive.

Where the Liberal/Conservative carbon tax policies differ is that the Liberals have only promised to get rid of the “consumer” carbon tax. That is, the one that’s itemized on heating bills, or tacked on to purchases of motor fuel. They still plan to maintain taxes and industrial regulations that would hike the cost of emissions at an industrial level.

The Conservatives have promised to eliminate this second level of Canadian carbon tax, saying that whatever climate policy takes shape under a Conservative government, it would all be “carrot, not stick.”

Speeches

This isn’t a policy, but Carney has begun using lines in his speeches that are eerily similar to those being used by the Tories. Last week, the pro-Conservative group Canada Proud was circulating a video contrasting a Carney speech with a Poilievre speech that had been delivered only the day before. Here they are:

Poilievre: “What binds us together is the Canadian promise; that anyone, from anywhere, can achieve anything. That hard work gets you a great life in a beautiful, affordable home on a safe street protected by brave soldiers.”

Carney: “For generations, Canadians have built this great country on the idea that if you work hard … you should be able to afford a good life, have a good home in a welcoming and safe community.”

Housing affordability

Poilievre’s signature issue during his 2022 run for Conservative leadership was the notion of dispensing with the “gatekeepers” restricting housing development in Canada, and thus driving up the price of real estate.

This tracked pretty closely with a massive Liberal push on housing affordability, including the Housing Accelerator fund, a Liberal-devised program to incentivize municipalities to remove barriers to development.

Back in October, the Conservatives first wheeled out the idea of eliminating the GST on sales of new homes under $1 million.

On March 20, in one of his last acts before calling an election, Carney announced that his government was “eliminating the GST on all homes up to $1 million for first-time home buyers.”

Slogans

While politicians of all stripes often refer to Canada as the “best country” in the world, references to Canada as the “freest” country are quite rare. Prior to 2010, the term “freest country in the world” was only uttered in the House of Commons three times.

But Poilievre has adopted “freest country in the world” as a personal motto since 2012, and frequently ended speeches with it during his successful 2022 run for the Conservative Party. The phrase is so associated with Poilievre that rival Canadian politicians really only use it as a critique. Last September, for instance, Liberal House Leader Karina Gould said Poilievre “talks about making Canada the freest country in the world, but the only thing he has ever done is to take people’s freedoms away.”

On March 21, soon after his swearing-in as prime minister, Carney spoke of his desire to make Canada the “strongest, fairest and freest country in the world.”

LET’S POLL

Most polls have the Liberals somewhere between 44 and 46 per cent. But it’s a completely different story when it comes to the Conservatives. In 12 separate polls published over the course of the weekend, the Conservatives ranged from 34.9 per cent to 40 per cent.

Abacus Data remains an outlier in that it’s one of the few pollsters not to show a major Liberal lead. In fact, they think it’s a tie; surveys published on both April 3 and March 27 had both the Liberals and Conservatives with 39 per cent. As to why Abacus Data is so different, one factor might be that they’re weighting their results by voter turnout. Even if more habitual voters are planning to vote Liberal, Abacus’ data shows that the Conservatives are poised to disproportionately benefit from voters who would otherwise have stayed home.

GAFFETERIA

Last week saw Toronto-area Liberal candidate Paul Chiang quitting in the midst of controversy that he had joked about having his Conservative opponent — a wanted Chinese dissident — arrested by the Chinese government. And now the Liberals have picked Chiang’s replacement; Peter Yuen, also a former police officer.

Awkwardly, it didn’t take long for

a 2017 video to emerge

 in which Yuen, in full Toronto Police uniform, is seen singing the patriotic anthem My Chinese Heart. It was taken at a gala hosted by the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations.

FOREIGN INTERFERENCE

Canadians used to be able to have federal elections without knowing which outcome was favoured by hostile foreign governments (answer: they usually didn’t care). In the 2021 election, it was eminently clear that the People’s Republic of China favoured a Liberal victory. And that seems to be how it’s shaping up this time. Canada’s new election integrity task force sounded the alarm Monday that a series of moderately pro-Carney posts were making their way around Chinese social media with the apparent help of the Beijing government.

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