Liberals are aping rhe Conservatives to get elected

With the federal election up for grabs next Monday, and the two top parties almost neck-and-neck in the polls, it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell the Liberals and Conservatives apart.

Part of Mark Carney's strategy when he became Liberal leader last month was clearly to try to steal Pierre Poilievre's thunder by adopting a bunch of Conservative platform policies and claiming them as his own. Thus, within days of assuming the leadership, Carney vowed to scrap the consumer carbon tax and to walk back unpopular plans to increase the capital gains tax inclusion rate. 

On many other issues, from housing to pipelines to maternity benefits to unbalanced budgets, the two parties are now pretty much in lockstep, regardless of their previous stances, as the Liberals pull out all the stops to try to be all things to all people. 

This is partly a ploy by the Liberals to distance themselves from any policy that might remotely be considered to be unpopular or controversial, but it is partly to take away any vote-winning advantage from the Conservatives. It makes (political) sense that the Liberals try to remove as many policy objections as possible, and to try to make the election more about individuals than platforms. That way they can take advantage of many people's instinctive dislike of Pierre Poilievre, and their apparent trust in Carney to deal with the Trump administration.

It has been quite a successful strategy for them, marked by a miraculous come-back in the polls from about 25% behind to 5% in front (although slightly softening in recent days). But it's most disconcerting to see the Liberals espousing populist policies they once vociferously objected to, and it doesn't really feel very good, I have to say. But if it's the only way to ensure that Pierre Poilievre doesn't get his greasy mitts on power, then I will go along with it.

I have to assume that both candidates are deliberately steering their platform policies towards the centre in order to get elected, and that, once elected, their true colours will come out. Thus, Poilievre would almost certainly veer sharply towards the right if elected - of that, I have long been convinced. The best I can hope is that, once elected, Mark Carney will also revert to form and veer further to the left, re-establishing his concern for the environment among other things, which seems to have been all but abandoned during this election campaign.

That is my hope. But that's really not how politics is supposed to work.