There was plenty of good news for Alberta in what Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre told delegates at the party conference in Quebec City. A Conservative government will scrap Bill C-69 — the no-pipelines bill — and grant permits to export natural gas to places where it will replace ‘dirty coal:’ It will greenlight ‘zero-emitting Small Nuclear Reactors for New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.’ All things that Alberta has been demanding from Ottawa since 2015, when the Liberals took power… One pictures his old friend Premier Danielle Smith smiling with deep approval..And the carbon tax will be gone..Not that Poilievre needed to make any special promises to secure Alberta’s vote. But given the party theme of ‘bringing home’ capitalized Common Sense, it is what Albertans would have hoped for and what works for Alberta makes the same enormous sense for the rest of the country.. Ana PoilievreAnaida Poilievre introduces her husband Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre as he prepares to deliver the keynote speech at the party's Quebec convention. She has emerged as a powerful and popular voice in her own right and was accorded fifteen minutes for her remarks — an unusually long time for introductory remarks. .Three points then, on the rest of the speech..First, Poilievre is a master at putting into words the uneasy feelings, the anxiety and frankly the fears that keep so many Canadians awake at night..‘Trudeau forces the same people who suffer from his inflation to suffer from higher interest rates to stop it.’.‘We need to stop printing money and start building homes. Canada should be the cheapest place to get a home in the world — we have more land per person than all but 4 countries on the planet. Yet we have the fewest homes per capita in the G7.’.Amen, and amen..Second, in an expose that would have been all the harder for Mr. Trudeau to hear for being delivered not in the heat of anger but quietly and on ice, he said, “He (Trudeau) wants Canadians to blame each other, and not him. He divides to distract using race, religion, region and sexuality. He thinks that if you are afraid of your neighbour, you will forget you can’t afford groceries.”.Quite. That’s why Trudeau loves to talk down to ‘people with unacceptable opinions.’.Third, Poilievre makes his appeal to the same people who gave Stephen Harper three terms as prime minister… "hard-working Canadians, who pay their taxes and play by the rules.".In 2006, after 13 years of Liberal government that resonated..But in 2015, after nine years of good government leading to balanced budgets and prosperity, people could afford to focus on the appeal of somebody frivolous, but apparently charming..In 2023, after eight years of Mr. Trudeau, hard-working Canadians are finding that it doesn’t get them anywhere to pay their taxes and play by the rules. So, it’s back to 2006..It is quite common for campaigning politicians to tell sob-stories. Sometimes they even invent them..Poilievre told plenty of stories about people who were having a hard time..But here’s the difference. Today, after years of inflation and rising interest rates, nobody in Canada needs to invent hard-luck stories. Sadly, most of us know people like the people he was talking about. Like the struggling single mother who can’t get ahead, because the harder she works, the more she loses in tax. Or the young person who can’t afford to move out of parents’ basement. Or the 74-year-old retired trucker Poilievre talked about who can’t afford his newly raised rent and is therefore moving in the opposite direction, asking his daughter if he can move into her basement..There was so much of the strength of what he was saying..Here's the difference between the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau and the Conservative Party as defined by Pierre Poilievre..Trudeau and his acolytes care about climate change, sexuality, the politics of identity. Fifteen-minute cities..These are abstractions however, first-world problems. Yes, when people can afford rent, food and car payments, some decide they would like to care about these things, too..But every day, as the wolves circle the door more closely, fewer and fewer people can afford the luxury of worrying about things they can’t fix..Poilievre and those who have been telling the pollsters that he’s their first choice care about being able to afford to eat. To have a roof over their heads. They care because they must, and after eight years of Liberal misrule, their numbers are growing daily..Poilievre’s message today was to them. The message was that he understood… was trustworthy... that he cared... and was actually likeable..And he offered hope..No doubt they will try, but the Liberals will have their hands full undermining this day's work.
