Jean Charest, the former Quebec premier, thinks he can succeed as the federal Conservatives’ next leader by appealing to Canadians’ “better angels.” Opinion by hscoffield
Jean Charest positions himself as the voice of moderation — but that’s not as plain vanilla as it sounds.
Charest is widely considered to be running second in the race to lead the Conservatives, and so he finds himself in an increasingly harsh war of words and tactics with perceived front-runner Pierre Poilievre, all while taking on Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. His team believes the centrist, moderate political space between the two is vast, though, and ripe for the picking.
“You can either cultivate anger, fear or even prejudice — or, alternatively, you can be a leader who will try to rise above it and do everything in your power so that we as a society make the right choices, and speak to our better angels.” He leans heavily on his past, mainly as Quebec’s premier from 2003 to 2012, pointing to his record in driving down unemployment, coasting relatively well through the great financial crisis, crafting the Plan Nord to develop natural resources, and setting the province on a path to balance its budget.
“We could look at something similar on COVID — carve out the COVID debt, tie it to a revenue stream and say, ‘Here’s what we’re going to focus on this so we’re going to put this to bed.’”Things are different now than when Charest led Quebec and when the country went through previous slumps. Inflation is persistent and too high. The American economy is contracting. Recession is in the air, at least in central Canada. We are in the midst of a global energy crisis.
In other words, Poilievre’s approach, while lacking detail, strikes at the institutions that we generally assume have held up Canada over time. He presents himself as anti-establishment even as the Conservative party’s establishment, via Harper, has given Poilievre its blessing.
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