Conservative Introspection, Seriously?

In the aftermath of the recent Federal Election, an election that almost seemed to be the Conservative's to lose, there has been anger (particularly on the Prairies where approximately 60% of voters made that party their choice), frustration and, finally, some self-examination to determine what went wrong.

Some knives have been out for party leader Andrew Scheer.  Some Senators have jumped ship, citing a loss in support for Scheer's leadership, one former Conservative MP has described some of Scheer's personal beliefs as a "stinking albatross" around the neck of the party, or at least the neck of the leader.

One commentator suggested that it's hypocritical to focus on Scheer's socially conservative views in comparison to the personal views of other party leaders.

Andrew Scheer has fired two of his top aides, apparently with the view that tinkering with the message or massaging the communication process or the strategy, things will be better next time.

The question will be, of course, whether this will be enough.

I'd like to propose a few ideas about the results and where I think the real problems lie.

Social Conservatism as an issue:

Although the Conservative Party doesn't have a lock on socially conservative "values", it is something they pay at least lip service to and the party does tend to pander to the segment of society that holds such values close to their hearts.  Specifically, issues like LGBTQ rights, abortion, gay marriage, all fall into this category.  Although the majority of society has moved on, social conservatives like Scheer and, I assume, many of the party's supporters, still see each of the issues mentioned as "wrong".  Not content with avoiding such practices themselves, social conservatives have been determined to force their views on the whole of society.  Personally, I find it difficult to rationalize such determination with claims that the Conservatives believe in individual liberty and a smaller role for government and its regulations.  Given the election results, I'd guess that many voters see some inconsistency there as well.

Fiscal Responsibility as an issue:

The Conservatives have turned it into a mantra: "balance the budget", "stop mortgaging our children's future", and so on.  Let's get real here.  Under Harper, approximately $162 BILLION was added to the National Debt.  There is NO government, Conservative or Liberal, that has managed to avoid at least some annual budget deficit.  To claim that Harper was on track to do that is nonsense.  His government stole from other programs in a smoke and mirrors effort to make things look good.  Cuts to programs for veterans, for example.  To steadfastly hold that government budgets must be run like your household budget is silly.  They are not even remotely in the same ballpark.  What matters more is the debt to GDP ratio, but since that's a concept that politicians don't think voters would understand, it's avoided in favour of constant harping about a balanced budget.  So my suggestion would be to stop appealing to the least-economically-educated voter out there and stop treating Canadians as fiscal idiots.

Immigration as an issue:

Although the Conservative Party managed to stay away from the extreme xenophobic position of the "People's Party of Canada", the fact remains that the Conservative tent recently included advocates of the "snitch line" for "barbaric cultural practices".  Party supporters are often heard demanding that they "get their country back".  Despite beliefs to the contrary, immigrants work harder, are often better educated and tend to take education generally more seriously than "old stock" Canadians.  It would seem that most voters are repulsed by negative views of immigrants and are not afraid of some cultural diversity in their midst.

Climate Change and the Environment as an issue:

Finally, for now, the big elephant in the room.  Every single successive report that has come out in the past few years is painting a gloomier picture of the future for our planet.  The data is there.  The closer we look and the more we learn, the worse the situation seems.  The Liberal approach has been more happy talk with insufficient action, but the Conservatives are definitely and firmly anchored in the 1950s on this issue.  Their supporters claim any or all of the following: climate change isn't happening, it's not as bad as the "alarmists" say it is, humans can't be causing this, Canada is too insignificant a contributor for us to do anything about it, there's nothing we can do anyway, it would cost too much, too many jobs would be lost....  You get the picture.  Labeling Scheer as "Mr Deny" rather hit the mark.  And the tactic of appealing to populist anger over something so insignificant as that "carbon tax"?  That in itself shows what Conservatives really believe.  Concerns and growing fear about the effects of climate change are only going to increase.  Until the Conservatives climb out of their caves and have an honest look around at what's happening, they are destined to become more and more irrelevant.  Come up with a real plan to address climate change boys.  Stop pandering to the climate holocaust deniers in your base.  The facts just aren't in your favour.

Those are four areas where the Conservatives managed to park themselves on the wrong side of the issue and where, I believe. voters found them deficient.  So it's not that you didn't repeat your message often and loudly enough or that you didn't tweak that message quite the right way.  It's your adherence to beliefs that are simply not supported by the evidence.

The real reason why enough voters didn't swing to the Conservatives would seem to be a sincere lack of confidence that the party knew what it was talking about and that the party and it's leader could be trusted or believed.  You want to change that, fix your policy positions first.