O’Toole takes aim at Liberals and CERB for endangering Canada’s work ethic

At one level, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole sees Justin Trudeau’s Liberals merely as political opponents.

As such, O’Toole makes a standard political critique: The Liberal government is incompetent; it wastes money; it has no viable plan for either the economy or for vaccinating Canadians against the coronavirus; it is out of its depth.

But behind this lies a far more sweeping critique of the Liberals. To O’Toole, they represent everything that is wrong with Canada — from rejection of the work ethic to the embrace of trite but trendy solutions.

On Tuesday, in what was ostensibly a response in the Commons to the government’s economic update, O’Toole had a chance to spell out this broader critique.

At the centre is his belief in the nobility of work.

“The middle-class values that myself and many of my colleagues were raised with … taught me to work hard, help my neighbours and strive to be the best I could be,” the Conservative leader said.

“I respect people who work hard to provide for their families. There is a nobility in that act of discipline … We cannot lose that in this country.

“Conservatives will fight hard to ensure that we never lose touch with that fundamental value upon which Canadian society has been built.

“Hard work emboldens the soul and builds a nation.”

Yet that work ethic is endangered, he said, thanks in large part to that nefarious Liberal invention known as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, or CERB.

Introduced last spring, the CERB was designed to help those unable to work during the pandemic. The Conservatives were initially supportive, but changed their tune after businesses complained that CERB payments were allowing some workers to avoid minimum-wage jobs.

Now the Conservatives see the CERB as the villain of the piece. It is popular and easy to apply for. Unlike wage subsidies, it is not controlled by employers. It creates an incentive to offer higher wages to some of the country’s lowest-paid workers.

“Canadians do not want the CERB,” O’Toole said Tuesday. “They want the ability to get their lives back and to get back to work.”

Yet these hard-working Canadians don’t want just any old jobs. They want jobs that allow them to stay where they are.

“They want a government that helps them build their livelihood in their communities rather than pushing them to close shop and move away,” O’Toole said.

“It comes down to a clash of vision between the somewhere and the anywhere — those who love their trade … and are loyal to local business versus those whom the government wants to flock to a trendy job that is no longer connected to the community,” he said.

“While this prime minister seems to think that every Canadian can simply work on their laptop from the local cafe, this is not reality, nor is it what Canadians want.”

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What do Canadians want? According to the Conservatives, they don’t want assistance like the CERB. They do, however, want to build things. Indeed, in an economy dominated by the service industry, the Conservatives find a particular virtue in manual labour.

“Conservatives are here to fight for those who get their hands dirty and take pride in doing a job well, before they go home for the night,” O’Toole said

As for those other slobs, the ones who take no pride in their work, they will have to find their own champions. The Conservatives are busy being virtuous.