OTTAWA | Justin Trudeau made his bread and butter by eating the NDP lunch.
The strategy goes back to its beginnings in 2015, when he promised to run deficits in front of a stunned Thomas Mulcair and Stephen Harper.
He then pushed the NDP further down and overtook them on the left. This was what his coalition was based on.
But today this coalition no longer holds.
Conservative coalition
Pierre Poilievre's conservatives have done two deeds at once: they have attracted workers, workers and at the same time young people, millennials, this new middle class, into their tent.
What happened to the progressives? Where are they? How to achieve them, unite them as before?
Liberals and New Democrats are still searching for the answer.
The comparisons between Poilievre and Donald Trump have changed nothing.
In general, the Liberals have been more aggressive toward the Conservative leader for some time, without this affecting voter sentiment.
The results of the by-election in Durham, near Toronto, bear witness to this malaise on the left.
It's normal that the Conservatives have won this race handily since the early 2000s.
But never in a very long time has the NDP performed so poorly.
And contrary to what one might think, the Liberals did not benefit from this, as is generally the case.
The Liberals and the NDP each lost around seven percentage points compared to 2021. Maxime Bernier also lost a few feathers.
Amid the desire for change, after eight years of Liberal government, Poilievre is in the process of forming a new alliance of disaffected progressives, angry populists and a young middle class whose purchasing power is dwindling.
The conspicuous progressivism of liberals, which today is carried out at least as much against ideas as for a cause, no longer unites people as it once did.
In the NDP, workers have long since ceased to be the focus of their political actions.
Jagmeet Singh feels much more comfortable on a university campus than on a factory floor.
And that may be all that could be left for these two left-wing parties after the next elections: inner cities and campuses.
Doubt
Nothing says that the solutions proposed by Poilievre will produce concrete positive results.
His housing plan was heavily criticized by experts.
Repealing the carbon tax will not help families make ends meet, as Conservatives claim.
The conservative approach to crime is far from unanimous, and minimum sentences have been deemed unconstitutional on more than one occasion.
A reduction in government spending will not lead to a reduction in interest rates to 1.5%.
Poilievre's vision of Canada's role and place in the world remains a mystery.
All of this seems of little importance to an electorate that remains deaf to the arguments of Justin Trudeau, who urges them to be very afraid of Pierre Poilievre.
We can rightly ask ourselves what Poilievre really wants to do with this country, what his vision for the future is.
The same question applies to the current Prime Minister.