Damien C. Kurek: The double standard surrounding PM Carney is impossible to ignore

A panel of strategists talks about how Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives are reacting to MP Matt Jeneroux crossing the floor to the Liberals.

Damien C. Kurek is the former Conservative member of Parliament for Battle River-Crowfoot and a nominated Conservative candidate. He is currently a Principal at the Upstream Strategy Group and continues to work on his multi-generational family farm in rural Alberta. This is his guest column for CTVNews.ca.

I have a pretty high tolerance for political spin. You kind of have to when you’ve spent years in the House of Commons and on the ground here in Alberta. But a recent opinion column published right here on this platform claiming “moderates are fleeing” the Conservative Party crossed the line from standard spin straight into fiction.

It’s a perfect example of a double standard in our national media that’s getting harder and harder to ignore. As a western and rural Conservative, I’d be the first to suggest there’s always been a left-leaning bias in parts of the press. But since Mark Carney took over the Prime Minister’s Office? It’s on a whole different level. Every single day, it seems like many in media are simply a megaphone for Liberal insiders to vent their wishful thinking about their opponents. Meanwhile, the Carney government gets a near free pass on policies that are actively crushing a once prosperous middle class.

When I’m driving across Battle River—Crowfoot, grabbing a coffee at a local diner or just leaning on a pickup truck on Main Street, the conversations are completely divorced from the drama obsessed Ottawa bubble. No one out here is losing sleep over what Liberals think about Conservatives. They’re losing sleep because they are a couple hundred bucks away from going broke and life is not getting better despite being told it is.

People are stressed. We have a country drowning in record debt, and housing and food costs that make basic survival unaffordable for regular families. Streets feel less safe. The immigration system is visibly broken. And then you look at the recent string of floor-crossers... Ottawa pundits might pat the Prime Minister on the back for a cunning backroom power play, but regular folks just see it as an insult. The people who actually cast ballots in those ridings, and the over eight million Canadians who voted Conservative in the last election, are left reeling, totally shut out of the process, and worse, our democracy.

Where are the pundits talking about that?

Instead of holding a government accountable for a decade of mismanagement, mainstream media would rather dedicate premium column inches to analyzing how our political opponents feel. It’s frankly unfathomable how little scrutiny this current government actually faces. Even calling them a “New Government” offends the common sense of anyone who has actually sat in the House of Commons (elected or as a spectator). If reporters want to dig into political machinations, there’s plenty to find on the Liberal benches. But I guess the old adage holds true: if it’s not a Tory, it’s not a story.

Let’s also put to bed this Ottawa insider fantasy that the Conservative movement is wandering in the wilderness. Just look at the math. The last election was decided on a razor’s edge. Less than 40,000 votes, placed across the tightest ridings, was the only thing standing between the Conservatives and a majority government. I spent months on the campaign trail, including several with Pierre Poilievre in the by-election, and since talking to supporters from coast to coast. They are making it clear: they want Pierre and our team fighting for them.

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Polls go up and down. But when you have a so-called “new” government keeping virtually none of its signature promises, depending on a divisive U.S. president for its support, fueling divisions in our people, it’s no mystery why Canadians are desperate for change. And Liberals and their partisans, whether pundits or in Parliament, should remember that the party has defined and led the policy discussion on virtually every major issue over the last few years is the Conservative Party led by Pierre Poilievre.

Being a Canadian patriot doesn’t mean sitting quietly while the country slides backward. It means demanding better. The Opposition wants a Canada that respects hard work, protects their communities, builds prosperity, and actually does what it promises, that is something that should be celebrated.

The Liberals and their insiders can keep obsessing over us all they want. Conservatives are going to keep focusing on Canadians, and the fight for a hopeful and prosperous Canada that works for everyone.