Erin O'Toole has no good options. Althia Raj writes:
No matter what happens tomorrow — whether Conservative MPs show Erin O’Toole the door or keep him as leader — the result will be a deeply divided caucus and a dead or dying leader at their feet.
MPs expect the vote will be close; each side is predicting victory.
The group of MPs who want to see O’Toole gone hold various grievances about their leader.
Some believe O’Toole’s office leaked disparaging information about Alberta MP Shannon Stubbs to a newspaper and that the leader lied about it to caucus.
Some feel betrayed O’Toole promised to uphold conscience rights during his leadership, only to reverse course during the election campaign and surprise MPs with a unanimous consent motion in Parliament giving swift passage to the Liberals’ conversion therapy ban.
Some are disappointed the party lost seats in Western Canada and failed to crack the suburbs around the Greater Toronto Area. They feel the leader is insufficiently focused on outreach to ethnic communities, and are dismayed he won’t denounce Quebec’s discriminatory Bill 21.
Some just don’t like him. Many, actually. Several Conservatives during the last leadership race told me they chose to support Peter MacKay, despite his pro-choice stance, because they felt he was a better person. In the past week, O’Toole has been called a bully privately, and a liar publicly by his own MPs. Under the cloak of anonymity, they speak of his vindictiveness.
Mostly what unites the dissenters is a belief that they cannot win with O’Toole at the helm. That his flip flops, over the carbon tax, gun control, or even last week’s meeting with truckers, are too frequent. That O’Toole can’t take a stand or keep his message focused. That he lacks authenticity. This view, coupled with his declining approval rating, last week’s whitewash report of his election performance, and the party’s latest fundraising numbers — the worst Q4 result since 2004 — made for a toxic brew.
All of these complaints point to a bigger problem than O'Toole. The root of the problem is the party itself. The Conservative Party is a gathering of people who are driven by their grievances -- and, of those, there are many.
Whatever you think of Justin Trudeau, the Conservatives are not the party to govern Canada.
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12 comments:
"Whatever you think of Justin Trudeau, the Conservatives are not the party to govern Canada". Just another round of "hold your nose and vote". When will it stop?
True, zoombats. But, if people stop voting, we'll be in big trouble.
The Cons are indeed the party of choice for those into petty white grievances, but they're also very much a regional, rural and religious party.
If Harper was more successful in the GTA, it was because he tapped into what religious conservatives of all stripes have in common - misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia and authoritarianism. Harper understood that banging on Muslims would win him support among religious Christians, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs, and he and his associates skipped around the GTA hitting churches, synagogues, temples and gurdwaras. I didn't notice Scheer and O'Toole doing the same, which may account for the party's lack of recent success in the GTA.
To see success as a grievance party, the Cons need to broaden their base of aggrieved voters. The opposition to carbon taxes is plain stupid, as it has no appeal outside the Con strongholds of AB and SK. Likewise, focusing narrowly on conversion therapy, a preoccupation of a small number of evangelicals, comes at the cost of weakening the party's appeal to other religious fundamentalists. Same with abortion, which is why Harper kept the forced-birthers on a tight leash. The party has drifted too far into the GOP death star's ideological orbit. It needs to find a more Canadian approach.
Cap
At the moment, Cap, the party is too enamored with Donald Trump to do that.
With the arrival of Preston Manning, Canada's right entered a civil war pitting Reform against the Progressive Conservatives. Jean Chretien was the beneficiary.
Some civil wars linger and leave stains. Harper forced the PCs to bend a knee but he never truly unified the party. I know two, life-long PCs who voted for Justin in 2015. Others just stayed away from the polls.
Now they're at each others' throats again and, this time, Justin is the beneficiary.
CBC just reported that O'Toole got the chop. An interim leader will be appointed later today.
Cap
Now enter Poilevre. The Conservatives do not seem to be able do what is needed and that is “Cooperation” among themselves. Do they not read anything that has been written about what they ought to be doing to mend their open sore called division? Anyong
These are perpetually unhappy and angry people, Mound. If they achieve power, they will leave the country in a much darker mood. That mood is already dark enough.
Poilievre is a bomb thrower, Anyong. He will seal the party's fate.
And who will it be, Cap? Someone who is angry and who sees enemies everywhere? We don't need that.
I hope it's somebody really insane like John Baird. Wouldn't that be fun? Maybe Caroline Muldoon. It could get either really frightening or really hilarious. Just saying.
In some ways, zoombats, it's frightening and hilarious right now.
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