Canadian Future Party presents centrist option

Opinion

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This article was published 17/08/2024 (398 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a welcome development on the Canadian political scene, but is too late to make a difference in the next federal election. Or, is the timing just right?

On Wednesday, the Canadian Future Party was officially launched as a federal political party. It seeks to provide voters with a moderate, centrist alternative to the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats and, judging by a number of polls conducted over the past few years, there is an appetite for such an option on ballots.

At a media conference on Wednesday, interim party leader Dominic Cardy, a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister from New Brunswick, told reporters that “For too long, Canadians have been asked to play a political shell game.”

He explained that “Under the shell on the left, the social programs you need. But along with it, too often you have to buy bloated government, ever-increasing spending, divorced from delivering results.”

“Under the shell on the right,” he added, “we’re supposed to find fiscal discipline. But along with it, too often there’s a mean-spirited approach that blames the most vulnerable for their plight, selfishness masquerading as liberty that happily misdirects government resources to the wealthy, and polices our bodies and our bedrooms.”

Interim party president Tara McPhail says the new party is a place for Canadians like her who are “politically homeless.” She adds that “[Canadians] don’t like the options on the left or the right,” and that “We’ve moved away from … policy and a tone of moderation and civility. And when I speak with Canadians, they say they’d like to see more of that. So we do think we are helping to fill a vacuum that exists.”

Cardy and McPhail also announced that the party will be fielding candidates in byelections in the LaSalle-Émard-Verdun and Elmwood-Transcona ridings next month.

In terms of policy, Cardy identified five policy positions for the party: making life more affordable for Canadians; reforming government programs; increasing defence spending to two per cent of gross domestic product; reforming immigration; and increasing competition in the agriculture, airline and telecommunications industries.

More generally, the party’s media release from Wednesday says that “The CFP believes people from every corner of the country want to be united behind a common set of ideals: democracy, the rule of law, collective action, and individual rights. A country where you can live as you like, love who you want, and in exchange, you work hard, and we collectively agree on a common set of rules to let us live our different lives, together. Where decisions are based on evidence.”

Those are goals and principles that many Canadian voters appear willing to support, but the question is whether the Canadian Future Party is really in a position to deliver on those words. Or, are they doomed to be crushed by the more established parties in the next federal election, and perhaps into extinction?

It’s too soon to tell, but the odds are certainly against them. Both Cardy and McPhail hold “interim” positions until the party’s convention in November, and its unclear how many members the party actually has, and how willing those members are to do the hard work of launching a viable federal political party. Indeed, only 250 founding members were required in order to register the party with Elections Canada, but that number is lower than the total number of seats in the House of Commons. A successful federal political party needs tens of thousands of members and even more people willing to donate money to support its activities.

Given the growing level of apathy and resignation that permeates all levels of politics in Canada these days, it won’t be easy for the CFP to accomplish those objectives before the next election, which may be only months away from now.

That said, it is far easier, and far less costly, for politicians and their parties to establish a public presence now than it was even a decade ago. Through a combination of social media and earned media, political parties can get their ideas and candidates in front of millions of voters, at a very reasonable price. What is required, however, is sustained focus, commitment and energy, translated into a razor-sharp communications strategy.

It is an open question as to whether Cardy, McPhail and their CFP colleagues possess all that energy, let alone the determination required to design and deploy a winning comms strategy.

Is the Canadian Future Party here to stay, or will it quickly wither on the political vine? Will it have the platform, candidates and resources necessary to have an impact in the upcoming federal election?

It’s too soon to know the answers to those questions. What we do know, however, is that there are a lot of Canadians with moderate, centrist views who crave another option on the ballot. The CFP has an opportunity to be that option. Time will tell if they can do that.