There’s an old joke that political strategists sometimes tell about two campers who see a bear moving toward them.
One of them stops to put on running shoes and the second camper tells him sneakers won’t help him outrun the bear. “I don’t need to outrun the bear,” the first camper says, “I only need to outrun you.”
For Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, that’s apparently an example to live by. He turns back all the knotty questions about how he would govern if they don’t serve to beat up on the incumbent prime minister. He needs only to outrun Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
So when he was asked a straightforward question at a press conference in Vancouver on Tuesday – whether he would, as prime minister, reverse the Liberal government’s recent increase in the inclusion rate for capital gains taxes – he dodged.
On the same day, Mr. Trudeau was in Port Colborne, Ont., to announce the location for a new electric-vehicle battery separator plant, part of a series of planned Honda Motor Co. investments subsidized by $5-billion from the federal and Ontario governments.
The two governments have announced tens of billions of dollars in subsidies for EV supply chain plants, and Mr. Poilievre was asked whether he would cancel Ottawa’s investment tax credits. He didn’t answer the question. He criticized Mr. Trudeau for other things.
Any political strategist could tell you why. Mr. Poilievre only has to outrun Mr. Trudeau. He wants to talk about the issues he feels he can use to beat his opponent, such as the consumer carbon tax, deficits, bail rules and crime. Reducing capital gains taxes is a double-edged sword, politically. So are the incredibly costly EV industrial subsidies that promise jobs in swing ridings. So he doesn’t answer.
“I always find it interesting when the media comes to me and says, Justin Trudeau has promised a utopia. Are you going to remove his utopia if you get elected?” he said. “Well, let’s see this utopia first.”
But nobody asked Mr. Poiilievre about a utopia. He was asked what he would do as prime minister. That’s a subject that could be very consequential for Canadians, and not only for scorekeeping in the political context. Mr. Poilievre answers so many of those questions by talking about Mr. Trudeau.
This is where we are in Canadian politics. Mr. Poilievre’s Conservatives are 20 percentage points ahead in the latest Nanos Research survey, the prohibitive favourite to win an election that is probably still 17 months away. Ordinary, non-partisan Canadians – that’s most of the country – would probably like to hear Mr. Poilievre explain his views on a lot of things. But he figures he doesn’t have to outrun the bear.
Mr. Poilievre expresses so many opinions strongly, even courting calculated controversy – for example by declaring he would use the notwithstanding clause to toughen sentencing options for murderers – that it’s often surprising that he has no views on many big things.
Last year, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled a budget that outlined $80-billion in industrial subsidies for green technology, including for electrification for provincial power utilities and green-tech manufacturing. But Mr. Poilievre wouldn’t say whether he was for or against all that.
The federal government and Ontario pledged a total of $28.2-billion to Stellantis and Volkswagen to lure their battery plants. Mr. Poilievre’s party has criticized the permits for temporary foreign workers to set up the machinery, but it hasn’t said whether it would stop all these subsidies.
That’s a pretty big issue, especially while Canada’s largest trading partner, the U.S., has plotted a massively subsidized, decade-long industrial strategy. Canadians might want to hear what Mr. Poilievre thinks he might do about all that if and when Mr. Trudeau is no longer PM. But his answer was just a general diss for Mr. Trudeau.
“We always look at Justin Trudeau’s many promises and we judge them not on what he says but what actually happens,” he said. Then he went on to talk about other things.
Of course, politicians are going to take shots at their opponents. And Mr. Poilievre can’t be expected to outline every detail of his platform for governing now. But let’s hope he doesn’t spend the next 17 months answering questions about what he would do by pointing to Mr. Trudeau.
