, 08.24.2020 08:12 AM

Erin O’Toole wants to “take back Canada”

…to what?

To this:

• he has said he has “concerns” about banning conversion therapy
• he’ll create “conscience rights” to make abortions much harder to get
• he says he’ll vote against medically-assisted death
• he wants to give SoCons the “right” to refuse LGBTQ marriage
• he says anti-abortion, anti-gay conservatives “will have a seat at the table” when he becomes leader

So.

Last night wasn’t a leadership vote.

It was a suicide note.

72 Comments

  1. Steve T says:

    A few thoughts:

    1. The idea of “conscience rights” (which is behind both the abortion and medically-assisted death items) is a red herring. How many doctors do you think will actually exercise this right? How many Canadians will actually be denied these procedures, or even inconvenienced, if a handful of doctors do choose to exercise this right?

    2. What exactly is the problem with giving people “a seat at the table”? The alternative is the revolting hypocrisy of the Libs and NDP, who undertake a “don’t ask / don’t tell” approach to touchy issues, and their MPs who dodge questions about thorny issues and profess whatever view they think happens to satisfy their audience at that moment.

    3. All of that said, I agree that Canadian voters have shown time and time again that they buy into this ridiculous virtue-signalling and groupthink. Therefore, I agree there is a tough road to hoe ahead.

    • Pedant says:

      To add to your points. I think we can all agree that conversion therapy for LGBT individuals is a wholly debunked notion, but if an adult of sound mind wants to sign up for something like that, who are we to judge? Obviously the practice of parents putting their children into such programmes should be banned.

      I’m far more appalled at the leftists who want to force every parent to put their 6 year old on transitioning hormone therapy as soon as the child exhibits a habit of the opposite sex.

  2. Pedant says:

    Perhaps he wants to lead a government that puts the interests of Canadian citizens ahead of the interests of the UN, Davos, NGOs, and other assorted rootless globalists?

    All your concerns, Warren, were raised in 2003 as proof that Stephen Harper could never win. O’Toole is not a social conservative but he believes in treating social conservatives like human beings worthy of participating in the democratic process.

    • Pedant,

      Agreed. They should be given every opportunity to be heard but at the same time they must recognize that though we respect their positions, many of us in the party can’t endorse them otherwise it’s another Liberal government in the offing. No question about that.

      See Harper’s majority where he quite deliberately went too far right for most Canadian voters and the same goes without saying about the Scheer interregnum.

  3. Leaders say a lot of things. Sometimes I agree, other times I don’t. But in the final analysis, O’Toole has to stake out positions that will ring true with most eligible voters and incline them to vote for our party.

    If an agenda is pushed that does anything other than that, then yes, of course, that agenda will lead to a collective party suicide in the next election. That’s called Reality and everyone knows it going in.

    RabidRed-Meat is the heart and soul of political parties that lose very badly. That’s the Canadian Way so O’Toole must concentrate the mind solely on that going forward.

  4. What party leaders say to get elected internally isn’t the same thing they say to get elected by the masses. You know that. He can’t run for PM if he isn’t the party leader. According to a CBC poll I saw on the weekend, half of the people the CBC were talking to about the Conservative Party’s leadership convention didn’t even know the Party was electing a new leader. Nobody is paying attention now. So what O’Toole says to get elected as leader will not be his platform when the writ gets dropped. The bleeding hearts will try to paint him the same way they paint all Conservatives, regardless of what he has or hasn’t said.

    • The Doctor says:

      I think part of the reason people aren’t paying much attention is a triple whammy: in no particular order, summertime, covid crisis and the fact that south of the border, they’re in the middle of the most consequential, existential election campaign of our lifetimes.

      The Tory leadership campaign was boring as all bloody hell compared to the clown show down south. Almost nobody is paying serious attention to O’Toole until after November 3rd, that’s my prediction.

  5. WestGuy says:

    You know how it goes. Campaign from the wings, govern from the centre. I’ll wait and see how it plays out with him at the lead.
    Also, as for being a SoCon, he’s not a western SoCon which, as you know, is completely unacceptable in Canadian politics. Hell, we’ll vote in a blackfacer before we vote in a western SoCon. Now, an eastern SoCon, on the other hand, isn’t quite as unpalatable.

