Don't be fooled, Conservatives are no friend to workers

With the next federal election coming into focus on the horizon, political parties are battling for the labour vote. The Conservative Party in particular is working double-time to court working class voters, a cynical ploy if there ever was one, coming from them. 

The ongoing electoral struggle meant Labour Day was the occasion of performative paeans from the right, tributes that predictably belied a misunderstanding of work, workers, and the very purpose of the holiday. 

On Monday, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre shared an ad wishing workers a happy Labour Day contrasting the “night” and “dark” of the NDP-Liberal program with the “morning” his party will “bring home.” The spot is a saccharine reworking of Ronald Reagan’s Morning in America, a shameless and empty promise that Poilievre will deliver workers from hell on earth by way of lower taxes and affordable housing that will, naturally, be driven by the boundless power of the free market. Just like Reagan did, with a program of trickle down economics that never trickled down and an all-out assault on union rights.

Roman Baber, who is seeking the Conservative nomination in York Centre was, somehow, less subtle and more confused than Poilievre. “Work is a blessing,” Baber tweeted. “We should do everything possible to encourage more work. Conservatives will reduce the income tax and end inflationary deficits to make work more rewarding.” 

In a similar vein to his colleagues, former party leader Andrew Scheer amplified Poilievre's message, asking Canadians to imagine a prime minister who believed that “hard work should pay off” and that those who earned a living “should keep more of it.”

Reading Conservative Party messages on Labour Day, one might be excused for thinking the purpose of the blessed day off was to advocate for more work as a good in and of itself, calling on workers to, well, work more. It seems equally odd to use the occasion to advocate for stripping tax revenue from the state and tearing down the welfare apparatus that, flawed and incomplete as it is, exists to protect workers when they grow older, get sick or injured, or start a family.

For generations, workers, their unions, and left wing politicians have fought to build a better life and a better country. That project included the brick-by-brick work of assembling the welfare state – old age security, public pensions, medicare –  and the job protections that millions now enjoy in the private and public sectors. This work was often militant and resisted – sometimes violently – by economic and political elites.

Labour Day in Canada began in 1894, a recognition of efforts for a better life for workers. Like elsewhere, it was meant as a day to celebrate and promote working class solidarity. With its origins stretching back to earlier efforts to secure a nine-hour workday, and influenced by its American counterpart, it was a fundamentally radical day steeped in class consciousness and recognition of the struggle between workers, bosses, and a repressive state that fought attempts at shorter days, better pay, and safer working conditions. 

If you don’t associate conservatives with such a movement, watered down as it may now be, you’re not alone. In 2023, the Canadian Labour Congress complained that under Poilievre, the Conservatives were blocking two bills before Parliament aimed at bolstering worker rights, a low-carbon jobs bill and an anti-scab bill the Tories would eventually support. 

CLC president Bea Bruske argued “Mr. Poilievre’s actions in Parliament differ sharply from the public persona he is trying to create,” a charge we might equally apply to the cynical Conservative nod to workers on Labour Day.

As Poilievre took up the party reins, Emily Leedham wrote a scathing piece for PressProgress, outlining the many ways Poilievre had fought against worker rights throughout his career. She highlighted the then-newly minted leader’s support for “US-style ‘Right-to-Work’ laws,” his opposition to card-check legislation, and his support for the wage-depressing temporary foreign worker law adopted by Stephen Harper that was kept and, later, extended by the Liberals under Justin Trudeau. 

Efforts by the right to hijack working class support is cynical, phoney stuff. And while Poilievre and company have been aided and abetted by an electoral left in Canada that has shown an incapacity to counter the Tories, that shouldn’t keep people from seeing through the baloney. 

The Conservative Party’s Labour Day nod to the working class, like its broader campaign for the working-class vote, is merely the wolf donning the sheep’s clothing. History and common sense tell us as much. So does an even modestly close reading of the awkward, johnny-come-lately messages from the right, which try but fail to hide the fact that conservatives – and centrists, for that matter – in Canada and around the world have long undermined the working class and their rights. There’s no reason to think that Poilievre and the right are going to change their agenda now, even if they’re clever enough to change their tune.