What if the Conservatives lose?

Every poll, just about, now suggests they will. The seat projections are worse. Even the polls that describe a very tight race – like Mainstreet – project a Mark Carney Liberal majority.

Polls are a snapshot in time, the saying goes, and they are. So, politicos pay attention instead to the trendline: that is, what a number of polls – over a longish period of time and asking substantially the same groups of people substantially similar questions – have to say. That’s the trendline.

The trendline, for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, has been very grim indeed. Since the departure of Justin Trudeau, and the return of Donald Trump, the Poilievre Tories have presided over one of the most astonishing polling freefalls in living memory.

In January, not so long ago, the Conservatives were enjoying extraordinary popularity. Their lead over the Liberals seemed insurmountable: 26 points with Ipsos, 24 with Angus Reid. Abacus and Innovative, 21 points. Leger – the outfit that was the most accurate in recent federal elections – pegged their lead at 18 points.

It was the stuff of political fairytales. It meant that Poilievre was on track to win one of the biggest – if not the biggest – Parliamentary majorities in Canadian history.

And then, everything changed.

As in all things political, it’s never one thing that kills you. It’s a multiplicity of things: Trump hello, Trudeau goodbye, 51st state, tariffs. Add to that the ascension of Mark Carney to the Liberal throne – and the Conservatives’ stubborn refusal to adjust their strategy accordingly – and you have a formula for disaster.

From the heady days of a near-30-point lead to now: the Liberals ahead three points with Ipsos, and five points with Reid. Abacus, three points. Leger showing four points – and Reid showing the Grits with crushing leads in the seat-abundant cities of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

How did this happen? Poilievre and his chief strategist, Jenni Byrne, have a run a tight, disciplined campaign. They had candidate bimbo eruptions, yes, but so did everyone else. Truly, Poilievre and Byrne didn’t make many big mistakes. At all.

It is easy to understand, then, the crushing disappointment the Tories now feel: they have effectively lost 30 percentage points in a matter of weeks. That has never really happened before, as noted.

So, what happens now?

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The first Jesuit Pope is gone.

Like my father, I was taught by Jesuits. At Loyola High School in Montreal, Jesuit priests were not just teachers to generations of Roman Catholic boys – they were giants, men who reshaped our lives, pushing us towards changing society, and not merely being part of it.

The Society of Jesus, as it is called, is different than any other Catholic religious order. Within the Church, Jesuits have for centuries relentlessly advocated for education, research and scientific truth. Within our poor Irish Catholic family, my father became the first doctor – and I the first lawyer.

The Jebs, as my father called them, were the ones who taught us about the labour movement, about emancipation of the poor, about pushing always for government to become a force of good in the lives of all people – whether Catholic or not.

Francis became the first Jesuit Pope, improbably, twelve years ago. For those of us who had been taught by Jesuits, his ascension in Rome was a shock and a promise. The Church, we hoped, would finally embrace modernity and progress: the ordination of women, the open acceptance of LGBTQ Catholics, the abandonment of doctrinaire policies that had driven millions away from the Church.

He changed some things, but was often foiled by traditionalist forces within the Church. But always, Francis displayed the Jesuitical commitment to positive change and moving forward, and a Church that was not just a retrograde, antediluvian institution mired in the past.

He was a teacher before he became a Pope, lecturing on philosophy and psychology at high schools and universities. He loved the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, CS Lewis, and TS Eliot. And he was unwavering in his commitment to teaching throughout his life.

How proud we were of him! He practiced what he preached, always. Staying at a hotel during the papal enclave that elected him, and paying his own bill. Moving around the Vatican in an old Ford. And – most of all – being the voice of the world’s poor, always urging world leaders to improve the circumstances of the ones who lived with hunger and powerlessness.

To be taught by Jesuits – at Loyola in Montreal, at St. Mary’s in Halifax, at Campion College in Regina, Fordham in New York City, Georgetown in Washington, Gonzaga in Washington State (where I was offered a spot at their law school) – was to receive one of the best educations one could get, anywhere in the world. Going back to their founding by Saint Ignatius in the 1500s, Jesuit educators became known as “the Soldiers of God.”

They would go anywhere to teach and serve – often to the poorest, most dangerous places. They became known for always pushing for change – angering some in power, and leading to their official suppression in the 1700s. But they would be back in the 1800s, their commitment to social change unchecked.

President Bill Clinton, Senator John Kerry, Mexican President Vicente Fox, White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig, Dr. Anthony Fauci, French President Charles de Gaulle, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Pierre Trudeau at Jean-de-Brebeuf and now Prime Minister Mark Carney at St.  Francis Xavier in Edmonton: through the Centuries, those given a Jesuitical education were urged to advocate for a better future within government, law, journalism and education.

In school, Jesuits like Francis taught us about labour leaders like Cesar Chavez, Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and – of course – Saint Ignatius, who famously said: “Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”

But Francis’ order didn’t just educate Catholic boys. At Loyola, I had Jewish and Muslim classmates, and we were expected to learn and know their faiths and traditions, too. At other Jesuit institutions – not quite yet Loyola High in those days – girls were taught, as well. U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski, Catherine Masto and Mazie Hirono were all educated by Jesuits.

Nudging their students towards public life was a constant theme in Francis’ order. When my parents made the decision to build a new life in Calgary – far from the language wars then roiling Montreal – my mother told Father Francis O’Brien, my history teacher. Father O’Brien looked disappointed.

“That’s too bad,” he said to my mother. “We had plans for your son.”

That, perhaps, was the best articulation of the philosophy of the Jesuits, and their greatest alumni, Pope Francis: they were teachers, always pushing their students towards change. They had plans for us.

We are unlikely to see the likes of the Jesuit named Francis again in our lifetimes. May God bless and keep him, always.

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