    • WestGuy,

      The thing is, he’s not even a SoCon. He’s True Blue which is code for reasonably Right-Wing but not disastrously so. He previously was a Right-Wing Moderate, like MacKay.

      Nixon pulled it off repeatedly. O’Toole better be able to do the same otherwise our party’s goose isn’t far from cooked.

      • Put another way, to hit the nail precisely on the head: he was genuinely himself last time and all he got was third place. He did the big pretend this time and it got him the leadership. Need I say more? It was the short game at its best.

  6. Ron Benn says:

    Everyone’s second choice for party leader has been and will remain everyone’s second choice for PM. Evidence? Joe Clark, Stephan Dion, Andrew Scheer.

    • The Doctor says:

      I agree that once again, it was a very disappointing field in the first place. Leslyn Lewis was at least interesting and a truly fresh face. I’m a Tory sympathetic voter, but I am just choked that Rona Ambrose didn’t run. I think she would have generated excitement and really given JT a run for his money. This is the third nerdy chubby white guy in a row for the CPC. WTF? Politics is partly about image and salesmanship, and the CPC is doing a fucking terrible job at that IMO. Canada is one of the most urbanized countries on the planet and the CPC is getting its electoral ass handed to it in our cities, election after election. In that sense, I agree with WK on the suicide thing.

      • Martin says:

        Nothing wrong with nerdy chubby white guys. Although, just for the record, try characterizing a liberal female cabinet minister in that fashion. I do concede we have have an electorate that fell for a good looking guy the last time without considering the fact there was no there there and it could very well happen again.

    • Nick M. says:

      He didn’t come up the middle. He was a close second on first ballot, and had the lead in the second ballot. To place him with Scheer or Dion Candidates is false.

      If this was an old fashion convention, MacKay would have conceded after the second ballot like Svend Robinson did when Alexa McDonough won. Svend won the first ballot, but it was clear 3rd place Lorne Nystrom’s delegates where not going to go to Svend.

  7. the real Sean says:

    Erin O’Toole reminds me of a high school Vice Principal. Jagmeet Singh reminds me of the new kid trying to hard to fit in. Justin Trudeau reminds me of the guy who intentionally failed Gr 12 so he could come back another year to sell drugs and get laid with 14 year olds.

  8. Dork in East York says:

    The inability for the Conservatives to move beyond the “white suburban hockey dad” as leader is baffling.

    • Dork,

      It’s all about those invisible strings — you know, the ones Kenney pulled and Harper did not object to. That’s it in a nutshell. The 2020 version is, for now, essentially the 2003-04 version with an Ontarian as leader.

    • whyshouldIsellyourwheat says:

      Leslyn Lewis had more raw votes than MacKay and O’Toole on the 2nd ballot.

      Leslyn Lewis was leading in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba after the 2nd ballot.

      Atlantic Canada saved MacKay on the 2nd ballot. And Quebec saved O’Toole on the 2nd ballot.

      In a pure one member one vote ranked ballet, rather than that the 100 points per riding ranked ballot, Lewis would have probably finished 2nd.

      She doesn’t look like a white suburban hockey dad.

    • Pedant says:

      Check your Laurentian Elitist privilege there, Dork.

      Believe it or not, middle class suburban hockey dads (white or otherwise) represent a very large swing constituency in Canada. They’re the taxpayers largely paying Canada’s bills, I will add.

      If he had spent the first 20 years of his adult life as a trust fund playboy with a bizarre addiction to slathering shoe polish on his face, would that be more urbane and sophisticated for you?

    • Tod Cowen says:

      The last guy who met that spec was PM for 10 years. I doubt the current PM will get there.

    • The Doctor says:

      Bingo. And why can’t they at least pick a fit, handsome suburban hockey dad for marketing purposes? But no, because the CPC is hooked on electing decidedly uncharismatic leaders and losing elections for some reason.

