Cost-of-Living Crisis Boosts Conservatives as NDP Chains Itself to Status Quo
Almost half of Canadians are now living paycheque to paycheque, according to a new poll—and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are reaping the political benefits.
The Canadian Press reports on the results of a survey by marketing and analytics firm Leger, which polled 1,597 Canadians last weekend: “The poll by Leger shows that 47 per cent of respondents say they're living paycheque to paycheque, including 53 per cent of those aged 18 to 35 and 57 per cent of people between the ages of 35 and 54.” The article continues:
People over the age of 55 were most likely to say they were faring well compared to younger age groups, and more men than women reported that their finances were in good shape.
Nearly half of respondents under the age of 35 reported being worried about losing their job in the next year, at 47 per cent, compared to 35 per cent of people aged 35-54. […] Younger people were also most likely to say they think Canada is in an economic recession. In all, 61 per cent of people who took the poll said yes to that question, while 16 per cent said they don't know and 23 per cent said no.
The number of people in Canada using food banks soared last year. A poor economy is typically bad news for an incumbent government and good news for its opposition. That certainly appears to be the case in the Leger survey, which describes rising support for the Conservatives, a sharp decline in support for the ruling Liberals, and lesser drop for the NDP.
The Canadian Press again:
[The Leger poll] suggests the Conservative party's support is at 38 per cent -- three percentage points higher than it was in the last poll in late July.
That continues a trend that has seen the Tories rising in Leger polls since late May, when they were at 31 per cent, and puts support for the party four points higher than it was during the last federal election in 2021.
Liberal support among decided voters was nine points behind the Conservatives at 29 per cent, the same as it was in July, and the NDP was top choice for 18 per cent of those polled. Support for the New Democrats was down two points from July.
Still, 34 per cent of those polled say they're either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government. Another 24 per cent said they were somewhat dissatisfied, while 35 per cent said they were very dissatisfied.
The cost-of-living crisis is really a manifestation of the larger crisis of capitalism. And yet the party benefitting most from this crisis is the Poilievre-led Conservative Party, which is the most open defender of capitalism and proponent of attacks on workers and the poor. How can we explain this paradox?
The answer comes down to the lack of an opposition party in Parliament that fights for socialist policies. As Canada’s only mass labour party with an organic link to the trade unions, the NDP should be in a position to benefit from collapsing support for Trudeau’s Liberals. Unfortunately, the NDP under the leadership of Jagmeet Singh has taken the exact opposite approach.
Far from putting forward a bold left-wing alternative, the NDP has instead propped up the Liberal government through the “confidence-and-supply” deal. As Canadians sink deeper into poverty and hatred for the status quo grows, the NDP has identified itself with that very status quo, leaving a political vacuum that has allowed right-wing populists like Poilievre to pose as “anti-establishment”.
Meanwhile, Poilievre has stayed on the offensive and hammered the government over the housing crisis and rising cost of living. As a right-wing demagogue, of course, Poilievre has no actual solutions to these problems other than ramping up attacks on the working class. But he has staked out a place in the Canadian political landscape as the only clear opposition to the Liberals, while the NDP chains itself to that increasingly unpopular government.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: abandoning socialist policies only benefits the right. The NDP’s support for the Liberals has correctly invited ridicule and proved a gift to Poilievre and the Conservatives. Singh can tweet all he wants about how both the Conservatives and Liberals are in the pocket of big business, and he’s not wrong. But none of these criticisms matter when the NDP continues to support the Liberals, as everyone can see.
With the rise in interest rates, stubbornly high inflation, and Canada’s economy slowing even further, the cost-of-living crisis is only set to get worse. If the NDP doesn’t break with the Liberals and go on the offensive against them, expect the Conservatives to keep rising higher in the polls.