I feel sorry for Conservative voters in this leadership race

KAMOURASKA, QUE.—There was a short-lived television show called A.P. Bio, which ran for a few seasons starting in 2018. I liked it, despite the fact the premise was a bit weak: Jack Griffin, a fired Harvard PhD, returns to his old hometown of Toledo, Ohio, to teach high school. One of the students, Marcus, is a well-meaning nerd, who wears bow ties and sweater vests, and is slim, short, has black curly hair and wears glasses. Griffin continually berates him. Although Marcus is incredibly bright, it is hard to find him likeable, because he is so nerdy. What is extraordinary about him is his resemblance to Conservative leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre. And therein lies the problem with Poilievre: he looks, sounds, and acts like all those smart-alecky kids you knew in high school who drove you crazy. Of course, as Bill Gates has proven, the geeks shall inherit the earth. And they have: the richest, most influential people in the world were kids who could not get a date for the prom. So, to Poilievre. To paraphrase Winston Churchill on Russia, he is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, operating a Twitter account. How else to explain someone who followed the government’s apology on residential schools by suggesting Indigenous peoples “need to engender the values of hard work and independence”? He proposed investing in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, just before it cratered. And, of course, the man known as “Skippy” has associated himself at every opportunity with the anti-vaxx lawbreakers who occupied Ottawa last winter. Lisa Raitt, who was in cabinet with Poilievre for several years, shared with listeners of the Curse of Politics podcast that “Pierre runs his own campaigns, runs his own Question Period, is very single minded, and does everything alone.” Meanwhile, Jean Charest is arguably one of the best retail politicians in Canada. He of the passionate passport-waving speech in the 1995 referendum campaign, who remembers everyone’s name and speaks perfect, colloquial, unaccented French and English. There is a great story of why Charest left federal politics to become leader of the Quebec Liberals: he was cornered at a party in Montreal and told by a very powerful federalist business leader “you have to run.” And now he is the great white hope of instant Conservatives signing up in droves to stop the Poilievre machine. These are people who never worked for a candidate, or even contemplated supporting them in the last decade. While Charest is a media darling, people forget his own checkered past: calling a judge, encouraging then-prime minister Brian Mulroney to congratulate disgraced sprinter Ben Johnson on live TV before Johnson’s drug test was revealed. As Quebec premier, Charest convinced Stephen Harper to pay $700-million to Quebec for the “fiscal imbalance,” then used it to cut taxes. He waded into the swamp of Quebec nationalism by ensuring all former premiers kept the title for life, as if they were American presidents. And on to Patrick Brown, once promoted as a stalking horse for Charest. Now he evidently has signed up more members than Charest. He also led the charge against Quebec’s aberrant secular law, Bill 21, which won’t gain the unilingual Brown many votes there. Leslyn Lewis is a brilliant Black woman. But she embraces causes most Canadians who might identify with her, don’t. Then there are the Conservatives who should have run and didn’t. Gérard Deltell, Michael Chong, Caroline Mulroney, Ben Mulroney. Deltell is a genuine Conservative, but he shied away because his English is not good enough. That didn’t stop Jean Chrétien. Chong is humble, good looking, and progressive—all things that eliminate him from contention. Either of the Mulroneys would add some pizazz to the campaign. However, “interesting Conservative” is an oxymoron. But what is a Conservative anyway? It used to mean someone fiscally conservative who was anti-crime, favoured the international status quo, and was cautious about social movements. And now? What does this crop of candidates offer? That is why I feel sorry for the Conservative Party. It appears they are going to end up with the nerd no one likes or knows. And repeat the abysmal results of the past. Andrew Caddell is retired from Global Affairs Canada, where he was a senior policy adviser. He previously worked as an adviser to Liberal governments. He is a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a town councillor in Kamouraska, Que. He can be reached at pipson52@hotmail.com. The Hill Times