- Reaction score
- 1,874
- Points
- 1,260
For me, as of now, if he throws his hat into a leadership race, if one occurs, its Mike Chong. It's a feather in his cap that the ChiCom's have made him persona non grata.
The SOCONs would probably get donations from an anonymous source (NOT LPC agents ) to campaign against Chong.Back when I joined the CPC to have a voice in Scheer's eventual win, I voted for Chong. I would again.
Not sure he can win over the loonies though.
I don’t think O’Toole’s problem is he’s a “moderate”. It’s that he’s all over the place. One day he’s moderate, the next day he’s “True-Blue” and making juvenile videos. Nobody can tell where he’ll stand on a given issue. If you don’t like what he says on Monday, wait till Tuesday and you will. He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth, which only works if you’re a Liberal.
The CPC is not a one person show. O'Toole must be getting advice from sources within the CPC whose role is to advise the leader. Whether he takes that advice is another matter.I don’t think O’Toole’s problem is he’s a “moderate”. It’s that he’s all over the place. One day he’s moderate, the next day he’s “True-Blue” and making juvenile videos. Nobody can tell where he’ll stand on a given issue. If you don’t like what he says on Monday, wait till Tuesday and you will. He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth, which only works if you’re a Liberal.
John Ivison
Publishing date:
Mar 17, 2021
[...]
The Conservative Party is a house divided heading into its policy convention this week – and a number of senior Conservatives are pointing the finger of blame at O’Toole and his team for engaging in divisive tactics aimed at marginalizing potential rivals.
[...]
"He has created dischord where none existed."
This aggressive settling of old scores goes beyond the candidate himself. Twenty-four MPs who backed MacKay and held shadow ministerial roles under former leader Andrew Scheer, found themselves without portfolios after O’Toole won. (The party points out that 12 MacKay supporters retained critic roles but with 52 spots in the shadow cabinet and only 38 MPs backing O’Toole, some retention was almost inevitable.
Pierre Poilievre, who did not back MacKay but was sucking up a lot of publicity oxygen in his role as shadow finance minister, promptly found himself demoted to industry critic last month.
Change is inevitable with any new regime but successful leaders create a team from former rivals. When Brian Mulroney won the Progressive Conservative leadership in June 1983, he embraced his former challengers – including Joe Clark, Don Mazankowski, Jake Epp and Erik Nielsen – drawing them into his inner circle and helping to pay off their campaign debts. By drawing the Conservative family together, he created what became known as the Blue Thunder movement and led the party to power the following year.
O’Toole is a student of history but he seems unwilling to learn that particular lesson, in favour of re-litigating the leadership contest. It smacks of insecurity.
[...]
With the leader and his party languishing in the polls, you might expect a concerted effort to heal old wounds. But the opposite seems the case. “Erin’s people are so convinced they are going to form government, they can afford to purge rivals,” said the veteran Hill staffer.
That is not what public opinion polls indicate, with the Liberals in majority territory and the Conservatives dipping below 30 per cent support in an average of recent surveys.
If that result was replicated in a general election, there would be a mutiny among the Conservative membership and swift calls for a new leader. “If I was Peter or Pierre, I would start to nosy around as soon as the convention is over,” said one former senior figure in the party.
[...]
“Erin and Fred (Delorey) have taken great pains to ensure there is involvement at the most senior level by people from other leadership campaigns…..Erin has not appointed a single candidate. If Peter MacKay had put his name forward and won that nomination, he would be a candidate today,” he said. “The critics need to give the leadership the opportunity to succeed.”
None of the dozen Conservative sources I spoke with are optimistic about the party’s prospects. None thought a coup is possible this side of an election. But they were far less confident about the resilience of party unity in the event of a defeat that restored Trudeau’s majority.
Kind of paints O’Toole as either an unwitting (thus naive, and weak) or deliberate (and thus disingenuous to the small-C elements) conspirators to the SOCONs. That a party would rather lose a seat to the Liberals in an election when every seat counted, than see MacKay be part of the party’s caucus is prof of the myopia of the growing extremism of the CPC. O’Toole no doubt either knew it, or is an unworthy leader for letting this happen on his watch.Hearing more and more stuff like this about the CPC under O'Toole: John Ivison: How Erin O'Toole allegedly sidelined Peter MacKay's plan to run in next election and it's coming back to bite him now. It's a year old, but pretty damned relevant now.
I have only ever heard of Fred Delorey from my time living in Antigonish. I never understood why Fred was not on Peter's team and instead on Erin's. It didn't make sense to me. Then again, the few times I have heard Fred's name come up in conversation, it wasn't positive and barely tepid.
Kind of paints O’Toole as either an unwitting (thus naive, and weak) or deliberate (and thus disingenuous to the small-C elements) conspirators to the SOCONs. That a party would rather lose a seat to the Liberals in an election when every seat counted, than see MacKay be part of the party’s caucus is prof of the myopia of the growing extremism of the CPC. O’Toole no doubt either knew it, or is an unworthy leader for letting this happen on his watch.
First report from The Canadian Press ....Looks like he is done 73 votes against him.
From ipoliticsConservative Party MPs voted to remove Leader Erin O'Toole from his role in a meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
Sources confirm to CTV News the Durham MP lost the vote by 119 caucus members by a count of 73-45.
Erin O’Toole is out as the Conservative leader.
The majority of the Tory caucus voted to remove him by secret ballot during a virtual caucus meeting on Wednesday.
“There are 119 MPs in the CPC caucus. The chair did not vote. Therefore, 118 votes were cast,” caucus chair Scott Reid said in a statement.
“Of these, 45 were in favour of endorsing the leadership of Erin O’Toole, and 73 were in favour of replacing Erin O’Toole as leader of the conservative Party.”
The caucus has yet to choose an interim leader ...