Greenpeace Canada is non-partisan: we don’t assist any explicit occasion or candidate on this election – nonetheless, this doesn’t imply we’re impartial. We are going to name out dangerous insurance policies and concepts the place we see them. And we see lots of these in Poilievre’s just lately launched CPC platform. GP Canada’s Digital Content material Specialist Emily has partnered with Toronto artist Christopher Lambe (who you may acknowledge from his satirical political t-shirts) to interrupt down what’s inside. Discover a comparability of all political occasion local weather plans right here.
With early voting out of the best way – and an spectacular voter turnout, no much less – Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Get together have lastly graced voters with their “costed” coverage platform. Costed is in quotations as a result of the 30 web page doc – full with 17 shiny images of Pierre – appears to tug its numbers out of skinny air, in response to Kevin Web page who was the Parliamentary Finances Watchdog for 5 years.
Together with these numbers – which, as we will get into, had been audited in conjunction with those that need to unleash DOGE on Canada – one of the crucial regarding issues is that regardless of the ‘Canada First’ marketing campaign, this can be a platform that feels prefer it’s ripped proper from Trump’s ‘America First’ playbook.
Do the Numbers Actually Add Up?
For the occasion that many affiliate with “fiscal duty,” this new platform is a far cry from something the Conservatives have put out earlier than – even the far proper leaning Postmedia owned Nationwide Publish was vital:
It’s closely reliant on what has been known as a “considerably controversial method” – Dynamic Pricing. This implies all the things is costed by way of future projected income based mostly on hoped for financial development which might rely on a level of certainty.
Thus, this method – stuffed with deregulation, tax cuts, and a ripper mentality in the direction of the checks and balances that preserve our democracy comparatively wholesome – don’t precisely really feel like steady footing when wanting down the barrel of an financial downturn attributable to Trump’s erratic financial insurance policies and tariff threats. However maybe that degree of substance shouldn’t be anticipated from a marketing campaign that constructed its total id round slogans, false equivalencies and handing out donuts to rally its base.
Cuts VS Income:
Over 50% of the cut-related income sources projected within the Platform come from gutting environmental laws and local weather insurance policies. Contemplating the Local weather Disaster is projected to price (a possible underestimated) $38 TRILLION per yr globally by 2050, this appears at finest shortsighted, and at worst, inviting local weather collapse to remain for dinner. Sure – Climateflation is actual. Axing environmental laws to make your income projection desires come true appears extra like finish occasions fascism.
$23.5 billion in financial savings is to be discovered within the firing of impartial consultants whereas closing tax loopholes is projected to seek out $12.9 billion over 4 years (a shocking soar from the earlier estimate of $1 billion per yr). These commitments appear a little bit unusual for a celebration stacked with these exact same company consultants and lobbyists, and whose fundraisers have been filled with company elites.
In the meantime, losses in income from chopping GST on new houses as much as $1.3 million is imagined to be offset by a rise in housing gross sales – which, as soon as once more, isn’t assured. It is a coverage that the majority advantages rich builders, who must voluntarily cross financial savings to patrons and renters (extremely uncertain this was the subject of dialog at Pierre’s cash-for-access fundraiser held in Sharon Hochfelder’s mansion, who made her fortune investing in personal rental residences). And if “construct child construct” is a part of the plan to deliver down housing prices, we could all be sorely dissatisfied as it will probably take as much as 20 years for elevated housing inventory to the touch value tags.
Additional, economists are declaring what seems to be a flaw within the assumption – particularly that to ensure that the GST minimize to remain on price range, Canada might solely promote 50,000 qualifying houses (extremely implausible). Until Poilievre is banking on nearly all of houses promoting for MORE than $1.3 million on common, this system’s price might exceed $4 billion.
The maths on this coverage plan doesn’t seem like…mathing. Possibly that’s as a result of it was carried out with the steerage of Tim Sargent, who just lately had this to say about bringing a Musk-style DOGE to Canada: The federal cuts will come so quick and arduous that critics “gained’t know which approach to look.” (you’ll be able to take heed to clips of the audio right here)
With the involvement of DOGE-bros together with Pierre’s very anti-public funding voting document, fears across the conservatives taking part in a Trump-style haphazard sport of Function on the Canadian economic system really feel fairly actual.
On Staff Rights
Poilievre’s total ‘Convey It House’ marketing campaign has felt a little bit like working class cosplay, a rigorously crafted picture of “the anti-establishment champion of working folks.” This picture has clashed along with his lengthy historical past of voting towards robust unions and pro-worker insurance policies whereas voting for payments like C-377 and C-525, which tried to bury unions in forms and make it tougher for employees to kind a union of their very own. Poilievre has additionally lengthy been a proponent of bringing the US-style “proper to work” laws to Canada, which regardless of its title, is extra pro-boss and fewer pro-worker.
All of that is suspiciously unnoticed of the Conservative plan.
Poilievre has additionally spent the final two years lamenting “bloated” authorities forms. Within the plan itself, he guarantees to “minimize the fats, however not the frontline service” however doesn’t lay out a technique for the way precisely that may play out.
