By Steve Scherer
REUTERS
Truckers and supporters attend a demonstration near Parliament Hill as they continue to protest against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine mandates, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada January 31, 2022.
OTTAWA, Feb 2 (Reuters) - A dayslong protest in Canada's capital is unlikely to succeed in its objective of repealing vaccine mandates, but could pull an already troubled Conservative opposition even further to the right, eroding its chances of winning power.
The Conservatives, who lost their third consecutive election to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals last year, are torn between leaning towards populism or moderating policies to attract the centrist voters who will decide the next election, which could occur within two years.
The split in opinion may also cost Conservative leader Erin O'Toole his job. His reluctance to quickly embrace the protest "galvanized" those who wanted O'Toole to go, said a former senior Conservative official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. That sentiment precipitates a move to oust O'Toole in a caucus vote as early as Wednesday.
A shift to the right is a problem for the Conservatives because of the middle-of-the-road character of most Canadian voters, on the right and left, said Darrell Bricker, CEO of pollster Ipsos Public Affairs.
"There is no national government lead by a hard-right option. It's basic math," he said.
The protest continued to cause gridlock in downtown Ottawa as demonstrators seek to overturn COVID-19 vaccine mandates championed by Trudeau, including one for cross-border truckers.
About 79% of Canadians have had two COVID-19 vaccine shots and many of the pandemic measures, including mask or vaccination requirements, had been largely accepted as common-sense public health measures by politicians across the political spectrum.
But opposition to pandemic restrictions is growing increasingly political, with some - like the protesters in Ottawa - adopting the more polarized views espoused south of the border by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
"The pulling towards a more Trumpian ideology, or more Trump-esque political discourse, is something that we've seen in Canada," said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute polling company.
Trump praised the protest where hateful symbols often seen at his rallies, like Confederate flags or swastikas, have been spotted among the crowd, prompting many Canadians to express their outrage on social media.
Truckers take part in a convoy and protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandate in Ottawa
Truckers drive through Toronto on their way to Ottawa to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandate
'PAINTED INTO A CORNER'
On Monday, O'Toole warned that if the party swerves too far to the right, it would be "angry, negative, and extreme."
The latest Omicron wave has started to turn opinion against lockdowns, and that is especially true for Conservative voters.
About 54% of Canadians say it is time to end restrictions, an Angus Reid poll showed this week, up from 39% since the first part of January. Of that, 81% of past Conservative voters agree it is time to end restrictions, compared with 34% of Liberal voters.
Trudeau would be the obvious winner if serious turmoil riles the Conservatives, especially if - as some predict - the party splits in two. The Liberal leader, who first took power in 2015, this week bashed "those who fly racist flags" and defended vaccination as a tool that can help end the pandemic.
The current Conservative party was formed by the 2003 merger of populist Reform Party and the centrist Progressive Conservative party, which would go on to win three consecutive elections between 2006 to 2011.
The party has struggled to raise money since last year's September election, garnering C$3.1 million ($2.44 million) in the fourth quarter of last year, less than half that generated in the same quarter of 2020 and less than the Liberals, according to official data.
"The Conservatives are painted into a corner," Kurl said, because they alienate their centrist supporters by backing the protest, and their right-leaning supporters if they do not.
Isolated and disliked, Erin O’Toole has no chance of keeping a grip on the Conservative leadership
- Canada
- February 2, 2022
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.
Those who support O’Toole mostly share the vision he now espouses — a desire to see the party reach towards the political centre to disenchanted blue Liberals and blue-collar New Democrats and a belief that this is key to making inroads in suburban areas and winning government. They want a leader who is pro-choice and believes human activity causes climate change.
Ironically, O’Toole, who ran for his party’s leadership as a “true blue” Conservative and painted MacKay, his opponent, as liberal light, is now dependent on MacKay’s supporters to ensure his leadership survives.
In this group too, however, there are those who dislike the leader. These fence sitters mostly fear what’s next.
A vote that gets rid of O’Toole will likely mean a short leadership race — it is a minority government after all. That benefits leadership contenders that already have a firm grip on the party, a base they can mobilize, such as popular Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre, or Haldimand—Norfolk MP Leslyn Lewis, a favourite amongst social conservatives. There will be little time for newcomers to get organized.
