The fight for the soul of the Conservative party

Jordan It might seem like Aaron O’toole’s time leading the Conservative Party was shockingly short. But in reality, his exit has been a long time coming.

News Clip 1 Erin O’Toole has been removed as conservative leader by his own caucus

News Clip 2 Conservative MPs met Wednesday morning to debate and discuss tools contentious leadership. A majority of those MPs voted against keeping O’Toole this afternoon I stepped down as leader of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition and leader of the Conservative Party of Canada following a reform act vote in our caucus.

Jordan O’Toole is a moderate conservative, and he was trying to lead a party that right now simply has more energy on its right flank. All it took to oust him was a single election loss and what else what finally pushed O’Toole out the door. In the coming weeks and months, the conservatives will battle over the future of the party. But if you want a preview of the outcome, you might want to look at the picture of the woman who is now their interim leader posing with a Magga hat. Is this conservative fight? Really good news for the federal Liberals? Is it bad news for Canadian moderates in general? Is it a sign of a rightward shift in Canadian politics are just a hard right turn by a small minority? And when the dust settles? Who will lead the conservatives? Because the answer to that question will also answer most of the other ones.

I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is the big story. David Moscrop is a political writer and commentator. He is the author of a book called too dumb for democracy, which is pertinent right now. And he is the host of a podcast called Open To Debate. Hello, David.

David Moscrop Hello.

Jordan What just happened to the Conservative Party of Canada this week?

David Moscrop Well, they mugged themselves in front of the entire country.

Jordan Explain.

David Moscrop Well, I mean, I think what happened is the culmination of years of trying to keep together a big tent that is just a little too big. What was ultimately a leadership spill or a caucus dumping the leader for the first time using the Reform Act, which allows for parties caucuses to get rid of their leader came out of internal tensions in the party that go back quite a long time between social conservatives and more Progressive Conservatives are known as red Tories as well as Erin O’toole’s, political failures, and leadership failure. So I think we’ll be looking for what was the reason this happened, when in truth, it’s probably the combination of several different things, then they’ll be sort of proximate causes sort of immediate causes. But there’s also going to be a lot of long-standing simmering tensions that brought this about, and I can go through those if you want. But I just wanted to set the stage for what we’re seeing.

Jordan I’m really interested in that. And we will get back to sort of the Harper coalition and how long it could have held. But first, speaking of O’Toole specifically was this kind of inevitable after he lost the election, I remember you and I spoke on election night, and there was even then the question of like, well, it looks like he didn’t move the needle. And maybe he really needed to have a shot at staying on.

David Moscrop Yeah, and I think, again, if he had won, he presumably would have stayed on. But it doesn’t mean everyone would have been happy about it, even with the win. Right. So I think the court sort of the kernels of what would lead to this go way back. So he was in trouble. Certainly losing the election did. And I suspect that in fact, the timing of him being thrown out, is you’ll note very close to when the party report on the election came out. And I don’t think that’s an accident.

Jordan Well, let’s talk about way, way back then, before we get to what’s next for the conservatives. This is a party that Stephen Harper held together for more than a decade in power. And now they’ve had what five leaders in the span of five, six years, like, how does a party stay so solid and then fracture so quickly?

David Moscrop The same way a country does when it’s held together by an authoritarian, who then moves on right now. I mean, what you’ve got is a party that is inherently difficult to hold together because again, it is made up of so many disparate elements and people think it’s the left that’s fractious in Canada, and the truth is, History teaches us that it’s the right, right. Go through the 80s the 90s, early 2000s You can always go back to the 50s and 60s, the right breaks apart and it takes someone who can come together with their opponents and disparate elements and hold that thing together. That takes very strong and quasi-authoritarian leadership in the current climate, which is what you had from Stephen Harper. I actually think looking back on Stephen Harper’s years, his leadership style makes a lot more sense now than it did at the time, perhaps to a lot of folks now with it. Oh, I see. The only way you can govern this party is if you’re Stephen Harper, and you govern like Stephen Harper, because if not, this is what happens Andrew Scheer, Aaron O’Toole,

Jordan What did Harper do that those two didn’t?

