How the Poilievre Tories think they’ll beat Canada’s conservative urban curse

OTTAWA — Right-leaning parties west of Ontario have been left with just a handful of urban seats after October’s provincial elections, but pundits say this won’t necessarily slow down Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s momentum in major cities, so long as he stays focused on the issues affecting urbanites.

“My sense, from people I talk to, is that the Conservatives are still in pretty good shape here,” said Matt Spoke, a Toronto-based real estate investor and tech entrepreneur.

“Between (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau being as unpopular as he is and Poilievre hitting the right notes on housing, which is the top issue in urban areas, even people who are usually apolitical are talking openly about voting Conservative,” said Spoke.

Spoke said that the pull is especially strong among urban millennials looking to start families.

Housing and affordability were among the key issues in July’s byelection in Toronto—St. Paul’s, where Conservative Don Stewart pulled off a surprise win.

Spoke nevertheless thinks Poilievre could do a better job tailoring policy proposals to urban voters.

For instance, Spoke said Poilievre’s new promise to scrap the GST on new homes sold for under $1 million doesn’t account for the realities of housing markets in major cities like Toronto and Vancouver.

“A better way to go would be to exempt the first million dollars from GST and set the cap to something higher.”

The average single-family home went for $1.3 million in Toronto and $2 million in Vancouver, as of September.

Multiple sources also pointed to Poilievre’s edge over Trudeau on law-and-order issues, including the drug and homelessness crisis in major cities.

Bryan Breguet, who stood for the B.C. Conservatives in a competitive southern Vancouver riding, said that Poilievre’s pithy pledge to “stop the crime” and “end the drugs” seemed to resonate especially well with ethnic communities in his district.

“When I’d talk to Chinese voters, it was clear how much they hated the Trudeau/Eby drug policies,” said Breguet, referring to the short-lived experiment with decriminalizing drug use in public spaces.

“As soon as the drug issue came up at the doors, you could just feel the mood change.”

Breguet narrowly lost his own race but says he’s optimistic about the federal Conservatives’ chances in multi-ethnic parts of the city.

“(Poilievre) will get practically every voter who voted for us, plus a few more who hate Justin Trudeau but didn’t hate (B.C. Premier) David Eby quite as much.”

Kareem Allam, a longtime conservative strategists who’s also based in Vancouver, said he’s not so sure about a federal Conservative breakthrough in Vancouver, pointing to Poilievre’s tendency to punch down at the city.

“It doesn’t strike me as good politics to describe a city as a ‘hellscape’ and then turn around and expect people who live there to vote for you,” said Allam.

Poilievre notably likened Vancouver to “hell on earth” last year, causing offence to both Eby and the city’s centre-right mayor Ken Sim.

Allam also said that it would be a mistake for Poilievre’s camp to over-index the B.C. Conservatives’ strong showing in immigrant-heavy suburbs Richmond and Surrey.

“(Both) cities have seen large explosions in growth, and infrastructure has not kept up.” Said Allam. “Ethnic voters had the same grievances as everybody else about things like hospitals, schools and traffic.”

“It’s indisputable that the Conservatives did well with ethnic voters in Richmond and Surrey, but its not clear that the hardline messaging on things like drugs and (sexual orientation and gender identity) are what moved the needle,” said Allam, the latter referring to Conservative leader John Rustad’s mid-campaign promise to scrap K-12 teaching guidelines on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Allam pointed out that the B.C. Conservatives went just one for 12 in Vancouver, a city that’s also majority non-white.

Further complicating the Poilievre Conservatives’ path to a breakthrough in Vancouver is the latest federal redistribution, which amalgamated the historically competitive riding of Vancouver South with parts of neighbouring Burnaby.

Poilievre can at least rest assured that he’s on firmer footing in prairie cities like Edmonton, Regina, and Saskatoon, where the NDP has recently dominated provincial races.

Kristin Raworth, a resident of South Edmonton who voted NDP in last year’s Alberta election, says that Poilievre’s “common-sense” framing of political issues appeals to pragmatic urban voters like herself.

“I’m not an ideological NDP voter by any stretch of the imagination,” said Raworth. “I’m for whoever I think can best serve my community.”

Raworth said that she expects the People’s Party of Canada will be less of a spoiler for Conservative candidates in close urban ridings, pointing to the 2021 result in Edmonton Centre.

PPC candidate Brock Crocker took 4.3 per cent of the riding’s vote, allowing Liberal Randy Boissonnault to squeak past Conservative runner-up James Cumming.

National Post [email protected]

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