Canadian Parliament is still off for winter break until next week… so let’s talk about American politics.
In the United States, former president and aspiring authoritarian Donald Trump is ahead in the polls. Meanwhile in Canada, two thirds of Canadians say they would re-elect President Joe Biden if they could.
Not only would Biden sweep every province; he’d also dominate every demographic – except one: Gen Z and Millennial men. Slightly more than half of Canadian males under 45 say they’d rather vote for Trump.
Trump’s relative appeal among men is not a surprise: In general, men are more conservative than women; and in particular, Trump’s brand of misogyny is bound to be a deal-breaker for more women than men.
But why young men in particular? In a word: Affordability. In the last year, credit card balances rose by nearly $400 to more than $4,100 for the average Canadian while three in five Canadians fell deeper into debt.
And that doesn’t take into account most Canadians’ biggest expense: Housing. In the last decade, Canada’s average monthly rents and mortgage payments have more than doubled – and there’s still no relief in sight.
Young people are turning to Trump because they can’t afford the quality of life their parents were afforded – and because Trump says he can make America great again. And that’s the same reason why young people are pivoting to Poilievre: He says he can make Canada affordable again.
So when was this bygone golden age of affordability in Canada, anyway? According to Poilievre: 2008 – back when the Conservatives were in charge, Poilievre was Stephen Harper’s housing minister, and Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still just getting into federal politics.
But the truth is that housing wasn’t affordable back then, either. When adjusted for inflation, the median income in Toronto has flatlined at around $54,000 since 1990 – while the average Toronto home price has increased from under $500,000 to over $1.1 million.
So if we can’t blame Trudeau for Canada’s housing crisis, whose fault is it? I’m sorry to say: It’s all the Boomers and Gen Xers who bought homes when they were affordable, and who treated Canada’s housing market like a get-rich-quick scheme or a retirement plan.
And let’s also not forget the three decades of municipal and provincial governments – largely voted in by and comprised of home-owning Boomers and Gen Xers – that blocked new home construction as they watched their own property values soar into the realm of absolute obscenity.
Despite what Poilievre says – and despite Trudeau getting flamed for pointing out the obvious – housing has never primarily been a federal responsibility because residential zoning, project approvals and building regulations are all managed by lower levels of government.
Not that Poilievre has ever let something as trivial as a pesky fact get in the way of pinning all of the blame for everything on Trudeau. Like Trump, Poilievre personifies righteous indignation… but points it at all the wrong people.
That’s not to suggest that Trump and Poilievre are one and the same. Poilievre doesn’t muse about locking up his political opponents or purging law enforcement of the civil servants investigating his alleged crimes, for example. Nor does he lie about winning an election that he knows he lost.
In fact, aside from his outrageous contempt for journalists, Poilievre doesn’t seem to have much of an authoritarian streak. Nonetheless, the folk wisdom seems to suggest that he’d handle Trump better than Trudeau because they’re fellow populists, and because Trump once called Trudeau “very dishonest and weak.”
But everybody seems to forget the context: Once upon a time, Trump had nothing but nice things to say about Trudeau. It wasn’t until it was time to renegotiate the North American free-trade agreement that Trump lashed out at him – and it was because Trump was furious about getting out-negotiated by Canada in spite of his self-proclaimed reputation for being a master deal-maker.
If Trump wins the next U.S. election and Poilievre becomes Canada’s next prime minister, Poilievre will almost certainly face a similar fate sooner or later (unless his plan is to capitulate to Trump at every turn). And once that happens, you can bet that Trump will turn on him, just as he turned on Trudeau… and everybody else who dared to defy him.
And that’s by no means Poilievre’s biggest Trump-related challenge: While Canada is broadly anti-Trump, half of Canadian Conservatives say they would vote for Trump if they could – while the other half not only wouldn’t vote for the guy, but in large part believes that Trump’s politics are absurd, abhorrent, and apocalyptic.
So how will Poilievre handle his Trump problem? Will he try to hew as closely as possible to the MAGA zeitgeist to keep the crazies happy – and risk alienating more reasonable Conservatives? Or will he distance himself from Trump – and risk alienating his Trumpy base?
People say Trudeau is in for a tough year. But if I had to choose, I’d take Trudeau’s underdog status over Poilievre’s Faustian choice any day of the week.