The Conservative Platform was developed with those who want to bring DOGE to Canada – and it shows

Greenpeace Canada is non-partisan: we don’t support any particular party or candidate in this election – however, this does not mean we are neutral. We will call out harmful policies and ideas where we see them. And we see a lot of those in Poilievre’s recently released CPC platform. GP Canada’s Digital Content Specialist Emily has partnered with Toronto artist Christopher Lambe (who you might recognize from his satirical political t-shirts) to break down what’s inside. Find a comparison of all political party climate plans here.

With early voting out of the way – and an impressive voter turnout, no less – Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party have finally graced voters with their “costed” policy platform. Costed is in quotations because the 30 page doc – complete with 17 glossy photos of Pierre – seems to pull its numbers out of thin air, according to Kevin Page who was the Parliamentary Budget Watchdog for five years.

Along with those numbers – which, as we shall get into, were audited in conjunction with those who want to unleash DOGE on Canada –  one of the most concerning things is that despite the ‘Canada First’ campaign, this is a platform that feels like it’s ripped right from Trump’s ‘America First’ playbook.

Do the Numbers Really Add Up?

For the party that many associate with “fiscal responsibility,” this new platform is a far cry from anything the Conservatives have put out before – even the far right leaning Postmedia owned National Post was critical:

It’s heavily reliant on what has been called a “somewhat controversial approach” – Dynamic Pricing. This means everything is costed through future projected revenue based on hoped for economic growth which would depend on a degree of certainty.

Thus, this approach – full of deregulation, tax cuts, and a ripper mentality towards the checks and balances that keep our democracy relatively healthy – don’t exactly feel like stable footing when looking down the barrel of an economic downturn due to Trump’s erratic economic policies and tariff threats. But perhaps that level of substance shouldn’t be expected from a campaign that built its entire identity around slogans, false equivalencies and handing out donuts to rally its base.

Cuts VS Revenue:  

Over 50% of the cut-related revenue sources projected in the Platform come from gutting environmental regulations and climate policies. Considering the Climate Crisis is projected to cost (a likely underestimated) $38 TRILLION per year globally by 2050, this seems at best shortsighted, and at worst, inviting climate collapse to stay for dinner. Yes – Climateflation is real. Axing environmental regulations to make your revenue projection dreams come true seems more like end times fascism.

$23.5 billion in savings is to be found in the firing of independent consultants while closing tax loopholes is projected to find $12.9 billion over four years (a surprising jump from the previous estimate of $1 billion per year). These commitments seem a little strange for a party stacked with those very same corporate consultants and lobbyists, and whose fundraisers have been packed with corporate elites.

Meanwhile, losses in revenue from cutting GST on new homes up to $1.3 million is imagined to be offset by an increase in housing sales – which, once again, isn’t guaranteed. This is a policy that most benefits wealthy developers, who would have to voluntarily pass savings to buyers and renters (highly doubtful this was the topic of conversation at Pierre’s cash-for-access fundraiser held in Sharon Hochfelder’s mansion, who made her fortune investing in rental apartments). And if “build baby build” is part of the plan to bring down housing costs, we may all be sorely disappointed as it can take up to 20 years for increased housing stock to touch price tags.

Further, economists are questioning the GST rebate policy for new housing, pointing out what appears to be a flaw in the assumption – namely that in order for the GST cut to stay on budget, Canada could only sell 50,000 qualifying homes (highly implausible). Unless Poilievre is banking on the majority of homes selling for MORE than $1.3 million on average, the program’s cost could exceed $4 billion.

The math in this policy plan doesn’t appear to be…mathing. Maybe that’s because it was done with the guidance of Tim Sargent, who recently had this to say about bringing a Musk-style DOGE to Canada: “The federal cuts will come so fast and hard that critics won’t know which way to look.” (you can listen to clips of the audio here)

The involvement of DOGE-bros along with Pierre’s very anti-public funding voting record, fears around the conservatives playing a Trump-style haphazard game of Operate on the Canadian economy feel pretty real.

On Workers Rights

Poilievre’s entire ‘Bring It Home’ campaign has felt a little like working class cosplay, a carefully crafted image of ”the anti-establishment champion of working people.”  This image has clashed with his long history of voting against strong unions and pro-worker policies while voting for bills likel C-377 and C-525, which tried to bury unions in bureaucracy and make it harder for workers to form a union of their own. Poilievre has also long been a proponent of bringing the US-style “right to work” legislation to Canada, which despite its name, is more pro-boss and less pro-worker.

All of this is suspiciously left out of the Conservative plan.

Poilievre has also spent the last two years lamenting “bloated” government bureaucracy. In the plan itself, he promises to “cut the fat, but not the frontline service but doesn’t lay out a strategy for how exactly that will play out.

They do, however, say they will axe the post-secondary education requirement for government employees, perhaps a shout out to Pierre’s notorious contempt for “experts” (his statement that the “common people are the experts” echoes Musk’s declaration that the public is “the media now.”).  While making education a barrier to entry is a form of classism, the solution might be to provide universal public post-secondary education – not to delete it from public service entirely.

