David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the Executive Council and cabinet secretary in Manitoba.
It has been 40 years since an opposition party led the governing party in the polls by so much, for so long, prior to a federal election. In the previous case, Brian Mulroney went on to win the largest majority in Canadian history in 1984.
If history is on its way to repeating itself, then the question becomes not whether there will be a new Conservative government, but how it will govern.
To date, most attention has been aimed at what the Conservative Party would do in government, with very little attention paid as to how they would do so. But voters react to how parties govern, or plan to govern – not just their policies. After all, when voters tire of the way governments do things, that is usually the time and reason they vote them out.
The most common assumption is that since the current Conservatives talk like populists, they will govern as populists, and there are discernible characteristics of populist governments that we can look to for clues as to what might come.
A recent study identified close to 50 populist-styled governments in 33 countries between 1996 and 2020, from Argentina to Zambia (literally, A to Z). While not all exhibited the same type of populism, the study found that, overall, populist governments had a negative effect on governance quality as measured by the World Governance Institute. Governance checks and balances were eliminated; independent institutions such as the judiciary and the public service were undermined; the media was sidelined; electoral rules affecting competition were diminished. But this effect varied by country, by region, and by populist type, making it a cautionary tale – not a predictive one.
All populist movements share one core attribute: They spring from an “anti” phenomenon directed against “the system” itself. Populists proclaim that governing institutions are isolated from, and non-responsive to, the needs of a silent majority of citizens. They invent enemies and manufacture grievances. Populism finds voice in a deliberate binary expression of “us” and “them.” Elites versus regular people, insiders versus outsiders, expertise versus common sense.
Former United States president Donald Trump exhibited all of the classic leadership features we now associate with populists: The sole-saviour persona or strong-man image (“I, alone, can fix it.”); acting tough but unable to endure criticism (pick a tweet, any tweet); simplistic fixes for problems (“Build the wall!”); outsider-insider rhetoric (“Drain the swamp”); and a cavalier rejection of the role of established institutions in governance.
Populists clearly know what they are against. But what are they for? In their quest for power, populists are driven less by hard-wired ideology, such as free-market capitalism on the right, or wealth redistribution on the left. What impels them most is a vague but overarching imperative to give the people what they want.
That’s why populists do not see themselves as anti-democratic at all. They consider themselves the voice of a new form of political engagement that is actually more responsive to the popular will of citizens.
Populism is antithetical to the modern liberal democratic state’s ideal model of governance: Evidence-based decision-making, professional expertise and knowledge, and reconciliation of diverse interests for a societal common good. Why? Because that established view of the state reinforces the position of those in government as the best, and only, arbiters of governance. Populist governance therefore collides not just with the governing establishment, but with the established way of governing itself.
It’s no surprise then that the populist will gaze at the institutions of governance with a wary, suspicious eye, viewing institutions and the people who run them as “gatekeepers,” beholden to themselves, not the people they are meant to serve.
An expected clash of governance styles is inevitable when populists enter office. But Canada’s democratic history has usually shown an alignment of governance institutions with the will of voters. How? By those same institutions faithfully serving the duly elected government of the day through the principle of “fearless advice, loyal implementation.”
But populists typically only relish the latter, not so much the former. Herein lies the risks. Actively challenging the public service’s core ideals around good governance would put a new government’s agenda at risk. Failing to recognize that public institutions must become more responsive to the people would put public-service integrity at risk. Figuring out how to leaven the power of populism with the attributes of good governance would be a better path forward.
Polls show that Canada’s governance may well be on the cusp of facing a unique, generational moment. As the “government-in-waiting,” both the Conservative Party and the public service have the obligation to plan now for a successful democratic transition. That means serving the public interest by considering the most un-populist of words: accommodation.