Both Poilievre and Lewis recently promoted their presence at the truck convoy protest. Although both espouse messages of unity, there is a fear shared by some MPs that under their leadership, the party would be catering to a right wing that could hold it hostage just as the convoy has done to Ottawa. Few of these MPs want to see their party co-opted, like the U.S. Republican party, by more extremist elements, further alienating them from mainstream voters.
O’Toole has played to these concerns. In his late-night missive on social media Monday, he told the party there are two roads open to the Conservatives: a dead-end angry, negative, and extreme road that will see the Tories become “the NDP of the right.” And another road, that is inclusive, optimistic, full of ideas and hope. (The suggestion is that this is the road O’Toole will take though it isn’t clear it’s the one he is on.) He welcomed the vote calling it a “time for reckoning,” and urging caucus to settle the issue “Right here. Right now. Once and for all.”
Of course, if he manages to hang on, questions about his leadership won’t be put to rest once and for all.
O’Toole will still face calls by electoral district associations for an earlier leadership review from party members, a petition from Sen. Denise Batters calling for the same; and if those efforts fail, a leadership vote in August 2023. (Though some dissenters fear O’Toole will push this leadership review back arguing that the party shouldn’t be destabilized so close to a possible election.)
JOHN IBITSON
FEBRUARY 2, 2022
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole is at risk of losing the leadership because he failed at the all-important task of preserving unity within the Conservative caucus. But many in that caucus espouse a view of conservatism that has no resonance among most Canadians.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Erin O’Toole may or may not survive as Leader of the Conservative Party. The more important question is whether the party survives.
By forcing a vote of confidence in his leadership, dissident Conservative MPs have put the future of the party at risk. Its activist base has become so agitated, and so powerful, that either Mr. O’Toole will be crippled as Leader, or he will be replaced by a new leader who is unlikely ever to become prime minister.
The Conservatives could be evolving into an untenable contradiction, in which no one who could lead the party can win the country, and no one who could win the country can lead the party.
Mr. O’Toole is at risk of losing the leadership because he failed at the all-important task of preserving unity within the Conservative caucus. That’s on him. But many in that caucus espouse a view of conservatism that has no resonance among most Canadians.
The Durham MP ran for the leadership as a “true blue” conservative, and then pivoted toward the center as last year’s election approached. The gamble almost worked: the Conservatives won the popular vote. But they failed to win over the suburbs in Ontario and British Columbia, and as Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, tweeted Wednesday: “Suburbs are the biggest swing group in Canada. This region decides all national elections. Lose the suburbs, lose the election.”
Split within the Conservative Party reflects division within the country
Having lost the suburbs and the election, Mr. O’Toole then had to face his caucus. Many felt they had not been properly consulted before the Leader embraced such policies as a carbon tax. Others reject such policies entirely.
Mr. O’Toole alternated between attempting to isolate dissidents, by keeping many of them out of the shadow cabinet, and placating them, by opposing mandatory vaccination for federal employees and essential workers. Neither tactic succeeded.
Word is that if Mr. O’Toole wins the support of a majority of MPs, it will be a narrow win at best.
If he does prevail, then the next question is whether the MPs who voted to remove him will respect the verdict. Some might split from caucus, or seek to undermine the Leader from within. If he loses, some of the moderates may leave.
The greatest problem is that the activist base of the party is becoming more extreme – adding opposition to vaccine mandates to its mantra of supporting gun rights, opposing abortion and questioning the severity of climate change.
Let’s say that, one way or another, they force Mr. O’Toole out. Who would replace him?
Foreign-affairs critic Michael Chong is a thoughtful, experienced MP who represents the partly suburban Ontario riding of Wellington-Halton Hills. But he would have a hard time winning over the same party activists who brought down Mr. O’Toole.
Former interim leader Rona Ambrose is prime ministerial material; Former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown found political resurrection as Mayor of Brampton. But neither might want to lead a Conservative Party controlled by an ideologically rigid base, some of whose members flirt with Western separatism.
Pierre Poilievre is beloved by party activists. The Carleton MP has thoroughly committed himself to Solidarity with the truckers and others who have been protesting against vaccine mandates in Ottawa.
But Mr. Poilievre’s strident partisanship will be a hard sell on the streets of Mississauga or Surrey.
