The decline of the federal Conservatives founded in 2003

Pondering wrote:

The report also found that voters associate the Conservative brand with the oil and gas industry, the military and religion, but not with diversity, equality or climate change.

I think unfortunately there are very many voters who value the oil and gas industry and other industries that contribute to climate change. I think very many Canadians also highly value religion and the military. I think unfortunately many Canadians are opposed to diversity. Many Canadians support income inequality because they feel capitalism requires inequality and capitalism generates wealth. Unfortunately very many Canadians also feel climate change is a hoax and even more Canadians feel that even if it is real Canada can't change it because our population is very small and climate change is caused mostly by other countries like the US, China, and, India. Very many Canadians also unfortunately believe that social programs make people weak and dependent. One example is the PC government political in Manitoba who's against school breakfast programs.

Pondering wrote:

 

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

The point is that Conservative ideology in Canada is not in decline and supported by vast amounts of money.

I am talking about the federal Conservative Party not ideology.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

The Liberals are in trouble as they have been for a while due to the difficulty of appealing to both right and left flanks. One bad leader and the Liberals are on life support again due to this division.

They are in trouble because Trudeau is a bad leader but even he couldn’t lose the election. There is no right/left division within the party. The Liberals don’t even have party members anymore so they aren’t a problem. The MPs tend to do what they are told. They appeal to the left through social policy and the right through fiscal policy. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-party-brand-survey-1.5411086

When asked which words people associate with the Conservative Party, the three most common terms volunteered were "old," "tradition," and "closed."

The report also found that voters associate the Conservative brand with the oil and gas industry, the military and religion, but not with diversity, equality or climate change.

(The survey deserves greater focus so I will address the non-existent evidence within later.)

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

  We do not care about the label.

Is that a royal “we”?

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

But there is no decline that can be predicted in all seriousness. Again the premise of the thread is ridiculous.

Ok boomer.

I don't want to spend much time responding to this especially as it ends with a silly comment given that from what you have said befre I think you are older than I am. 

I already said that the Conservatives in the last election lost becuase of Ford not becuase of Scheer. A swing towards the Conservatives happened everywhere but Quebec and Ontario. There has been many studies about why it did not happen in Ontario but they all come back to Ford. If the Conservative swing that happened elsewhere had been replicated in Ontario Trudeau would have lost. The Conservatives historically have never done that well federally when they had a wall of Conservatives in power provincially. 

The we is the people saying your focus on the party over the ideology is silly and that the ideology is secure in both support and funding to be a second or first party. Pretty much the we is everyone in this thread but you.

Your link to the branding article does not really support your thesis with any good read. The party is due for a brand update says the article. Nothing there suggests this cannot be done. As well the Conservative supporters "see the party as "trusting, caring, honest, realistic and good."" The opposition to them will see them as negative. So really not much there other than the need to convert perhaps another 5% which is not something we did not know already.

These associations as well as the industry ones are subject to branding changes that the Conservatives have a tremendous amount of money to initiate.

Pondering wrote:

"Ok boomer" is about mindset not just age. Thinking that because something has always been it will always be so is part of it. The "argument" you are presenting is rooted in that thinking. 

Arguing from the perspective of ideology when the argument being presented is about the political party is called using strawman arguments. 

I have long argued that red Tories will move to the Liberals so claiming it will happen is not refuting my argument it is supporting it. (Unless you think the Conservatives can win without red Tories.)

I am also curious about which Conservative ideology you are referring to. So con ideology? Free market ideology? PC ideology? 

A party that admits it needs a branding change is a party that is admitting they can't win an election. Needing one doesn't mean one with the potential to succeed will be found.  A party that used to win elections and can no longer win elections is in decline by definition. They should have won the past election and they know it.

Is there a brand that both the base and new voters will both support? I say there is not and money can't buy one just like money can't force EE through Quebec. 

You say there is a brand that will satisfy the base and bring in new voters so spit it out. 

I have presented the argument that red tories will move to the Liberals drawing the Liberals farther to the right multiple times. That would leave the Conservative party with the so cons and free market libertarians.

The first stage will be the Conservatives remaining in second place and the Liberals with a tenuous minority or a majority depending on current events during the election period. The Conservatives have one more shot at a minority.

The insistence of so-cons pushing their agenda and oil types hostile to any movement on climate change unless it includes pipelines is at odds with majority Canadian sentiment. Canadians are not necessarily against pipelines but they don't tie climate action to them no matter how many times Trudeau intones "the economy and the environment". The desire for legislation on abortion drives away centrists. 

