Overdose

It’s getting tougher to be a con lately. The pendulum – which swung (manly) towards the right for the last few years – is wobbling back to the middle.

So conservatives, especially those of the extreme kind, now face voters with doubts.

In Hungary today Viktor Orbán is predicted to flame out after 16 years of rule. Lately he’s been the poster boy for right-wing ‘patriotic’ politicians after successfully gutting the media, beating up on liberal educators and dissing immigrants. The Hungarian economy is the pits and the ruler has enriched himself, but luminaries like JD Vance still flock to the flame. The US VP was openly campaigning for Orbán last week.

Of course, MAGA is fraying. The hero who said ‘no new wars’ started one he can’t stop. His approval rating is circling the drain as gas tops $4 a gallon and independent voters flee after the violence of ICE and the stupidity of tariffs. Polling shows Dems could take the House and the Senate this November, while liberals win most special elections in the meantime.

In Canada, as we know, the Poilievre Party has lost four of its MPs as they changed sweaters to become Libs. Never before in Canadian history has there been this scale of defection. Now rumour has it eight or nine other caucus members plan to flip and join the government.

Poilievre calls it “dirty backroom dealing”. But slimy or not, the repudiation of hard-right conservativism (as PP embodies it) is a thing. MPs would not defect if they figured a majority of their constituents were against it. Otherwise they’re toast in the next vote.

Now we have byelections. Three of them. Tomorrow. Current odds are that the Carney gang will take them all – two in urban Toronto, one in Quebec, forty klicks north of Montreal.

The Liberals need only one victory to gain a majority – which is 172 out of the 343 seats in Parliament. It looks like the count will be 173 for sure. Maybe 174 tomorrow night.

So what does this mean?

As mentioned here the other day, it changes a lot.

Says Scotia economist Derek Holt: “The outcome could lend supportive stability to the Canadian dollar and domestic markets while emboldening the Carney administration to more aggressively pursue fiscal, regulatory, investment and trade policies without having to depend upon the fragmented opposition.”

Exactly. Stability. No federal election until 2029 – when the world will look considerably different.

Trump will be gone. Tariffs will drop. MAGA could be in its final stages. The Iran war will be over (and Iran stronger). Netanyahu will be gone (maybe in jail). AI will be running the planet. China will look more trustworthy than America. And Canada’s reputation in the world will have improved immensely from, say, way back in 2023 when we were about to have a Poilievre government.

Can you imagine Pierre at Davos, standing up to Trump’s rebuke, becoming a global folk hero?

Nah. Me neither. He’s done.

So come Tuesday, how will things be different with a majority Canadian government?

Expect a spring mini-budget. More infrastructure announcements. Lots of shovels. Lots of spending. Lots of deficit red ink as the Carney Libs enact the ‘nation-building’ that was in the last election platform.

This was the pitch. Forget Trump, it said. Build the nation.

Well, it’s easier to be poetic when you’re campaigning but – as the saying goes – people govern in prose. The Conservatives claim Carney is stealing weak MPs willing to turn their backs on voters while bragging about projects that are months or years away from starting. They point to a swelling budget deficit and claim this is the result of reckless spending. They say if the country was nirvana, Alberta would not be restive and receptive to the siren call of the separatists. Canada is broken, Poilievre keeps saying. It’s an anthem the Wexit gang stand and salute.

Well, the winds seem to be shifting. Now that US-Iran talks failed yesterday and Trump is again ramping up hostility, displeasure with the angry right could bubble up more. Canadians don’t like crusading American Christian nationalists any more than they do autocratic Iranian theocrats. We didn’t like the 51st state insults. The Olympic hockey mocking. The trade war. The loss of a friend and ally.

There’s a place for conservative thought. We need it. It tempers and guides human emotion. True conservatives believe in guardrails, disciple, stability and logic-based governing. That does not exclude empathy, compassion and community. It is secular, and for the good of man.

If an overdose of libs helps get us back there, well, amen.

About the picture: “Thanks for the informative blog Garth, it’s a dog send,” writes Laura. “Spouse is in the forest industry and we’ll soon be entering year 3 of long distance living apart. Even though we reside amongst some of the best timber in the world, the mills have shuttered one by one. With Theo and his animal siblings along for the ride it’s not practical to rent, so we’re in a bit of a bind. Selling our family property isn’t an option. Tough times, even tougher for others I know.”

To be in touch or send a picture of your beast, email to ‘garth@garth.ca’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2026/04/12/overdose/