They do, nonetheless, say they’ll axe the post-secondary schooling requirement for presidency workers, maybe a shout out to Pierre’s infamous contempt for “specialists” (his assertion that the “widespread persons are the specialists” echoes Musk’s declaration that the general public is “the media now.”). Whereas making schooling a barrier to entry is a type of classism, the answer is likely to be to supply common public post-secondary schooling – to not delete it from public service completely.
On The Atmosphere
Final month when Pierre Poilievre introduced he would do all the things Large Oil wished – he wasn’t kidding. With regards to Local weather Change on this plan, the surroundings is left to fend for itself:
The Conservative plan says goodbye to carbon pricing, clear gas laws, emission caps, zero-emission car mandates and clear vitality laws. He has additionally dedicated to axing the Industrial Carbon Tax, regardless of this being the main driver of air pollution reductions underneath the present local weather plan.
The Conservatives would additionally repeal Invoice C-69, Canada’s essential environmental impression evaluation legal guidelines, doing completely no favours to struggling plant and animal species whereas flying within the face of Indigenous peoples proper to free, prior and knowledgeable consent (however maybe this isn’t shocking coming from somebody who stated they “proudly” didn’t assist UNDRIP and voted towards it). No alternate options are given, no new targets are set and no point out of Canada’s present Worldwide commitments wherever to be seen.
And who needs extra single-use plastic? The Conservatives! Pierre proudly held up a loaf of bread wrapped in plastic at a current press convention to announce he’ll FREE THE STRAWS from the oppressive Liberal ban on single-use plastics – an obsession solely rivalled by Donald Trump who signed an government order to “Make American Straws Nice Once more” as a result of the paper ones “explode.”
All this may clarify why current analysis predicts a Conservative led authorities would end in 800m tonnes added to Canada’s emissions by 2035. And for those who heard echoes of Drill Child Drill in your head whilst you had been studying this, that may be as a result of the Conservative method to handing “shovel prepared zones” over to huge business donors is Simply Like Trump.
On Social Justice, Human Rights and Democracy
Right here’s the place issues appear to get actually Trumpy.
For individuals who have been tuning out for legitimate psychological well being causes, right here’s the coles notes: Trump promised to “finish woke” in Universities by denying them funding except they conformed to his calls for (silencing protest on campus, chopping DEI applications and staying away from an inventory of key phrases and analysis topics that are actually banned – a promise he has stored!). Pierre Poilievre was clearly wanting over his shoulder throughout that math take a look at as a result of right here now we have an eerily comparable coverage:
The battle on supposed left-wing media bias (which, shock! Doesn’t really exist in legacy media OR on-line media) is a key far proper propaganda technique.
Trump has additionally used his assaults on Universities as an excuse to deport college students who participated in pro-Palistinian protests on campus – a sentiment that Pierre has mirrored in his dedication to take away law-breaking visa holders:
Pierre’s “powerful on crime” stance is additional flushed out within the dedication to jail folks for longer durations of time and introduce a 3 strikes regulation which has been proven to not solely price much more, however may also result in increased charges of murder. Seems, throwing folks in jail doesn’t scale back crime and it additionally doesn’t resolve habit, however he hasn’t let these pesky specialists get in the best way of claiming he’ll use the However Clause to override constitution rights to make it occur: “We are going to make them constitutional utilizing no matter instruments the Structure permits me to make use of to make them constitutional. I believe you realize precisely what I imply. They’ll occur and they’ll keep in place.” (supply)
For a celebration so obsessive about ladies’s organic clocks, ladies are solely talked about 4 occasions on this coverage platform. Three of those mentions mimic the transphobic hatred that Trump made a cornerstone of his first days in workplace making an attempt to maintain folks out of bogs, sports activities and different establishments.
The opposite point out comes within the type of yet one more reminder that the occasion “gained’t contact abortion rights” – nearly just like the repetition is supposed to behave as a Males in Black Neuralizer to make 50% of the inhabitants overlook Pierre’s and the Get together’s lengthy historical past with anti-abortion measures. A historical past that makes the specter of utilizing the However Clause all of the extra ominous.
Pierre once more copies Trump’s homework on the 10 for 1 regulation government order put ahead in January. Maybe going for a much less Orwellian look, he introduced it right down to a extra delicate two for one deal: for each new regulation the Conservatives write, they’ll take away two. As a result of that’s undoubtedly how issues work (willy nilly deregulation has labored so effectively prior to now for corporations like Boeing, proper?).
Pierre takes one other web page from Trump’s anti-Globalization playbook by saying he’ll cease funding UNRWA, the one group offering significant help to Palestinian refugees around the globe.
And no right-wing platform can be full with out demanding new residents pledge their allegiance to the Conservative’s reworked Canada First pledge (which for some could deliver again undesirable reminiscences about that point Pierre Poilievre supported the illegal Niqab Ban).
It is a platform that reiterates Poilievre’s total marketing campaign, so comparable in its speaking factors to Donald Trump that it fed a wave of Nationalism even Quebec might get behind. It appears the Conservatives misplaced the Progressive a part of their title someplace between absorbing the Canadian Alliance and Stephen Harper becoming a member of the IDU (a platform devoted to serving to its members elect far proper governments). As The Tyee reported a number of months again, Canada is in a struggle for its life.
After reviewing the Conservative platform, our reply to this name is similar at the moment because it’s been for the final three months: Don’t Trump Canada.
