The Man Who Could Beat Justin Trudeau
In Toronto this spring, Andrew Scheer, the man seeking to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister of Canada, made what is perhaps the most important speech of his career. While Scheer, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), is no Trudeau—he’s younger, dorkier, and less foppish—his speech, about immigration, sounded at times like something Trudeau would say. Scheer spoke of Canada as a generous, diverse country and denounced “intolerance, racism, and extremism of any kind.” If anybody disagreed, he added, “there’s the door.”
But if Scheer was aligning himself, in some ways, with his electoral rival, he was also setting himself apart. He quoted scripture, something politicians in Trudeau’s Liberal Party are less likely to do. He praised the entrepreneurial spirit that impels immigrants to leave their home. And he spoke darkly about “Mexican drug-cartel members” and “individuals flagged as threats to national security,” who exploit weaknesses in the immigration system at the expense of lawful applicants who wait their turn. The speech was shot through with conservative themes: free enterprise, law and order, self-reliance, and faith.
In this respect, Scheer sounded more like his CPC predecessor Stephen Harper,, through a merger between an establishment Tory party and a populist upstart. Harper by linking to the of Toronto and Vancouver, which were then considered Liberal strongholds. He framed conservative and populist talking points in ways that resonated with many minority voters.
