My wife celebrated her birthday a few days ago and we had some friends over for a small gathering to help her celebrate.
One of the friends who attended is Rob. He would fit the profile of a Conservative supporter. He is a 60 year old, white straight male, with a high school education who worked for 35 years in the trades. If we are to believe the polls (which I don't) he should be a lock for the Conservatives.
Rob knows that I am a political animal so of course politics came up when we talked. Two topics of note came up.
The first was the Chinese interference controversy. He had no idea what that was all about despite the fact that media had been talking about it for weeks at that point. He was aware of it but could not provide any details. That just goes to show you how useless is our media in actually informing people, even when some in that same media would have liked to use the controversy to bring down the Liberal government. In the end he had no opinion one way or another about how it impacted his thinking.
The second topic was the Freedumb Convoy of 2022 and I have to say his opinion surprised me with just how much it pissed him off. He had nothing but contempt for them and he even got the nuance that they were trying to overthrow the government. He even used the word "coup" to describe it. He was also very aware of Pierre Poilievre's support for the Convoy and he had nothing but contempt for him as well.
This is just an anecdote but if the Conservatives want to win the next election they have to gain the support of people like Rob in urban ridings like mine. It would appear that he has failed in at least one case.
