OTTAWA–Maxime Bernier has a dramatically different idea about how Canada should work.

Bernier would get the federal government out of health care, transferring the full responsibility to provinces and paving the way for more private delivery.

Bernier would tie Canada’s foreign aid to “morality,” and believes billions of it should be spent instead on tax cuts and healing the poor at home.

Bernier would end federal “welfare” for Canadian businesses, and axe popular tax credits for things like kid’s hockey gear and teachers’ classroom supplies in favour of across-the-board tax cuts.

And Bernier wants to do it all in a four-year term, should he become Conservative leader at the end of the month, and should he defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in 2019.

In many ways, Bernier’s approach would be a significant break from the Stephen Harper era. Harper took a slow and steady course, favouring incremental change and reassuring moderate Canadians there was no Conservative “hidden agenda.”

Bernier is proposing dramatic change quickly — and his agenda certainly can’t be accused of being hidden.

“They’re conservative ideas, they’re conservative values,” Bernier said this week, discussing his libertarian-leaning platform.

“You want me to be a Liberal?”

He continued, after agreeing the interviewer doesn’t want anything in particular: “No, no, but yeah, I want change. I’m a Conservative, and I’m a proud Conservative.”

Bernier is draped over a chair in his Ottawa office, on the fourth floor of the Confederation Building, just steps away from Parliament. His hand hovers over a small coffee table, which he taps on when he wants to emphasize a point. The room is sparsely decorated, but has a commanding view of the seemingly endless construction on Parliament Hill.

On Wednesday, Bernier had just gotten back from campaigning in Toronto. An airport Booster Juice waits on his desk for him to finish the day’s round of media interviews.

The 54-year old Beauce MP is currently polling with a commanding lead in the race to replace Stephen Harper. According to the most recent Mainstreet Research/iPolitics weekly numbers, Bernier is the first choice among 31.2 per cent of Conservative members — an almost 10 point lead over his closest competition, former House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer.

After winning over former leadership rival Kevin O’Leary to his cause, Bernier’s lead looks tough to overcome — although the Conservative’s complex leadership process, where regional support counts for a lot, means it’s no foregone conclusion.

Bernier credits his “pro-consumer” platform — he doesn’t distinguish between consumer and citizen — for his popularity among grassroots Conservatives, as well as his refusal to moderate his positions to make him more appealing to the general electorate.

“The platform is based on four key principles that are the base, I think, of Western civilization. Individual freedom, personal responsibility, respect and fairness,” Bernier said.

“We won’t do any compromise with the principle, and that’s important ... I won’t try to buy votes, you know? Every government is doing that.”

On the one hand, Bernier said he won’t tailor his policies to buy votes. On the other, he repeatedly points out his policies are aimed at consumer’s pocket books.

This gets to the fiscal core of Bernier’s platform — getting rid of boutique tax credits for target groups, in favour for across-the-board tax cuts, stopping Ottawa from directly influencing provincial capitals on health care and the environment, instead creating “incentives” for provinces to go along with his agenda.

Given that, it’s perhaps surprising who Bernier quotes to explain his plan.

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“Because when you have economic growth, I like to quote, what’s his, John F. Kennedy, a Democrat,” Bernier explained.

“John F. Kennedy said when you have a rising tide, every boat is rising. The small one and the big one. When you have economic growth in this country, everybody will win for that. The poor will have more opportunities, the middle class and the rich.”

Between 1976 and 2010, according to a parliamentary report published under the previous Conservative government, after-tax income for the poorest Canadians increased by 15.9 per cent. The middle 60 per cent of Canadians saw their take-home pay grow between 6.7 per cent and 14.3 per cent.

The richest 20 per cent of Canadians saw their after-tax income grow by 27.1 per cent over that period.

When asked if he thought economic growth since Kennedy’s time disproportionately benefitted the rich, Bernier asked: “What do you have against the rich?’

“What I’m saying is if you don’t have economic growth, the poor will be poorer, because you want the rich to be poorer,” Bernier explained.

“But income inequality, I prefer to speak with more opportunities that will bring economic growth. And like John F. Kennedy, the small boat will raise when you have economic growth and the poor will be better.”

While popular with a good chunk of the Conservative base, there is some concern within the party about how the greater population will receive Bernier’s libertarian policies — and how well he can bring together the Conservative family after a divisive leadership campaign.

There’s also the matter of Bernier’s baggage from his time as a cabinet minister under Stephen Harper.

He was turfed from the foreign affairs portfolio in 2008 after leaving confidential government documents at the apartment of his then-girlfriend Julie Couillard. When it was revealed Couillard previously had ties to organized crime, Harper accepted Bernier’s resignation.

Bernier served his penance on the backbench for years, but the affable Quebec MP found himself back in cabinet after the Conservatives won their majority in 2011.

Still, it is no secret in Ottawa that the Liberals seem happy to run against a Bernier-led party. His years under public scrutiny have provided plenty of ammunition – as recently as 2010 he maintained there was ”no scientific consensus” on climate change, for instance.

But Bernier has convinced a significant number of Conservatives that he’s the guy to take on Trudeau’s Liberals in 2019. The party’s membership will decide at the end of the month if Bernier’s dramatic shakeup of the Canadian federation is the pitch they want to make to Canadian voters.

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