David Moscrop Well, I mean, the I guess the initial question is, how did he hang on for the first years? Because, you know, Andrew Scheer got one try the election last in was out, Aaron O’Toole got one last it was out, despite the fact that if you look at their performances against liberals, they weren’t that bad. They actually did fairly well. If they had done that to Stephen Harper, in the early 2000, Harper would have never become prime minister. And who knows if the Conservatives would have won, right? They gave him multiple chances. I think part of it was the party was new. People wanted to give it a shot. Nobody wanted to go back until the wilderness immediately, they weren’t ready to break up again. They just got back together. So he had a few chances. Then he basically ran like an authoritarian. He, you know, he would take very little opposition, but he would, but he managed caucus. Well, from the Conservatives I’ve spoken to, and from what I’ve heard about Harper’s caucus years, he was a very good manager of caucus. So you know, he had the authoritarian side and practice extraordinary discipline over the party over the caucus publicly over the government. But he was a good caucus manager. And I think that made him an effective leader. I get the sense that that wasn’t true of Andrew Scheer. And Aaron O’Toole. Plus, on top of it, you have the sort of culmination of years of internal rivalries and backstabbing and tensions that have started once they got to opposition because nothing brings the party together like winning. Right, right. And now they’re losing.

Jordan So what then pushed O’Toole? Now, you know, it’s one thing to talk about. He wasn’t the right man to hold this together. Maybe this was inevitable, especially after the election loss. But why now, you mentioned the election review, it’s really hard not to look at what’s happening in where you are in Ottawa right now and not think, you know, the truckers and maybe his lack of cozying up to them, or maybe just how he handled the whole thing was the final straw?

David Moscrop Well, I think, you know, it’s sort of like asking, what caused the French Revolution? Well, you know, was it the price of bread? You know, poor harvest was it? Obviously, it was their approximate causes and sort of long term causes. I think the proximate causes of a tool losing are from what I can tell, more or less threefold, the way he handled the convoy, the election report, we’ll never see the whole thing. We don’t know the whole thing. But we know it wasn’t good. And the conversion therapy ban, he pushed the party hard on that, forced fast-tracked it and said, we’re gonna we’re gonna get this done the second time, not the first time, the first time there was a lot of opposition to the party. Right. And I think that we know, that angered a lot of social conservatives within the party. And I think those three things together, conspired to do it. No, maybe it was just one of the maybe it was to me, it was all three, but I’m getting sense that those three were in the mix from, from what I’ve heard from folks in red. And then, of course, the sort of origins of it, like we talked about earlier, go back to the fact that there are there are competing elements in the party that go way back that just don’t hang together very well, in the long run.

Jordan Well, let’s talk about the long run then, because I think everybody, conservative voters, liberal voters, people, even with just a casual interest, want to know, what happens to this party now. And what do we know about what might happen under Candice Bergen? The interim leader, I don’t think many people knew much about her, although now everybody’s seen a picture of her in a Magga hat. So that doesn’t bode well for progressives.

David Moscrop No, and I just finished writing about this. And one of the things I was writing about was like, Look, she won on a preferential ballot, which tells you something about where caucuses right now,

Jordan what does that mean?

David Moscrop Well, I mean, if we look how a preferential ballot is used to rank your preferences, and then you drop off the lowest performer, then just keep doing that until what emerges is more or less a consensus pick, right, that suggests that she of the nine candidates was the consensus pick now. She’s a pretty right-wing conservative wore a Magga hat, you know, stood up in the house recently and likened the extremist on the Hill to indigenous protesters who were tearing down statues, so on. I think I interviewed her once about something and she’s a true believer in critic of the government. She’s not putting on a bit she’s She means what she says. And so she’s a conservative conservative, and that indicates to me that the caucus is leaning at least or at least sympathetic to that at least a significant part of the caucus is sympathetic to that sort of leader. And now the Conservatives basically are going to take their time to to figure out what’s next, they’ve got to go through the process of setting up a leadership that goes to the party, they’ll they’ll have the committee, the Committee will go in, they’ll set the timeline, they’ll set the rules, and so on, so forth the rules that aren’t stipulated by the Constitution, and they’ll go and do the thing. But in the meantime, I think Bergen’s not going to sit back and relax, I think she’s going to act as if she’s the leader of the opposition, and stick it to the government and try to fire up the base and the party. So I don’t think the conservatives are gonna be sleeping. In fact, I think they might even end up more energetic than they were under O’Toole, at least for the time being.