Haldimand-Norfolk MP Leslyn Lewis acquitted herself well in the 2020 leadership race, and is well respected by social conservatives in the party. But Canada as a whole is not socially conservative, and Ms. Lewis does not speak French.
If Mr. O’Toole is brought down, he will be the second consecutive Conservative leader forced out of the position in three years. The Conservative movement has fractured in the past ideologically and regionally. Unless the party can unify under a leader with the strength and moderation to lead the country, the movement could split again, into an ideologically pure successor to the Reform Party and a Red Tory rump.
What a glorious time to be a Liberal.
The report of the Conservatives’ internal review on the party’s most recent electoral defeat, presented to caucus last week, blames a number of factors. The leader was too scripted. The party needs to do more to reach out to ethnic communities. The leader spent too much time in the TV studio, not enough on the road. The party needs to rebuild its voter database. Etc., etc.
There’s some truth in all of these, but that’s not why they lost the election. The party has much deeper problems than strategy and tactics – or its leader, for that matter. The problem, rather, is that it is divided: divided, not on the basis of ideology or region, but between, as one might say, the grownups and the adolescents: between those with some elementary moral and practical judgment, and those with none; between those who live in the realm of facts, and those who seem increasingly to inhabit a fantasy world. In a word, the party’s problem is extremism, which though it does not define the party as a whole is enough to taint the remainder.
These are not mere differences over policy. There is room for debate over how best to deal with climate change. There is no serious dispute that it is actually happening. Whether vaccine mandates are wise policy is likewise a matter on which reasonable people can differ; whether they are akin to Nazi experiments on Jewish prisoners is not. This is what makes the party’s extremists so toxic to the public: not so much the substance of this or that position, as the generally unhinged quality they exude.
It would be difficult for any leader to straddle that divide. Erin O’Toole has probably done a worse job of it than most, campaigning first as the “Take Back Canada” candidate in the leadership race, then as the leader of the Liberal Lites in the election. As the campaign wore on, it became increasingly difficult to reconcile these contradictions, at length leading Mr. O’Toole to repudiate large sections of the platform.
All of which was mere prelude to the mortifying scenes of the past week: prominent members of the Conservative caucus whooping it up with the anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and other assorted yahoos on the streets of Ottawa; Mr. O’Toole twisting in agony in front of the media. And now a leadership review, at the request, reportedly, of 35 members of his caucus – as required by the Reform Act, or more particularly by the decision of caucus late last year to apply its provisions to itself. If a majority at Wednesday’s caucus meeting votes to remove Mr. O’Toole, out he goes.
Clearly the leadership issue had to be brought to a head. The Reform Act has already proved its worth, telescoping what might have been months of infighting into a decisive few days. But caucus should take care to use its new powers wisely. Ditching the leader will do nothing to resolve the split within the party.
Worse, it might saddle it with a leader who, while greatly exciting to its extremist wing, is repugnant to voters at large.
I can predict the first thing such a leader might do, flushed with victory and backed by his populist base: demand the caucus jettison the Reform Act, citing the very “instability” he had himself fomented and profited from.
Whatever Mr. O’Toole’s failings, nothing he has done or not done adds up to a firing offence. What Pierre Poilievre, Candice Bergen and Andrew Scheer have done in recent days, on the other hand, is. Their decision to ally themselves with the pseudo-Trumpian grift known as the “trucker” convoy – organized and led by documented racists and QAnon-style nutters, unrepresentative of the vast majority of truckers and indeed having little to do with truckers or even vaccine mandates – is not just a moral disgrace, but will do lasting damage to the party.
It is not only the power to dismiss the leader that caucus has assumed under the Reform Act. It has also the power to expel MPs from caucus – a power first exercised, deservedly, in the matter of Derek Sloan. It is a power that might usefully be deployed now, to bring the party’s yahoo faction to heel: either stop bringing the party into shame and disrepute, or pack up and go.
Again, this power should be used sparingly. Publicly criticizing the leader should not be grounds for expulsion; neither, certainly, should dissenting from party policy. But associating the party with known racists, tossing around incendiary rhetoric about other party leaders, indulging in discredited conspiracy theories – it is long since time Conservatives stopped tolerating this.
If that splits the party further, so be it. A house divided against itself cannot stand. But a house filled with lunatics is an asylum.
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