Jean Charest’s Grand Delusion

After a seven month campaign marred in controversy — including accusations of internal corruption and party infighting — the Conservative Party of Canada has elected Pierre Poilievre as its next leader. 

Widely regarded as the favourite to take over from interim leader Candice Bergen, Poilievre received 68.15% of the vote on the first round, unsurprisingly trouncing his closest rival, Jean Charest, who received a paltry 16.06%. 

The Conservative leadership race utilized a ranked ballot system that divided the country into 338 electoral districts, each of which was assigned a number of points (usually 100, unless a riding had fewer than 100 members) for a total of 33,737. 

Poilievre garnered a total of 22,993 points, far surpassing the 50% vote threshold (16,869 points) needed to eliminate subsequent voting rounds and be declared the next Conservative leader.

Prior to the results, Charest’s campaign maintained that they had a path to victory — though anyone familiar with contemporary conservative politics knew such words were highly unlikely and probably dishonest. 

And if Charest, frequently dubbed a “Liberal” in disguise by Pierre and his supporters — despite his long track record of Conservative activism — truly believed he had a chance of victory, it would be further proof that he was out of touch with the party’s grassroots. 

Not only did he grossly underestimate how pervasive misinformation in the Conservative Party had become, but he overestimated his own relevance in a party that has increasingly drifted to the anti-intellectual and populist right. That’s to say that from the beginning, Charest’s bid for leader of the Conservatives was destined to fail. 

He’s simply too moderate, too pragmatic, and too decent for the vast majority of Conservative members nowaday, which see “crushing the Liberals” as the ultimate electoral goal. So too, goes for Scott Atichison, who arguably ran the most sensible campaign out of everyone and yet only received a pathetic 1.06% of the vote.

Rather than seeking concrete solutions to the major issues of today — like inflation and the cost of living crisis — the Conservative Party’s membership demonstrated a clear preference for empty slogans based on the loose concepts of “freedom” and “gatekeepers.” This is despite the fact that Canada is consistently scored as one of the freest countries in the world.

Instead of confronting the recent and unlawful “trucker convoy” occupation in Ottawa that saw tens of millions drained from nearby small business, local residents harassed, and honorary war memorials defecated on — the Conservative membership made clear these are more than acceptable transgressions. What ever happened to the party of patriots, business, and individual responsibility? 

Seemingly, it’s been replaced by a party that places a greater emphasis on inflaming culture wars, dismissing academia, despising Justin Trudeau, cozying up to the far-right, and embracing conspiracy theories, including those targeting vaccines, the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, Canada’s Central Bank, climate change, and more.

And the only two leadership candidates that attempted to quell the worrying rise of misinformation stemming from the Federal Conservatives — Charest and Atichison — were extremely unsuccessful in building momentum. 

This highlights how moderate Tories within the Conservative Party of Canada have come to be a marginalized force. After all, they’re typically more forward-thinking, consistent, and solution-oriented. Today’s Conservatives, on the other hand, lack a coherent ideology and can’t even seem to address many of the realities facing Canada. 

Rather, many of them seem content on muddying the truth, chipping away at Canada’s institutional integrity, and importing the polarization and misinformation that plagues the American political system. And what few voices of reason exist are quickly drowned out. 

Hardly to the fault of Charest, the Conservative Party has missed a golden opportunity to elect a big-tent leader capable of offering Canadians a forwarding-looking alternative to the country’s governing Liberal Party, and now must contend with a much larger electorate that’s skeptical of its choice in Poilievre. 

Pierre is by no means a write off — and in fact may prove challenging for an increasingly worn Liberal government — but his work will no doubt be cut out for him as he seeks to make inroads with moderate Canadians.