The Economist explains
Who is Erin O’Toole, Canada’s would-be prime minister?
The Conservative leader is promising change, but not too much
FIRED UP BY the film “Top Gun” when he was young, Erin O’Toole enrolled in Canada’s Royal Military College in hopes of becoming a fighter pilot. He did become airborne, but as a navigator on an “old, antiquated helicopter”. Rather than “Maverick”, the aviator portrayed by Tom Cruise, Mr O’Toole wound up as “Goose”, the radar-intercept officer, he joked to an interviewer. His modesty and military background, he now hopes, will help him unseat Justin Trudeau, Canada’s glamorous prime minister, in the parliamentary election to be held on September 20th. The country needs a “handyman”, not a “poster boy”, he has said. What would his victory mean for Canada?
After leaving the armed forces, Mr O’Toole went on to become a corporate lawyer, then MP for Durham, an area of Ontario that his father represented as a provincial legislator. He has been leader of Canada’s Conservative Party since August 2020. But it is his 12 years in the air force that he wants Canadians to remember when they vote. He appears in a form-fitting T-shirt, ready for action, on the cover of the Conservatives’ election manifesto, which touts him as “the man with the plan”.
The plan, hastily improvised to fight a snap election, is to assure Canadians that, although his personality is nothing like that of the entitled, gratingly woke Mr Trudeau (the son of a former prime minister), his policies are not all that different. Mr O’Toole won the Conservative leadership contest sounding like a populist; he rallied the party faithful to “take back Canada”. Now he comes across as a “red Tory”, fiscally prudent but liberal on social issues and supportive of the welfare state.
Mr O’Toole admits that the Conservatives, who are strongest in oil-producing Alberta and Saskatchewan, have to win back trust on such issues as climate change and “reconciliation” with indigenous Canadians. His government would boost tax credits for people on low wages and help families, especially poor ones, pay for child care. It would wind down pandemic spending to support the economy “in a responsible way” and try to balance the budget over the next decade. After the Liberals’ six scandal-ridden years in office, the Conservatives would enact the “toughest” anti-corruption laws in Canada’s history.
But Mr O’Toole’s attempt at triangulation may not work. His target for cutting Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions is less ambitious than the Liberals’ and his child-care offer is less generous. Although Mr O’Toole has distanced himself from anti-vaxxers who make up part of his support base, Mr Trudeau hammers him for failing to endorse vaccine mandates. Mr O’Toole perplexed voters by saying he would keep the Liberals’ ban on assault weapons after supporting its repeal. The People’s Party, which gives free rein to the libertarian and populist instincts that Mr O’Toole has tried to restrain, is cutting into the Conservatives’ support.
He has put up a better fight than most analysts had expected. At one point the Conservatives had a clear lead. But the latest polls suggest that the Liberals will win more seats, though not the majority Mr Trudeau was hoping for. The poster boy might keep top billing.
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