There’s a message for the Conservatives in recent polling that shows the Liberals surging ahead in public confidence.If you don’t do conservative things, and instead do vote with the Liberals on things people expect you to vote against them on, they will shrug you off as irrelevant or worse, as idiots. And although Eastern Canada has a distinguished ten-year history of voting for idiots, you as Conservatives do not have idiot privilege: The idiot has to be a Liberal.You know this. So, stop it..What prompts this ire is an apparently unanimous Conservative vote earlier this month for Bill C-202. This was the Bloc Québécois’ initiative to protect supply management, or as we understand it here, to protect the ‘right’ of every Canadian to pay more than they should for milk, cheese, dairy, eggs and all their derivatives..Specifically, when representatives of the governments of Canada and the US meet to resolve the so-called 'tariff war' between the two countries, Canadian negotiators may not treat the supply management system as a bargaining chip, to be offered or not in pursuit of some more attractive concession. It is off limits then, by law. Don’t even want to talk about it — a position by the way, that Prime Minister Carney has held since well before the election..‘OFF THE TABLE’: Carney ‘will never discuss’ supply management, Digital Services Tax.Supply management eliminates competition and the cost-savings and efficiencies that normally attend it. Farmers are allocated a quota and guaranteed a price. There is no premium for productive efficiency: Farmers who overproduce milk are obliged to waste it — literally, to pour it down the drain.What supply management protects then, is the financial security of roughly 10,000 family businesses in Quebec and Ontario. All good people no doubt, producing a needed product to a high standard — but at a cost that requires the imposition of an almost 300% tariff to keep it competitive against US producers. And just to make sure, they have organized for themselves a highly effective lobby to reward and punish politicians according to whether or not they support this racket. What Bill C-202 protects then, is this system of supply management from being even talked about in the tariff negotiations that must eventually take place between Canada and the US. As an earlier Western Standard report noted, C-202 was 'rushed through the House of Commons without adequate review, consultation or attention to its impact on other export-dependent farmers.’ Other export-dependent farmers? That part of the agriculture industry unprotected by supply management is deeply unsupportive of this legislation. .Grain farmers say Parliament chose politics over trade by passing Bill C-202 .This is what Conservative MPs voted to protect.How is this a Conservative value?.But there it is. Every Conservative MP present at the vote supported the bill. Just like the Liberals. And just like Bloc, the people whose official raison d’être is to break up Canada, whose idea it was. By the way, because it was a voice vote, there’s no Hansard record of how individual MPs voted.The tragedy of this, over and above the obvious, is that Mr. Carney’s ascendant position in the polls is quite unmerited based on any tangible accomplishment.There is no new tariff agreement, and the elbows appear to have been lowered.Bill C-5 notwithstanding, there is no take-it-to-the-bank promise of new energy infrastructure, only a hint that given two years, the Liberal government may pick something it likes if any developer is bold enough to risk the upfront fees. The defence announcement, impressive as it is, will not lead to the results promised. .REMPEL: Carney’s defence plan signals a shift, but real capability is years away.And yet if Nanos polling is to be believed, the Liberals are now 12 points ahead of the Conservatives — enough, were an election to be re-run today — to give them a very solid majority. All it apparently took to restore the faith of Canadians in the Liberal Party was a modicum of maturity, and less attention paid to prime ministerial socks — those things, and the Conservative electoral platform. Think about that; Carney likes conservative ideas that Conservatives won't vote for.In other words, people were prepared to vote for Conservative ideas, just not for Conservatives. .ELDON: Why the Conservatives keep losing.Is it perhaps because when it comes to it, the Conservatives themselves won't vote for Conservative ideas?C'mon people. There are 10,000 dairy farmers and 40 million people in the market for dairy products. It shouldn't be that hard.
