Matthew Lau: Your election choice: Three NDP plans

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The election is next week and sensible Canadians find themselves in the lunatic position of having to consider voting in support of an NDP economic platform. The platform in question has a picture of Erin O’Toole on the cover and you can download it at www.conservative.ca, but in terms of substance it is NDP through and through. It attacks corporations, misunderstands basic economics, and is socially progressive. It promises more power for labour unions, interventionist industrial policies and big spending increases on top of what the current Liberal government is already spending.

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Ordinarily, voting for this sort of economic plan does not merit consideration, but the alternative to O’Toole’s NDP plan is Trudeau’s NDP plan, which is even worse. (The actual NDP — thank goodness — has no real chance of winning the election). Trudeau’s plan is even less economically literate than O’Toole’s and proposes more in the way of taxes, spending, regulation, and climate alarmism. It is also much heavier-handed in trying to get everyone to conform to left-wing social doctrines.

Many Canadians may decide the Conservative Party is the lesser of the two evils and vote accordingly. For those inclined to choose this option, there are, mercifully, some mitigating factors that may help make the Conservatives a tolerable choice. In the first place, Erin O’Toole, whatever his other faults, gives every appearance of being a person who can be relied on to behave like a responsible adult. It is not a very high bar, yet the current prime minister has sometimes failed to reach it, as in the case of his disastrous trip to India in 2018.

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“I confess, from afar,” India-based journalist Barkha Dutt wrote in the Washington Post at the time, “I used to be a Trudeau fan-girl. But after this trip, I’ve changed my mind. Trudeau has come across as flighty and facetious. His orchestrated dance moves and multiple costume changes in heavily embroidered kurtas and sherwanis make him look more like an actor on a movie set or a guest at a wedding than a politician who is here to talk business.” This was the same trip, incidentally, on which the Canadian government accidentally invited a British Columbia man who was once convicted for an assassination attempt of an Indian cabinet minister to a reception with Trudeau.

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When it comes to foolish personal behaviour, it is to O’Toole’s credit that the Liberals have found little with which to charge him. So far, at least, there have been no revelations of blackface photos or allegations of past misbehaviour towards women that had to be dismissed by the observation that “people experience things differently.” Indeed, O’Toole’s most controversial moment was probably in a Facebook live video during the Conservative leadership race last year in which, near the end of the nine-minute video, he motioned towards a portable toilet and joked that Trudeau’s office could be moved into there. I thought it was an amusing line, but the Liberals grumbled about it.

In addition to having a more responsible individual at the helm, a second point in the Conservatives’ favour is that some of the party’s candidates really are solid conservatives. The number who are reliably free-market is probably in the single digits, but many Conservative candidates are reasonably sensible on economics and thoughtful — in some cases, even wise — on matters relating to social policy and foreign affairs. Such candidates may well be worth supporting despite their party’s progressive platform.

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I would be remiss if I did not mention that an increasing proportion of Canadians dissatisfied with the three NDP leaders intend to vote for Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party. Many, though certainly not all, of the People’s Party’s economic policies are good, but unfortunately, its surge in the polls seems less about economic policy and more about opposition to coronavirus vaccine passports and skepticism about the benefits of vaccination. The first position is entirely defensible but the second is contradicted by the evidence. Moreover, although Bernier has firmly denounced violent protesting and the vast majority of his supporters are peaceful, it is a concern that many of the unhinged protestors at Liberal campaign events seem to be People’s Party supporters.

The question many sensible Canadians are therefore asking themselves is whether it is better to vote for the least objectionable of three NDP plans or not to vote at all and increase the risk of an even more objectionable NDP plan. Do you prefer this lunacy or that lunacy? You have less than a week now to decide.

Matthew Lau is a Toronto writer.