There is a chance we will go close to a 30/30/30 type split with Conservatives unable to win and the Liberals winning minorities. There is a chance the Liberals will win multiple massive majorities.

There will be more fires, more floods, more tornadoes, more invasive species, more crop failures. Canada is well placed to deal with it in comparision to other countries but that will not comfort farmers or the people who are being burnt or flooded out of their homes. They are not going to want to be told there is no hope. They will expect a whole lot of socialist help adjusting to the reality of climate change not just low taxes especially not for corporations.

The biggest wildcard is the NDP. They may remain as they are, cautious and on the fence, which will send voters to the Greens. They could get honest about climate change and commit to transitioning. That would take voters from the Greens. Refugees from the ever more right wing Liberals could pull the NDP more to the centre or prevent progressives within the party from pulling the party left. I could see the NDP splitting to create a more progressive party leaving the rump to the Liberals and moderates. 

https://abacusdata.ca/get-the-next-10-reflections-and-data-on-how-the-conservatives-can-grow/

In order to win in 2019, the Conservative will need to find a way to hold their current support base together while finding a way to convert about half of those who are currently open to voting for them but are either committed to another party or undecided....

They did not win in 2019 because they didn't achieve the above. I don't think it can be done anymore. They cannot win without becoming Liberal Lite and they can't hold their base if they do become Liberal Lite. 

There is no room for the Conservatives to move left without bumping into the Liberals and offending their base. Alberta is land-locked, at the mercy of others to get oil to market. From what I have read Trans Mountain does not guarantee a new oil boom. Their western base is becoming more militant not less so. They will insist on the party rejecting the carbon tax federally. 

I don't see a longterm viable path for the Conservative Party.

Ok boomer is a dsimissive comment about an older mindset based on age. A mindset that I do not ahve and is not relevant. This is based on facts and argument -- you pick insults and I won't get back into the pissing contests with you but I won't bother to read any more right now from you either. I am too pissed off to read anything you wrote in this last post after it. Your choosing this way of responding made it clear that you had nothing of value to say.

So maybe you wrote it for others who may read it but your approach does not make me want to waste the time.

Pondering wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Ok boomer is a dsimissive comment about an older mindset based on age. A mindset that I do not ahve and is not relevant. This is based on facts and argument -- you pick insults and I won't get back into the pissing contests with you but I won't bother to read any more right now from you either. I am too pissed off to read anything you wrote in this last post after it. Your choosing this way of responding made it clear that you had nothing of value to say.

So maybe you wrote it for others who may read it but your approach does not make me want to waste the time.

Rather than dealing with arguments presented you fall back on insisting the premise of the thread is ridiculous and pointless, and yet here you are.  Your idea of facts and arguments is "I can prove this was therefore it will always be."  That is the textbook meaning of "Ok boomer". 

The "me and my gang agree so we must be right" is a particularly weak argument. Being in the majority doesn't make one right particularly when it is a majority of 2, or maybe 3, I'm not counting.

Participate, don't, I don't care. Treat me with respect and it will be returned. Give me attitude and that too will be returned. 

I dealt with you on topic and you threw out the ok boomer personal dismissiveness. 

I did present arguments. You have reverted to your previous habit of going personal and then pretending to be a victim and I declined to go down the rabbit hole. Nothing I said was an attack on you -- all was on your argument. You left the topic to throw this at me and any chance I would read the following post from you went down the toilet.

I suspect you are a boomer who had this thrown at you. 

IT is not about how people treat you. It is about how you earn disresepct. Throwing out that comment in this context is only going to get the other person to shut down on you -- especially since it was nothing to do with a generational argument and our ages had nothing to do with the topic. 

Our difference of opinion is based on my contention that the Conservative party has enough advantages to prevent it from falling to third place. This is due to the fact that they remain the party of capital interests. The details about positions that can be changed are not serious enough to drop them to third place (from their present first) any time soon.

Don't be rude to people and then expect respect. Not going to happen becuase it would be fake.

Pondering wrote:

A party that used to win elections and can no longer win elections is in decline by definition.

Do you think the Liberals would have been able to barely hang on to government if Kathleen Wynne was still the premier of Ontario during the election?

I do think a good case can be made that the Conservative Party of Canada is for the foreseeable future likely stuck in second place with a narrow route to forming a federal government.

