The Liberals have fallen down and out on housing because they’ve maintained a narrow and out-of-sync focus on the issue. Their near-exclusive focus has been on “affordable housing,” which although important, is a minority of the housing market affecting a minority of Canadians.
Hopefully, as the COVID hangover wears off, things will continue to normalize. Travel and leisure have become rather expensive. But the hottest concert tickets in town will probably always be expensive. There’s just no way around that.
Is the viral hit song from Oliver Anthony actually any good? Does that matter? The short answer is that, yes, the song is quite good and that’s why it’s on its way to being a populist anthem. But of course “artistically good” and “politically fair” need not equate.
What they share was a desire to make change, and lead from a place of idealistic conviction. Both admit to a gap between those ideals and eventual reality. And arguably both became victims of the political reaction to their ideals.
Mathieu Bock-Côté may be the most important Canadian intellectual that you don’t know. Even if one disagrees with his ideas, you cannot afford to ignore them and what they mean for Quebec and conservatism there.
Cultural conservatism as it exists in Québec first has the mission of ensuring the defence of a people’s national identity, and more fundamentally, the defence of the cultural and civilizational transmission process. For the past fifteen years, Québec nationalism has been reborn through the identity question.
The Trudeau government seems willing to jeopardize a trade relationship worth around $2 billion per day to implement a ham-fisted tax that would raise less than $1 billion annually.
Across the rest of Canada, including in Atlantic provinces, Ontario, and British Columbia, the Conservative’s message is resonating. So why the reluctance to concede this point?
The gap between the promise of credentialism and its disappointing realities for rising numbers is something that we must confront before it engulfs our politics. For all of the attention paid to the threat posed by working-class populists, the real risk of political disruption may actually come from the rise of white-collar populists.
The harsh reality, though, is that the status quo is simply unsustainable. Perceptions and reality are on a collision course as world tensions rise and our defence capabilities continue to lag.
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