In today’s Big Story Podcast, we have Justin Ling interviewing Erin O’Toole.
Like many places across the world, politics in Canada has become increasingly polarized. Long gone are the days of trying to appeal to the majority of voters – now some parties have gone to their most extreme constituents for support.
Probably the best example of this was the election of Pierre Poilievre as the new Conservative Party leader. Regardless of how you feel about Poilievre, there’s little doubt that he’s a sign of a new era of political polarization within Canada.
Last month, former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole resigned his seat in the House of Commons and delivered an emotional goodbye to his colleagues. He made an appeal to everybody in politics to make Ottawa less combative, less toxic, and less polarized.
“We’re now framing our political impact by the number of likes we get on social media, not the number of lives we change in the real world,” says O’Toole.
So, what exactly can Ottawa do better? And how?
Well, whatever O’Toole wants is far beyond his control, at this point. Maybe if he ran a better campaign he could have nipped this problem in the bud, or maybe he could have entirely empowered the crazies, but that’s neither here nor there. He lost, he’s resigning, and the problem is beyond his fixing now - who knows if his appeal will even reach the ears that it needs to.
This is going to be a Canadian problem as a whole to resolve, and it’s a simple solution: if you do not want radicalized politics to take over, do not vote for the radicals to take over your party or Parliament. Say what you will of the other parties, but radicalism and reactionism are largely a Conservative issue, and I imagine the voters will more than kindly respond to the idea of trying to turn things up a notch.