Canada

Make no mistake: The Conservatives have revved up their chainsaw. They are just hoping that voters won’t hear it over the soothing muzak of wildly optimistic budget projections. 

Desperate to recover the ground he has lost to the Liberals, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has solemnly pledged to maintain federal transfers for health care and education to provinces and income supports for individuals like Old Age Security (OAS). He has even said he would maintain new programs like pharmacare, dental care and $10/day childcare programs, just months ago he “rejected.”

Behind closed doors, it is another story altogether. A member of Poilievre’s transition team let slip that if elected, they plan to hit Canadians hard and fast with a flurry of cutbacks modelled on Mike Harris’ government, whose Common Sense Revolution devastated Ontario’s social safety net and public services.

Media leaks from a recent closed-door conservative confab lend credibility to these sources. At the Canada Strong and Free conference, top Conservatives said there is “no reason why we can’t move more quickly” than Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in slashing government programs and laying off public employees. And Conservative-aligned tech billionaires have been yearning for a Canadian version of DOGE – until they realized it was harming the party’s prospects.