Please Advise! Are We Too Mean to Party Leaders?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Election day was a mixed bag for party leaders. Mark Carney won his first parliamentary seat easily and Elizabeth May won for the Greens. But Pierre Poilievre lost in his Carleton riding and Jagmeet Singh finished a distant third in Burnaby Centre. Even Australian Opposition leader Peter Dutton lost his seat in last week's election.

Is there a political disadvantage in being a party leader?

Signed,

Private

Dear Private,

The tides of politics are not the predictable kind. No one publishes a schedule in the paper so that next day you can wander down to the shore and see what sort of refuse has been left high and dry by changes in circumstance.

In this case though it’s interesting to look at which way the tides were running. Jagmeet Singh’s loss was brutal — a distant third in a field of four candidates in his riding. When the only candidate in your rear-view mirror is the People’s Party dude, the bronze medal is not much consolation. But Singh’s loss was consistent with the national trend. The current was running against the NDP and, like King Canute before him, Singh discovered that a leader cannot command the tides.

Poilievre, on the other hand, did manage to defy the trend. While the Conservatives surged nationally, Poilievre refused to follow the crowd. Boldly, he bucked the trends and battled his way to defeat. He did it his way. With apologies to Frank Sinatra, not always a wise strategy.

Regrets? His backbenchers must have a few. Especially Damien Kurek, MP for Battle River-Crowfoot, who announced he will step aside to let Poilievre run in a byelection. For Poilievre, it was an offer he couldn't refuse. For Kurek too, no doubt.

Battle River-Crowfoot is a sprawling riding of roughly 108,000 voters, approximately 12 of whom voted Liberal. It takes in a huge swath of east central Alberta, including Drumheller. That makes the riding home to the World’s Largest Dinosaur and probably a lot of people who think they wore saddles.

This will be quite a switch for Poilievre, who previously represented an Ottawa riding. He'll have to learn that when you represent, say, Camrose, it's not a good idea to say that Camrose is the source of all of Canada's problems.

Surely Poilievre will adjust to his new circumstances. Like some city slicker in a Hallmark movie who comes home for the holidays and is gradually consumed by folksiness, he'll likely open up Pierre's Pickle Barrel in Stettler or Gadsby, and spend his days sitting with folks on the porch, chatting about crops and combines and cryptocurrency. He may acquire an adorably quirky pig. His homespun wisdom, usually including words that rhyme with “tax,” will be accompanied by a laugh track but also nods of profound agreement.

Poilievre had better stay humble. He won't even be the biggest name in the riding. Battle River-Crowfoot is home to the towns of Czar and Empress. It also includes Hanna, which, aside from its fame as a location mentioned in the Guess Who’s “Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon,” is also home to most of the members of Nickelback. If Poilievre gets his name on a sign at the edge of town, he'll be in small print at the bottom.

The larger question is: Why did the party leaders lose? As NDP leader, Singh managed to get a national dental plan passed into law as well as an expansion of pharmacare. Shouldn't that have earned him some credits? Maybe allowed him to stand a bit farther away from the People's Party dude on the medal podium?

Apparently not. Singh got whupped by Liberal Wade Chang, a political rookie, and even by Conservative candidate James Yan, another rookie whose bio describes him as “an avid player and spectator of racquet sports.” Seems subsidized dental care is OK, but it pales beside a deep appreciation of pickleball.

The reality of politics seems to be that accomplishment and reward are frequently disconnected. People frequently vote on issues, like the price of gas or the rise of global inflation or the onset of male pattern baldness, over which the government has little control. And even when larger forces like the dangerous insanity of Donald Trump offer legitimate reasons to vote a certain way, those forces can overwhelm the legitimate efforts of well-meaning representatives. In this election, the NDP got thrown out with the bathwater.

None of which is to suggest Singh was an ideal leader. Despite his undeniable charisma and decency, Singh did not always help himself with flip-flops and a tendency to justify acts of political expediency. Nonetheless, his crushing defeat seems somewhat unfair. It might cause you to lose faith in the idea of electoral politics as a meritocracy.

If so, Dr. Steve urges you to consider that sometimes, politics can be fair. A politician can indeed be recognized and rewarded for who they are and what they represent. And then that politician has to elbow aside a freshly re-elected Conservative MP so he can creep back into Parliament via the voters of Acme, Hay Lakes and Viking, Alberta. Have faith in the process, friends.