Jordan Do we know what that timeline will look like? You mentioned they can take their time. Is there a set process in the Constitution that says we know they’ll have a new leader by at least when?

David Moscrop I don’t think so I, I checked and I didn’t see it, I checked back, they’ll strike the committee and the committee will figure out so we don’t know, at the moment when that’s going to be I don’t think they’re going to take their sweet time. And they have a little bit of time, because we just had an election in the fall and nobody wants an election in the winter. Right. But you know, I don’t think they can hang around for 18 months and figure this out. They’re gonna have to figure it out sooner rather than later. And I think there’ll be eager to, certainly the leadership contenders. Well, one thing somebody noted, I can’t recall whom it’s a pretty common point, public point, more or less, you know, longer timelines help lesser known candidates. Shorter timelines, help better-known candidates, because you just don’t have time to become known, you know, time to organize if you’re, if you’re on the outside looking in. So that’ll be an interesting dynamic to watch, because there’s no shortage of folks who might step in now.

Jordan So who are some of those people? I know, there has been a lot of talk around Pierre Poilievre. And I will also say, because I’ve heard some early discussion as a citizen of Ontario the looming specter of Doug Ford

David Moscrop He haunts us still

Jordan Hey, he wasn’t interested in the Ontario leadership job. And here he is. So I don’t put anything past afford anymore.

David Moscrop No, no. Nor should you. In fact, the potential candidates, you know, from the Ontario conservative ranks are notable, right. I mean, Patrick Brown’s name has come up. Doug Ford’s name has come up. I’ve seen a few people talk about Carolyn Mulrooney. I don’t think that’s particularly likely, but she’s her names come up. Of course, you know, Pierre Poilievre of God help us routinely comes up. He is I think the presumptive front runner if he decides to run, I think that’s, you know, generally accepted among people who are following this. Peter Mackay, of course, as well. The perennial loser of these things,

Jordan I will say that, it seems like if we’re just if we’re talking about Mackay here, and we can talk about the other ones, too, it just it seems like every time he does this, the party has moved a little bit further away from him, right, like I would and maybe I’m wrong, I would consider Peter Mackay kind of the example of somebody a moderate might want to replace O’Toole. And that kind of seems like it’s not what the party wants right now.

David Moscrop Yeah, I think so. And I think if you go back again, to the sort of formation of the Conservative Party, I mean, that was a test at the time, it wasn’t going to be a Peter Mackay, red Tory Conservative Party, or was it going to be a Stephen Harper Canadian Alliance Conservative Party, and the Harper side one, and that lasted for quite a long time. And you can sort of say, lasted pretty much up to Aaron O’Toole. And then they go to was a kind of consensus choice or compromise, not consensus choice, but a compromise choice. And then that didn’t work particularly for them, even though electorally sort of works semi well. And he didn’t go full on in on on the sort of progressive Toryism He hedged. Right. So we don’t even know if that would have worked because the tool kept hedging. And but you’re right, so it’s sort of moved. And now we’re going to have that test again, and I don’t think it’s going to go the way of McKay, I think it will go the way of Pierre Poilievre. Or, you know, Michelle Rempel Garner’s a bit of a wildcard. And then, of course, then don’t then there’s Doug Ford, who’s an absolute wildcard, though that would be a tough one to read. So I mean, I think the fundamental nature of the party, the ascendant nature of the party right now is, is the right. But that doesn’t mean for sure, though, when keep in mind a lot depends on the rules. Right, right.

