For over a year, Pierre Poilievre and his team have been putting out a remarkably disciplined message: we are not the Liberals. Campaigns are about contrast, and in its dark appraisal of the country’s current state, the Conservative Party has honed a rhetoric that offers frustrated Canadians an alternative. Judging by Poilievre’s current double-digit lead in the polls, the line of attack is working. But, too often, it seems exactly that—a line. Exaggerated talk. Combative but vacant. Called a “masterful rage farmer,” Poilievre speaks in punchy slogans (“Axe the tax,” “Spike the hike”) designed to channel the frustrations of a working class struggling to get through the day. The fact that the Conservative leader isn’t in a hurry to offer solutions to the resentments he’s stoking isn’t a sign of inattention or carelessness. It’s the whole strategy: tap into the collective desire of an unhappy electorate desperate to turn the page on Justin Trudeau. Poilievre is generating high hopes with pledges deliberately light on substance, and he has found his stride by not worrying about it. Win over voters first, figure out the details later. At The Walrus, we wanted to start figuring it out now. There are plenty of hints as to what a potential Poilievre administration would do—or, in some cases, not do—on a variety of files. The essays in this special series attempt to parse those signals.
—Carmine Starnino
