In the Weekly Wrap, editor-at-large Sean Speer analyses, exclusively for Hub subscribers, the big stories shaping politics, policy, and the economy in the week that was.
Don’t despair, conservatives
Soon after The Hub launched in April 2021, the Trudeau government tabled what seemed like a defining federal budget. It marked a clear break from the policy orthodoxy that had shaped nearly four decades of Canadian economic and fiscal thinking. The budget was unapologetically left-wing. It privileged equity and fairness over economic efficiency. It dismissed longstanding concerns about deficits, debt, and public spending. And it created new fiscal entitlements at precisely the moment when the federal government was ramping up immigration to levels that were plainly unsustainable.
The Trudeau government, buoyed by pandemic politics and a decade-long global drift toward activist government, seemed confident that the old constraints no longer applied. The liberalized policy consensus of the post-1980 era—balanced budgets, tax cuts, and a limited role for the state in the economy and society—was being cast aside. I wrote at the time that the budget was “a powerful (and perhaps sobering) sign that progressives are winning the battle of ideas.”
Fast forward five years, however, and that sense of progressive ascendancy feels far less secure. Even as federal Conservatives end the year disappointed by their failure to win April’s election, and even as Prime Minister Mark Carney appears to be governing from a position of relative strength, we’re clearly living through a conservative correction to the excesses of the Trudeau era.
Conservatives may not be winning elections. But their arguments are.
Pierre Poilievre recently derided Mark Carney as a “counterfeit conservative.” It is an effective partisan jab. But as I’ve argued elsewhere, unless one’s politics are primarily partisan, the idea of Liberals “stealing” Conservative ideas should be welcomed rather than lamented. When the governing party begins borrowing from its opponents, it’s evidence that the centre of gravity in policymaking has shifted.
Is the shift in policy direction a genuine ideological change or a strategic political maneuver?
What are the long-term implications if conservative ideas gain traction without electoral victories?
How does the article define 'winning the argument' in the context of conservative ideas?
Comments (5)
I welcome the Liberal party moving back from the fringe, and radical players like Guilbeault, sidelined. The battle of ideas continues, and a Poilievre led Conservative govt would be my hope in coming years, as the younger generations rise and increasingly assert themselves. An opportunistic (faux?) conservative (Carney) is better than what we had (Trudeau), but why should Canada settle for this, when we could have the real thing (Poilievre)?