On that last comment of Pondering's, nobody would disagree that one of the other parties has to drop to third for the NDP to be first (just think of the mathematical possibilities of three parties -- if 3rd becomes 1st someone else has to be third....) However, the only parties able to drop to third for any extended period are the Liberals or the NDP unless the Conservatives take the Liberal brand and make that the conservative party. The reason is Conservativism is too entrenched to drop this far except as a branding issue. There will be, for the foreseeable future, a Conservative party taking on either a centre or a centre-left party.

People have pointed out that the Conservatives could stagnate in second, however. A close split between the centre and centre left would have the Conservatives go to first. The only way for the NDP to be first or consistently second is to drive through the Liberal party. The reason is that the NDP and Liberals fight over enough of the same ground in rhetoric and politics (even considering their ideology and policies are very, very different). This is why the NDP and Liberals often fight harder with each other than with the Conservatives to the frustration, often, of supporters, who want them to concentrate on challenging the Conservatives -- even through cooperation.

You can understand this best if you calculate the number of basic binary directions you either are for or against. The Conservatives are consistenly on the side of small government, traditional values (even though those do change over time, fiscal and social conservativism. The Liberals flirt with conservative policies but mostly oppose Conservative positions politically if not in policy. This is why the NDP are seen, particularly by Conservatives, as Liberals in a hurry -- or more extreme Liberals.

The Liberals present more spending, more compassion (maybe not real but this is what is sold), bigger more involved government, etc.

The NDP often consider the Liberals to be pointing in the correct direction, waving at it, but determined not to venture down that path. 

The reality is that the true "conservative" party today is the Liberals. They represent where things got to a couple generations ago. The Conservatives want to "reform" back to where things were four generations ago. The Conservatives used to be the stagnation party. Now that is the Liberal party while the Conservaatives are activists for a change back to a distant past before the progress of the 20th century. In this sense the NDP is closer to the Liberals who are at least advocating for the policies of living memory. The NDP represents an equality and future that has never been. The Liberals represent the compromises of the 20th century while the Conservatives oppose those compromises and want radical shifts back to the 19th century, a time before women voting, of slavery and exploitation, of no unions. Just with a modern packaging.

Liberals represent the establishment, the Conservatives are always pushing for more radical take over by capitalists. The Conservatives often do more while the Liberals take tepid steps unless the New Democrats give them a shove. By shoving them the electorate takes it as cooperation and further blur understanding of the difference between the parties. 

Still, take position after position -- apart from degrees, you can be for or against: immigration loads of policies but mostly for or against. Lower taxes: same thing. The Conservatives, unless they effectively take over the Liberals are distinct in a sound-bite. The NDP and Liberals require more knowledge than the average voter to distinguish except by degrees. The NDP philosophy is something that is not understood by many except as to mean greater compassion, more spending and more involvement -- all on things the Liberals claim to do more moderately. It is true that the NDP is grounded historically in the concept of the working person while the Liberals are in the concept of the "middle" -- but even these can be seen to overlap. The Conservatves? The owners, the money, the investors. No clear overlap there. In policy the Liberals and the Conservatives are often the closest in political campaign rhetoric, to the frustration of the NDP, it is the NDP and Liberals.

 It is climate change and the waning of the oil industry that will do them in. 

Percentage, by country, of people in 2015 agreeing that "Climate Change Is A Very Serious Problem"...

Canada 51%

And even with that, it's almost certainly the case that not all of the 51% will be voting with climate as their top issue.

(By the way, the rest of that chart makes for some very instructive reading. I know it's a few years old now, but for the United Freaking Kingdom to be as low as 41% at so recent a date...)

https://tinyurl.com/tenvgxd

I think MacKay is a relatively savvy politician so in the next election the Conservatives will likely have a policy on climate change included in their election platform that will gain a lot of support from Canada's centre and centre-right voters. The Conservatives will probably stress innovative Canadian technologies and some increased regulations and getting rid of the "carbon tax." I think the Conservatives first priority is to win power and that will insure that they innovate with the times. That's what has happened in Canada since Confederation. Canada's economic elite that lead the Conservatives will insist that the Conservatives have a credible policy on climate change in order to have a good chance at forming government at the next election.

