Canada

The other parties "talked about those problems" but they weren't able to focus public anger like the Conservatives did. None of them have provided policy proposals to quickly address the cost of living crisis.

The Conservatives ran with cost-of-living issues after the Pandemic restrictions eased - so late 2022 or 2023, I think. They showed potential voters that they understood that prices were rising, and that Canadians were hurting. The Liberals initially dismissed concerns (IIRC Freeland or Trudeau said something about vibes vs. the GDP), and didn't really start moving on it until 2024ish; but they couldn't shake the credibility problem. I'm not really sure where the NDP were - I think they were focusing on the supply and confidence concessions. I'm not aware of messaging from the Bloc or Greens that got consistent coverage.

Of the five, only the Conservatives were effective in that messaging. This is Lemmy, so I have to say that I'm not a Conservative, but I can appreciate that they did an excellent job understanding the public sentiment and speaking to it. The other parties did not.

There weren't many policy proposals before the election - certainly nothing that changed public perception or meaningfully pushed prices down. The policies from the Liberals focused on the supply side by providing improvements to the development process (and maybe some loans?), while the Conservatives proposed doing something similar, but on a more limited basis (?!). They were insufficient. And yes, I'm focusing on housing, because that's what I've been following.

During the election, the Liberal housing proposal was more grounded, but it didn't address how the country will reach the goal of 500k starts/year (other than loans and factories), nor does it provide a goal for housing costs. The Conservative proposal was undeniably worse, since it didn't provide a mechanism to reach their much more aggressive goal.

I'm fully on board the Conservatives-bad bandwagon, but it really doesn't make sense to

1. ignore the cost of living issues that many of us are facing,
2. pretend that the CPC/Poilievre didn't do an excellent job of parlaying anger about cost of living into votes,
3. credit the other parties with addressing cost of living issues in a way that speaks to voters.

The CPC are doing well because they're tapping genuine concerns that voters feel on a daily basis (amongst other things). The other parties weren't doing that, and I don't see much evidence that they'll improve. As someone who really doesn't want the Conservatives to win the next election, I think we need to call out where the other parties are failing so they can get their shit together.