Things are beginning to heat up. Apparently, Jean Charest will announce his bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party on Thursday. Stephanie Levitz writes:
While the federal Conservative leadership race sets the course for the party’s future, some story lines from the past are shaping the race.
Former party leader and Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, for instance, has been sending signals he’s not willing to take a back seat if former Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest runs.
The two interacted often when Harper was prime minister and Charest was premier of Quebec, where he harshly criticized Harper often and in particular, during the 2008 election in which the federal Conservatives again failed to secure a majority.
There is talk, too, that Brampton mayor Patrick Brown will enter the race. Like Charest and Harper, Brown and Pierre Poilievre have their own history:
In 1998, as Charest was on his way out as PC leader, Brown had become the president of the party’s youth wing for a two-year term.
A year after Brown took over the youth wing, Poilievre was the president of the University of Calgary campus club, where he expressed frustration with the party’s direction under Joe Clark, according to coverage from the Calgary Herald.
Brown had mused about kicking out the anti-Clark factions from the party’s youth wing; Poilievre objected, threatening to take his club executive over to the United Alternative movement.
Then, of course, there is Charest's connection to Brian Mulroney -- who would like to wield some influence in this contest. Some look forward to Mulroney's resurrection. Others hope he will stay in his tomb.
Things could get very warm.
Image: windobi.com
12 comments:
As young Greta Thunberg said…”blah, blah, blah, blah”. Is there not anyone at around the age of 55 around, other than Poillevre, who is capable of taking this big wide country of ours, down a better track than this bunch of has beens. And that doesn’t include Mr. Poillevre either. Anyong
Sounds like you don't have faith in any of them, Anyong.
Charest's hasn't a chance. He's been out of federal politics for almost 25 years and out of provincial politics for a decade. Even in Quebec "on s'en câlisse." Brown is damaged goods, unilingual and, like Charest, far too centrist to lead the post-Trump Cons. No, the next Con leader won't be anyone you could mistake for an old-style PC.
Cap
There appear to be no more Red Tories, Cap.
I'm with Anyong on this. When I go to the polls there is no one I can vote for with a clear conscience. Across the board our political institutions have drifted down the mediocracy hole, have got hung up on minor issues and completely ignored the existential juggernauts rolling our way. One would think that the Covid pandemic would shake something loose but all intentions look to going back to the way it was; they don't appear to have learned anything. The Conservatives will do everything it can to avoid choosing a competent leader.
If you and Anyong represent a Canadian consensus, Toby, it's no wonder the Conservatives are in trouble.
I just hope Skippy - PP, makes it; guarantees that the Cons will be out of it for at least a decade.
If they choose Skippy, Ben, they'll be a regional party -- not a national one.
"I just hope Skippy - PP, makes it; guarantees that the Cons will be out of it for at least a decade."
So said pundits in 2015 when talking up tRump.
Don't doubt that who-ever emerges winner of the CONtest, our brainless, lazy media and somnolent Canadian public will continue to treat this extremist,
criminal rump as the only legitimate alternative to Jr.'s milquetoast muddling ...
until they are accidentally returned to office
on the strength of their 'brand', some titillating scandal
and our obsolete voting regime.
We'll soon see how much strength Jean Charest has, PoV.
Jean Charest would certainly be a threat to the Liberals were he to actually win the leadership contest, but it is really hard to see how the guy who instituted Canada's first carbon tax winning the leadership of a party that refuses to even acknowledge that climate change even exists. Plus Harper apparently has it out for the guy. I'd say he's facing pretty long odds, even with the Conservatives rigging their voting system to overrepresent the east compared to their base out west in a so-far vain attempt to put a moderate face on the crazy.
I agree that Charest's odds are long, BJ. This is Stephen Harper's party -- not Brian Mulroney's.
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