Jason Kenney endorses Erin O'Toole for Conservative leadership

Mar 05, 2020

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney — one of the most prominent voices in Canada's Conservative movement — has thrown his support behind Erin O'Toole's bid to become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

---

"No one will have their deeply-held beliefs dismissed as 'stinking albatrosses' under Erin O'Toole's leadership."

More at link:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kenney-otoole-conservative-leader-1.5487456

I think all MacKay has to do to propose something that sounds good to many people on the centre and centre-right is to come up with a plan that stresses technological innovation and a few moderate environmental regulations. 

Michael Moriarity wrote:

JKR wrote:

I think all MacKay has to do to propose something that sounds good to many people on the centre and centre-right is to come up with a plan that stresses technological innovation and a few moderate environmental regulations. 

That's all the Liberals do, so yeah, it would be enough.

My guess is the Liberals will do more soon.

The Liberals follow the middle. They do not lead. However, I believe that in the next couple years the effects of climate change that is visible to even the ignorant will continue to become more obvious and less deniable. Public demand will push the Liberals. Let's face it this conversation exists becuase public demand is starting to push the Conservatives.

Our problem is that the public is moving too slowly.

Forget the politicians for a moment -- they follow gutlessly. You need better strategies to influence public opinion. We are not going to elect any government that will lead (they will be destroyed by the opposition). But they all will follow to some degree. You have to increase all measures to go around the politicians. 

Climate deniers and the right have had the advantage becuase simplistic solutions and dramatic stories travel faster than truth. The environment is in collapse in a number of areas. This is making change impossible to ignore. People have to really go after the mindset and means that move opinion. Go  after more stories like this:

https://time.com/5318245/coffee-industry-climate-change/

No coffee can be lived without. My point is not to declare a coffee emergency. The point is that it is further evidence that strikes home that something is happening.

People need to stop assuming that climate change can be mitigated at the ballot box. Politicians will do nothing untill a critical mass of people demand it. We have rising numbers but there is no critical mass at the intensity required. People have to consider the methods of communication -- news, stats, reports are not cutting it. Look how the denial campaign works. Answer it.

On Power and Politics today, a three member Conservative panel discussed their leadership race, noting that while Peter McKay is ahead, social conservative Leslyn Lewis has growing support that could put her ahead of Erin O'Toole on the first ballot. They also discussed some of the problems this could create. 

Kory Teneycke, former Harper Director of Communications, said his visit to Saskatchewan makes him believe that Lewis has a good chance of coming first in the province and that in this province her support is not coming primarily from social conservatives but from the Wexit group, who Teneycke say already have one foot out of the Conservative party. 

Jenni Byrne, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Harper, agreed that Lewis is "picking up steam, has a broad range of support, and is taking momentum away from O'Toole". She agreed with Tenenycke that she might even finish second, even though O'Toole is pitching himself to the right of McKay by focusing on issues such as asylum seekers crossing the Quebec border. She sees the voting possibly going three ballots, the maximum possible in a four person race.

Shakir Chambers, senior policy consultant at Navigator, agreed that support for Lewis is growing. 

Teneycke said that Lewis's growing support is a concern for the party in that it reflects the growth of Wexiters, "who already have one foot out of the party." He felt the divisions within the party created during the campaign could be hard to heal. 

I am certainly no expert in Conservative internal politics and the Conservative panel members could have their leadership race campaign reasons for arguing that Lewis might be climbing past O'Toole, but it seems to me that feeding the social conservative beast for decades is coming home to roost for the Cons, creating divisions in the party that will be hard to heal and making the party lose voters who might otherwise might vote for them in some circumstances because these voters see the party moving further and further to the right on the spectrum and well outside the political mainstream in a poltical time warp.

Decision tonight. 

Coming soon. The machine that was supposed to remove the 175K ballots from their envelopes actually damaged 3-4K ballots so severely that they had to be manually recopied onto fresh ballots before the counting machines would accept them. Latest ETA, 11:45pm EDT, in about 9 minutes as I type.

Where's Trudeau to grab a Conservative by the arm and get things moving when you need him?

;-)

CBC is saying that 63% of Sloan's supporters were saying in polls had Lewis at 20% as a second choice so she will likely gain the most but not overtake O'Toole at 31%, who is the likely winner on the third ballot. This leaves the Cons with the same dilemma as before how to broaden their base with such a large part of the base being social conservatives. Cory Tenyke just said if Lewis spoken even a little French she might have won. 

NDPP wrote:

Putin obviously.

Does that he'll be Canada's leader for 36 years, as in Russia.