On The Environment

Last month when Pierre Poilievre announced he would do everything Big Oil wanted – he wasn’t kidding. When it comes to Climate Change in this plan, the environment is left to fend for itself: 

The Conservative plan says goodbye to carbon pricing, clean fuel regulations, emission caps, zero-emission vehicle mandates and clean energy regulations. He has also committed to axing the Industrial Carbon Tax, despite being the primary driver of pollution reductions under the current climate plan.

The Conservatives would also repeal Bill C-69, Canada’s crucial environmental impact assessment laws, doing absolutely no favours to struggling plant and animal species. No alternatives are given, no new targets are set and no mention of Canada’s current International commitments.

And who wants more single-use plastic? The Conservatives! Pierre proudly held up a loaf of bread wrapped in plastic at a recent press conference to announce he will FREE THE STRAWS from oppressive Liberal ban on single-use plastics – an obsession only rivaled by Donald Trump who signed executive order to “Make American Straws Great Again” because the paper ones “explode.”

All this might explain why recent research predicts a Conservative led government would result in 800m tonnes added to Canada’s emissions by 2035. And if you heard echoes of Drill Baby Drill in your head while you were reading this, that would be because the Conservative approach to handing “shovel ready zones” over to big industry donors is Just Like Trump.

On Social Justice, Human Rights and Democracy

Here’s where things seem to get really Trumpy.

For those who have been tuning out for valid mental health reasons, here’s the coles notes: Trump promised to “end woke” in Universities by denying them funding unless they conformed to his demands (silencing protest on campus, cutting DEI programs and staying away from a list of keywords and research subjects that are now banned – a promise he has kept!). Pierre Poilievre was clearly looking over his shoulder during that math test because here we have an eerily similar policy:

Funny how the far right uses the defence of free speech to take away…freedom of speech, which of course he would also apply to defunding the CBC. Publicly funded broadcast channels are a cornerstone of free speech and democracy. This might be why the tech CEOs and right-wing media platforms are chomping at the bit to see Pierre axe those facts by starving a National Broadcaster more likely to hold corporations in check. This echoes Trump’s long time vendetta against what he calls “legacy media” and his recent threats to defund PBS and NPR. Who does that to Sesame Street?? 

The war on supposed left-wing media bias (which, surprise! Doesn’t actually exist in legacy media OR online media) is a key far right propaganda strategy.

Trump has also used his attacks on Universities as an excuse to deport students who participated in pro-Palistinian protests on campus – a sentiment that Pierre has mirrored in his commitment to remove law-breaking visa holders:

Pierre’s “tough on crime” stance is further flushed out in the commitment to jail people for longer periods of time and introduce a 3 strikes law which has been shown to not only cost a lot more, but can also lead to higher rates of homicide. Turns out, throwing people in jail doesn’t reduce crime and it also doesn’t solve addiction, but he hasn’t let those pesky experts get in the way of saying he will use the Notwithstanding Clause to override charter rights to make it happen: “We will make them constitutional using whatever tools the Constitution allows me to use to make them constitutional. I think you know exactly what I mean. They will happen and they will stay in place.” (source)

For a party so obsessed with women’s biological clocks, women are only mentioned four times in this policy platform. Three of these mentions mimic the transphobic hatred that Trump made a cornerstone of his first days in office trying to keep people out of bathrooms, sports and other institutions.

The other mention comes in the form of yet another reminder that the party “won’t touch abortion rights” – almost like the repetition is meant to act as a Men in Black Neuralizer to make 50% of the population forget Pierre’s and the Party’s long history with anti-abortion measures. A history that makes the threat of using the Notwithstanding Clause all the more ominous.

Pierre again copies Trump’s homework on the 10 for 1 regulation executive order put forward in January. Perhaps going for a less Orwellian look, he brought it down to a more subtle two for one deal: for every new regulation the Conservatives write, they will remove two. Because that’s definitely how things work (willy nilly deregulation has worked so well in the past for companies like Boeing, right?).

Pierre takes another page from Trump’s anti-Globalization playbook by saying he will stop funding UNRWA, the only group providing meaningful aid to Palestinian refugees around the world.

And no right-wing platform would be complete without demanding new citizens pledge their allegiance to the Conservative’s reworked Canada First pledge (which for some may bring back  unwanted memories about that time Pierre Poilievre supported the unlawful Niqab Ban).

This is a platform that reiterates Poilievre’s entire campaign, so similar in its talking points to Donald Trump that it fed a wave of Nationalism even Quebec could get behind. It seems the Conservatives lost the Progressive part of their name somewhere between absorbing the Canadian Alliance and Stephen Harper joining the IDU (a platform dedicated to helping its members elect far right governments). As The Tyee reported several months back, Canada is in a fight for its life. 

After reviewing the Conservative platform, our answer to this call is the same today as it’s been for the last three months: Don’t Trump Canada.