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In the heyday of the Manning Centre Networking Conference rebranded the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference in 2020, but with Preston Manning still very much in the foreground keynote speakers from other countries were often a real highlight. Watching Americas Ron Paul defend a brand of libertarianism that simply doesnt exist in Canada, or Britains Nigel Farage wax smarmy-eloquent about the Brexit adventure, younger conservatives in particular seemed to revel in exotic tales from countries where the political spectrum is more than an inch wide.

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Then they would go back to fighting the Liberals tooth and nail over small differences.

One vision often espoused at the conference was always more than a pipe dream, though: Leaving the provinces alone to manage the affairs explicitly delegated to them in the Constitution, and as much as possible even beyond that. Nowadays, its one of very few predictable signature differences between liberal and conservative governments.

Consider health care. COVID-19 smacked many provinces upside the head with respect to their capacities and frailties. Under traditional service-delivery models, the sums necessary to improve outcomes and prepare for future emergencies are astronomical to the point that long-term atrophy is a far more likely outcome. Innovation is critical to avoiding that, and Ottawa shouldnt stand in the way.

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We (conservatives) run away from healthcare. We should run towards it, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith argued in an afternoon discussion with Canada Strong and Free Network director Jocelyn Bamford, defending her governments embrace of private health-care delivery and other innovations.

Part of the reason why health care doesnt work is its being operated in this top-down (model), but we can have a private delivery public funding, stay within the Canada Health Act, and bring all the principles we know work in free enterprise to this most expensive service, Smith argued.

Even the federal Liberals seem to realize the wisdom of this. The strings attached to recently concluded federal-provincial health-care agreements are relatively flimsy and uncontroversial: That improving long-term care be a focus, for example (surely no one disagrees after the pandemic nightmare), or that provinces commit to providing comparable health-care data to be compiled in Ottawa (which is exactly the sort of thing the federal government should be insisting upon, the better to determine what works and what doesnt).

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Child care is another good example where confident conservatives ought to have no problem winning the decentralization argument. Canadian progressives tend to be obsessed with licensed and regulated child-care spaces over all others, but in an afternoon discussion about the new middle class, Renze Nauta of the conservative think tank Cardus noted that licensed and regulated child-care spaces on the whole are much less flexible in terms of operating hours.

Especially nowadays, with the rise of gig work and more fluid work arrangements, flexibility is precisely what middle-class parents need, Nauta argued. And the middle-class voter is who everyone is after.

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Quebec City MP Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievres Quebec lieutenant, issued an explicit invitation to the other provinces to follow Quebecs lead and band together to wring whatever they can out of Ottawa. And he trod near heresy to make his point: It is true that Quebec is unique in Canada, but so is Alberta. So is the East Coast, Ontario, British Columbia and the Prairies.

(Poilievre) wants to make this country a better place for families and businesses, and he realizes that provinces are unique and have their own unique challenges, Paul-Hus added. Unlike Justin Trudeau, he doesnt believe in one size fits all.

With provincial-rights maximalists like Smith in Edmonton (assuming she is re-elected in May) and Scott Moe in Regina, a Poilievre-led government would seem to offer a golden age of decentralization. But Poilievre himself remains the biggest question mark on that front.

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He is proudly interventionist on housing policy, for example at least if provinces and municipalities want giant novelty cheques from his future government: If junior jurisdictions dont get out of the way of building new homes, Poilievre vows, there wont be any federal funding for housing.

We had a deal in this country, didnt we? You work hard, you follow the law, you get a good house in a good safe neighbourhood, you make a good living and a great life, Poilievre said in his Thursday afternoon speech to the Strong and Free crowd. The deal is broken. Look around you. We have 35-year-olds living in their parents basements because (of) the cost of housing, of mortgage payments, of rental payments.

Hes exaggerating about the deal millions upon millions of Canadians have lived happy lives without owning property. But the cost of all kinds of housing strikes strikes me as a justified intervention after decades of policy failure. If provinces and cities want to go Full NIMBY, they can pay for it themselves. If anything threatens serious social unrest in Canada, its millennials and Gen-Zers who dreamed of owning a house in Toronto or Vancouver and now cant even afford an apartment.

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Poilievres stance on addiction, on the other hand no to safe supply, no to safe injection, yes only to treatment is a wholly unjustified intrusion into what ought to be provincial jurisdiction. Its based on a delusion and a false dichotomy that he shares with Smith and many other conservatives. And its deadly.

The delusion, espoused by Poilievre and Smith alike on Thursday, is that Alberta has done much better than average with its recovery-based model. It has not.

Albertas opioid-overdose death toll in the first six months of 2022 was 35 per 100,000 second-highest in the country, a not-very-impressive seven points lower than ostensibly out-of-control British Columbia, and fully 18 points higher than ostensibly out-of-control Ontario, both of which offer safe-consumption and (more recently) safe-supply.

The false dichotomy is between offering addicts rehabilitation and offering a reliably non-lethal supply and safe place to consume it in the meantime. The supply and the safe space keep them alive. Thats literally the whole point.

Law-and-order issues are catnip to politicians, and Canadians are right to be appalled by the mayhem plaguing many of our cities. But the bedrock conservative principle that government policy is best designed as close to home as possible is an excellent one especially when scores of lives are at stake.

See the article here:

Chris Selley: Poilievre leaves provinces wondering if he really believes in them - National Post