Jordan And in terms of politics, then in terms of, you know, as we look forward to God, I hope not the next election next year, but the next federal election whenever it is, in terms of politics. This is good for the liberals, right. I mean, at least at the base of it in the short term, their main rival is in total disarray, again for the third time and for five years.

David Moscrop I mean, it I think it depends. If the party splits if donors flee, if members flee if organizers flee if they had sort of those fundamental structural challenges then it’s great for the liberals. I mean, like the 90s were great for the Liberals right when the party It was sundered for as the you know, the Reform Party, that Canadian Alliance Party, Progressive Conservative Party, that was great for the Liberals because it’s, it fractures the right and it’s easy for the Liberals to get 36-37 38% and win. But this time, it depends the next election the liberals would be in year eight year nine of government. But conservatives don’t win elections in this country, liberals lose them, you know, liberals defeat themselves. And it always happens it’s it’s pretty much inevitable, though not not entirely. And that’s going to happen sooner rather than later. So you can imagine a conservative party that has a less than catastrophic leadership campaign with a little bit of time get the self together, and comes up against a tired Liberal Party in 2023. or So that may be with Trudeau maybe without and has a real shot. Because, again, if you look at the last two elections, I mean, they came really close. They had more votes in the liberals in 2019. Right, fewer seats, more votes. So they’re much in the race. So I don’t think the Liberals can take any of this for granted. And again, you know, O’toole was compromised during the last election by a party that just wasn’t fully behind him and his own poor political skills that may not be true for the next person.

Jordan What about internally with the Conservative Party? I know that not everybody is on the further right side of the equation. There’s plenty of moderate CPC MPs and in places that they have to be moderate to get elected, frankly, what are the chances that some of them can’t abide the new direction of the party? And I’m guess I’m not really asking you to predict a re-split of the conservatives in the reform but like, what are the chances for that real kind of division, costing them some seats, costing them some members? This is a pretty, I don’t know. A battle for the soul of the party, I guess without? I was gonna say without putting too fine a point on it. But that’s a that’s a pretty fine point.x

David Moscrop No,but I think it is, I think it is, I think that’s exactly what it is. There are so many moving parts that on balance, I just don’t know, because you could imagine a world in which the party veers right and brings back into some of the Pino PPC voters back into the fold. In which case, you could actually have a party that tries to become even more unified than it was rather than disunified. The question is, okay, well, then what happens to the more progressives, as you say, do they split off and form a sort of Progressive Conservative Party to, to borrow a name that is on the shelf? It’s, I don’t see a ton of appetite for that at the moment. And I don’t know who would be willing to undertake it, I think it would have to be pretty extreme. I think the party will probably hold itself together. I could be wrong about this. But my gut says the party faces two choices, either split or be run by a strong leader. You know, whether or not that person exists is slightly open. We didn’t think that but here’s the thing. Let’s go back though. You might have looked at the late 90s, early 2000s and said, okay, the Tories need that, or the Conservatives need that. But that’s not Stephen Harper, right. You might have looked at Stephen Harper in the early days not seen that in him. Yeah, right. Keep in mind, he lost lots and had a hard time with that party. We look back and sort of see it working out. But it didn’t for a long time. It might again.

Jordan Well, in the meantime, then. And not necessarily speaking of political insiders here or MPs, or party members. But given you know what you’ve just said that it looks probably like the further right elements will will take control of the party. And you mentioned what we’ve been seeing in Ottawa and Alberta and might see in Toronto and Montreal. How worried should normal moderate apolitical Canadians be about the direction of the Conservative Party, and also just the the rise of the further right in Canada right now.

David Moscrop Oh, I mean, I think we should be deeply concerned about it. And I think we should have been concerned about it for a very long time. I mean, we we know that this this country has a problem with the far right. We know from people who report on it we know from organizations who study it we know from academics, we’ve know from the police, we know we have a very serious problem with online hate and extremism that’s well documented. With a canary in the coalmine. The canary in the coalmine is long dead. I mean, the thing is, bombs in a cage. So the time to worry is way back. The question is okay, is the next conservative leader and party iteration of the party going to moderate those folks and push them out, which is, you know, push them out rather than embolden them.

