Tariffs threaten jobs. Market volatility threatens savings. Misleading pronouncements about the risks of Western separation threaten the democracy on which we rely to manage these economic risks.
As a born and bred British Columbian, I get vexed when narrow interests claim to speak for “Western alienation”– as Preston Manning did recently in an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail and on CBC’s The House.
Let’s be honest. Mr. Manning isn’t speaking for “the West.” He’s channelling discontent from those who identify with a particular brand of populist conservatism. We shouldn’t mistake their perception with fact, nor their ideological frustration for regional consensus.
Mr. Manning suggests that casting your vote differently than him is tantamount to voting to dismantle Canada; it is grievance politics framed as regional victimhood. We must call it out at every turn to protect our citizenship and our wallets.
Recent polling hardly signals a consensus that “the West” won’t tolerate people choosing to vote differently than Mr. Manning. A survey by Nanos Research showed 45 per cent of Prairie respondents and 64 per cent of those in British Columbia support parties other than the Conservatives. (The poll conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV, surveyed 1,239 Canadians from April 6 to 8. It has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Respondents were asked: For those parties you would consider voting for federally, could you please rank your top two current local preferences? The full methodology for all surveys can be found at: tgam.ca/polls.)
Mr. Manning’s constituency often professes conservatism, yet flip-flops on core conservative principles when it suits them.
His own record illustrates the point. As an adviser to Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, Mr. Manning supported carbon pricing. “Conservatives … profess to believe in market mechanisms,” he said in 2015. “That means ascertaining the environmental costs of [an] activity and incorporating those costs into the price.”
This position is textbook small-c conservatism: make prices signal the true cost of one’s transaction. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau eventually adopted this idea at Mr. Manning’s and others’ encouragement.
Yet now Mr. Manning says the Liberals have lost credibility in the West – despite his own on-the-record support for what was arguably one of their central energy policies of the past decade. He also plays down Ottawa’s multibillion-dollar investment in the Trans Mountain pipeline, overlooks the fact that former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper didn’t get new pipelines built, and ignores how solar and wind are often the cheapest power options.
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I appreciate that Mr. Manning’s concern with the Trudeau government includes its failure to balance the budget. But to imply that the current Conservative Leader is uniquely positioned to fix the budget doesn’t line up with what we’ve heard so far in this campaign.
Pierre Poilievre talks tough on inflationary deficit spending, pledging not to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need. But eliminating the examples of wasteful spending to which he points, such as the CBC (approximately $700-million) and foreign aid ($7-billion), won’t get the job done. Their price tags are small compared with the $42-billion deficit projected for 2025.
If Mr. Manning were serious about balancing the budget, he’d call on Mr. Poilievre to revisit Mr. Harper’s efforts to tackle the largest and fastest-growing federal program: Old Age Security. OAS will cost $86-billion in 2025 – $42-billion more than it did a decade ago, which happens to be the size of the current deficit.
OAS contributes more to the deficit than any other federal program. In the midst of an affordability crisis, OAS sends an $18,000 subsidy to retired couples with household incomes that reach $180,000 – and does so using borrowed money.
Mr. Poilievre also emphasizes cutting the civil service to balance the books – as does Liberal Leader Mark Carney. But even a 20-per-cent reduction in federal bureaucrats would save only about $25-billion. That still doesn’t plug the deficit hole, especially when promised tax cuts from both Conservatives and Liberals would likely deepen it further – as will the projected growth of OAS to $100-billion annually by 2028.
As someone who has spent 45 of my 50 years in B.C. – in both the conservative-leaning Interior and more progressive urban areas – I get frustrated when “the West” is conflated with a brand of populist conservatism that often betrays actual conservative principles.
We should all be indignant when we’re accused of betraying our country if we don’t vote the way Mr. Manning wants. There’s no room for such sentiment when a well-functioning democracy is essential to protect Canada from U.S. threats to our economy and sovereignty.
Dr. Paul Kershaw is a policy professor at the University of British Columbia and the founder of Generation Squeeze, Canada’s leading voice for generational fairness. He offers policy advice to governments of all party stripes.