Max's Chances

The big guns have quickly lined up behind Andrew Scheer and ranged against Maxime Bernier: Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney, Michelle Rempel.

The commentators too are all saying Bernier doesn't have a point. Andrew Coyne says there is no pressing issue here to unite people behind some new alternative.

My gut says they are wrong. In the comments on the Internet I see a lot of people saying they are fed up with Scheer's nice guy approach and want to back Bernier. I think this is plausible: it is like what happened with Trump in the US. The elites were whistling with their hands in their pockets, sure there was nothing going on and they were in full control, but they were not listening to the folks. Who were really fed up with just this attitude. I think there is a good chance Bernier can tap in to something similar in Canada.

No pressing issue? Isn't NAFTA and its consequences for the Canadian economy important? If it does not look so now, imagine how things may look after a few months or years of a trade war with the US. And immigration and integration? That was a key issue for Reform thirty years ago. Since then, the annual flow of immigration has never abated; it has grown by about 50%. If it was a popular concern then, it is a bigger popular concern now. As it has proven to be in the US and Europe.

It is predictable that Harper, Kenney, or Rempel would rush to back Scheer. The best hope for the Conservatives and the right in general is that this Bernier initiative goes nowhere; they are doing what they can to make that happen.

The big question is whether Bernier can find funding. And some prominent Western backer.