A Pierre Poilievre-led Conservative Party would shift to the right, says a PEI professor, who added it might be good for the party even if it doesn’t propel them to power..The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) is headed into its third leadership race in six years as it struggles to find an identity in the post-Stephen Harper era..University of Prince Edward Island political scientist Don Desserud said party strategists reaching for the ideological centre and votes in Toronto know they failed..“The people who would follow someone like a Poilievre can say, ‘Hey, okay, we tried it your way, it didn’t work. Now you’ve got to try it our way.’ I think that argument is going to succeed. And I think the moderate side of that party are not going to have a credible reply, and they’re going to say, ‘Okay, fine. We’ll try your way,’” Desserud told the Western Standard..“Someone like Poilievre who says, ‘I am not going to be the compromise candidate. I’m not going to move the bar into the middle, and you can trust me on that.’ And they will trust him on that because he’s pretty strident, (and moderates) will say, ‘Okay, let’s see what happens.’”.Conservatives on the right-leaning side of the party have had a difficult time acting like Liberals under O’Toole, in Desserud’s opinion..“It’s really difficult if you don’t accept those views to be told, ‘Okay, you’re going to accept those views from now because it’s expedient.’ It’s hard to get behind that. And I think what has frustrated a huge segment of that party,” Desserud said..“There’s a significant number of people who would much rather go into a campaign and say exactly what they think, whether that’s repugnant to the majority of Canadians or not, but be sincere about it, than to say, ‘Well, we are going to say this now, but we hope that maybe later on we can move in another direction.’”.Desserud, who grew up in Bathurst, New Brunswick, and earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Western Ontario, doubts enough Canadians lean right to make that emphasis a winning formula. Still, he maintains there are good reasons for the party to go that way anyway..“Who are we and why do we give up on the things that means so much to us? Well, that’s what’s going on now with the Poilievre faction of that party, and I think O’Toole nailed it by saying you’re going to be the NDP of the right if you follow that route. And I think they’re going, ‘Yep, that’s what we should be. I’d rather be that than be the party that’s always trying to find this happy middle, which no one seems like one way or the other,’” Desserud said..“And as long as you give voters a choice between the Liberals and the Liberal wannabes, then they’re gonna vote Liberal.”.The professor, who also received degrees from Dalhousie University in Halifax, wonders whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will remain at the helm. He believes the Liberal party could do “incredibly well” under new leadership, and Trudeau may step aside for that..“The Liberals have to be very careful that they don’t simply sit back and think that ‘Okay, we’ll just let those guys self destruct and we’ll be fine,’ because I don’t know if that’s the case. I also don’t know whether the Liberal Party is the happy camper team that Trudeau likes to pretend they are. I do wonder whether his own party is looking at his leadership,”Desserud said..“I’m wondering whether it isn’t far-fetched to say that he may not be the leader of that party in the next election. And it won’t be because he’s been pushed out, but because he’s decided that he’s had enough and wants out. That changes everything.”.Lee Harding is a Western Standard contributor living in Saskatchewan.