That remains to be seen if the next leader in the next iteration of the party is one that welcomes them or emboldens them or tries to coddle them even more so than than they’re now in the party. Then I think we need to be deeply worried, because it’s not all that far off from what we’ve seen in the United States. It’s not quite as extreme. But it exists here too. And anyone who thinks it doesn’t need only to come down to Ottawa and have a look or just log onto social media and have a look, we’re seeing it there’s there are shared affinities and look at who the Conservatives are, who were out there giving the thumbs up with them, because these are members of parliament who were out with these folks giving thumbs up, right? Yeah. So the that is that is happening now what’s happened in the past, and I’ll close on this point. We’re not different in this country. There is no Canadian exceptionalism. We’re not special, we’re not better. We are open to all of the toxic, nasty currents, undercurrents that we see elsewhere, including United States. They’ve been somewhat muted in some ways in the past, but they’ve always been there, and they’re on the ascendance. We ought to be deeply concerned about that. And that includes, by the way, our elites, media, political elites, you know, police services, if they ever get around to doing something about it. And everyone else too. And I just, I worry that we’ve become complacent, maybe this will, maybe this will change that this moment on the hill?

Jordan Well, this is my last question. And it kind of pertains to that. Well, the Conservatives are holding their leadership race, and they’re in disarray. And there’s disagreements about the future of the party. Is this not a genuine opportunity for the liberals and the NDP to take a look at the rise of the right in Canada and the right turn of the Conservative Party and take this opportunity to do something? Well, they have the power to do it.

David Moscrop Wow. I mean, every day is an opportunity for them to do something about it.

Jordan And I think okay, but should they will they actually do it this time? Will they?

David Moscrop No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. Yeah. I mean, you might see some sort of procedural symbolic stuff, you know, the NDP is talking about banning hate symbols, for instance, the liberals will try to deal with some of the stuff with the online harms bill, which is about to make its reappearance in Parliament. So there’ll be some of that work. But these are treating the symptoms, this, you know, this stuff is treating the symptoms, not treating the cause. I mean, there’s a deep, deep, deep commitment to white supremacy in this country. You don’t fix that with an online harms bill, or by banning swastikas and Confederate flags. I mean, that’s just nothing. You have to uproot. That stuff’s you know, deeply over time that takes that’s the work of generations, because some folks, you’re just never going to get you need to, you need to get it at the community level, you need to get it online, you need to get an organization’s you need to get it across borders. I mean, it’s just, it’s very, very hard. And it’s a lot of work. And you have to have the commitment of the entire country and including, by the way, institutions that are infiltrated by those who are at least sympathetic to these people. So it’s an internal problem, too. It’s a state problem as well. I don’t see anybody taking that seriously, at the political level. I’m actually not particularly particularly optimistic about where this is going to go. I want to be optimistic and solutions oriented. And I think there are solutions. But it’s looking deeply disconcerting right now and the trend is inherently disconcerting. And I will say this to anyone who wants to know more, go look up the anti-hate network and the work that they do. But I don’t know, maybe maybe someone will take a moment to step up. But I haven’t seen any indication that’s going to happen.

Jordan I mean, we spoke to the deputy director of the anti hate network earlier this week. And now we have this conversation with you, which makes two really cheerful chats for me. This week on the big story. Thanks, David.

David Moscrop Happy February.

Jordan Stay safe out in Ottawa. Stay away from the dangerous stuff.

David Moscrop Always.

Jordan Thanks again.

David Moscrop My pleasure.

Jordan David Moscrop, the man we trust most to unpack the future of Canadian politics.God help us. That was the big story. For more from us. Head to thebigstorypodcast.ca Talk to us on Twitter @TheBigStoryFPN. Email us anytime click here!] You can find this podcast in any podcast player, you can ask for it on any smart speaker, just say play the big story podcast. I don’t know if you can use your smart speaker to rate and review us. But you can definitely use your podcast app. So do that and we will as always be eternally grateful. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings, and we’ll talk Monday.