Tories would be wise to keep O’Toole on
MONTREAL—By the numbers, Monday’s election resulted in a decisive victory for the parliamentary status quo. But not everything in electoral politics can be measured in seats.
Take Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. For all the wear and tear accumulated over two terms in office, he remains a major political force.
Last Monday, the Liberals finished first in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. They secured representation in every region of the country including Alberta.
Any Liberal who feels the grass could be greener on the other side of the leadership fence should ponder whether any of Trudeau’s prospective successors could have delivered a victory as national in scope.
The case of Quebec stands out.
If Trudeau — as he well might — does decide to pass the torch before Canada next goes to the polls and if the Liberals are true to their tradition of alternating between francophone and anglophone leaders, the party will lose part of its Quebec edge in the process.
With the notable exception of Jack Layton, the province has historically leaned to Quebecbased leaders.
At the same time, the election has exposed a structural weakness in the Bloc Québécois’ offer.
Absent a major identityrelated wedge issue, the sovereigntist party struggles to generate momentum.
In this campaign, that weakness was mitigated by the controversy over the Englishlanguage leaders’ debate, but it was not eliminated.
There is a reason why the Quebec Conservative caucus is virtually unanimous in its support for Erin O’Toole. Buoyed by the endorsements of Premier François Legault and former prime minister Brian Mulroney, its members feel the party still has room to grow in Quebec under his leadership.
The possibility of a more level playing field in Quebec in the next election is one consideration the Conservatives should keep in mind as they ponder whether O’Toole should get a second chance to lead the party in an election.
Here are a few others: Stephen Harper was the last official opposition leader to survive an election defeat. That lost campaign turned out to be a useful dry run. The hardearned lessons he and his team learned in 2004 helped them create the conditions for a victory two years later.
After its 2015 defeat, the NDP, went the other route and refused to give Thomas Mulcair a second kick at the can. With the benefit of hindsight, the party would have been more competitive under the watch of a seasoned leader than it turned out to be under Jagmeet Singh.
It is not because Trudeau was a more formidable opponent the second time around that the NDP lost half of its 44member caucus in the 2019 election.
Like the NDP at the time of Mulcair’s firing, the CPC does not have a unifying figure standing in the wings to take over from O’Toole. Or at least not one that is appealing to both the party base and to a larger section of the electorate.
It is certainly possible to find someone liable to comfort the Conservative base in the longheld convictions O’Toole’s campaign has challenged. But before the CPC refights internal battles over issues like carbon pricing or vaccinerelated measures, its members might want to consider that the first will have become a time-tested federal policy and the second will have been put to rest by the time the next election comes around.
Fiscal and economic policy — areas that once played to Tory strengths and could still in the future — will inevitably loom larger once the pandemic is resolved.
And then, if there ever was a time when the conservative movement could ill afford to be dragged into a civil war over its federal leadership, it is probably the coming year. The Conservatives are about to have other fish to fry on the provincial scene.
That starts with Ontario and the upcoming spring provincial election. And then there is the fractious situation in Alberta where the fate of Jason Kenney as premier and the party’s place in government both look like they hang by a thread.
On election night, O’Toole’s address sounded more like the opening salvo to a leadership campaign than a concession speech. He was unapologetic about his drive to recast the party along more centrist lines and sounded more determined than ever to stay the course.
He would almost certainly have been more credible on his way to his first election if he had set sail on that destination as of the first day of his leadership campaign.
But it is just as true that he likely would not have won the leadership based on the agenda he defended over the election campaign.
Before casting stones at their leader, the Conservatives might want to give the glaring cracks the election results have exposed in their party’s glass house a hard look.