    • Gord says:

      As WK likes to say, if the ballot question comes down to Tim Hortons vs Starbucks, Tim’s usually comes out on top.

      Hectoring the “white suburban hockey dad” demo (you know, the one that pays for 75% of the stuff in this country), calling them inherently racist and sexist, suggesting they need to pay even more in taxes, and implying they’re some kind of troglodyte knuckle draggers if they’re not too keen on “Drag Queen Storytime” – well, ask the Democrats how that strategy worked out for them in 2016.

      • The Doctor says:

        Gord, I take your points, but Canada’s electorate and electoral system are not the same as America’s. We’re more urbanized, so the urban vote counts for more here. We aren’t as religiously observant, and evangelical Christians are not nearly the constituency or the force that they are down south. And we don’t have an electoral college system that gives inordinate power to a a small number of provinces/states.

        The bottom line is if you come across as too socially conservative in Canada these days, it’s electoral poison, especially in the cities. Not so much in the US. I agree there’s absolutely nothing wrong with courting and winning the Tim Horton’s/hockey dad vote, but you have to be able to attract urban voters, there are just too damn many seats that you leave on the table if you don’t. Tories have run the last two elections with their hands tied behind their backs in that respect. Do you know the last time a Tory/CPC candidate won a seat in Vancouver? 1988. That’s fucked up.

        • Gord says:

          Fair comment re: the US – it’s not apples to apples.

          The Tories did win a seat in Vancouver proper in 2011 (Wai Young in Vancouver South). And they did well in other ‘urban’ seats around Vancouver proper (Richmond, Tri-Cities, Surrey, etc).

          I guess I draw the distinction between ‘urban’ (i.e. downtown / downtown-adjacent type seats) and ‘suburban’ seats. I agree that places like Toronto south of Eglinton, most of Vancouver proper, and Montreal island are no-go zones for the Tories. But that leaves a lot of seats in the areas surrounding those urban cores that are definitely in play for the Tories, and in fact they were the key to Harper’s majority in 2011. The fact that Harper had no appeal to folks in Rosedale, Westmount and Kitsilano didn’t stop him from winning ‘urban’ (ie suburban) seats elsewhere.

          • The Doctor says:

            Gord, my apologies for the mistake about that one Vancouver South win, I wasn’t aware of that. I still think it’s a fucking pathetic record of failure in Vancouver proper, not to mention Toronto, Montreal etc.

            Like many urban Tory-sympathetic voters, I honestly cannot remember the last time I voted for a winning candidate in my riding in a federal election. I think it was sometime in the early to mid 1980s. That’s one thing if you’re voting Rhino, Communist or Christian Heritage Party, but Tory? It’s fucked up.

            IMO, the advent of Reform was the death knell for Tory voters and candidates in urban centres. If you look at the timeline, it fits perfectly.

          • Pedant says:

            Doctor – So what about Vancouver? And until 2015 no Liberal had won a seat in Calgary since 1968. What’s your point?

            A seat is a seat is a seat. A Vancouver seat is not worth more than a Calgary seat or a Thunder Bay seat or a Jonquière seat.

            This sounds like the same Liberal boasting about winning the female vote, as if a woman’s vote is somehow worth more than a man’s vote.

          • Pedant,

            Sure, a seat is a seat is a seat. But it depends: don’t women regularly and dare I say serially out vote men in federal elections? Well, there you go.

          • The Doctor says:

            Pedant, my point is that there are a helluva lot of seats in our major urban centres. If as a party you are completely shut out of nearly all of our major urban centres (most importantly our three largest ones), you are fighting elections with one hand tied behind your back.

  9. Gary says:

    The CPC just guaranteed their irrelevance for the foreseeable future.

  10. Richard Wiklo says:

    Yup…. CPC just elected a stunning majority Liberal Government. Moderate centrist politics has vanished from Canada. The far Left and the Far Right have destroyed any hope of reasonable, fiscal and progressive social governance in our country. Trudeau is about to unleash a massive wave of spending and tax increases and the Conservatives are turning into a GOP lunatic subsidiary of Donald Trump and Co.
    Time to sell off all assets before the inflation bubble and seek out another country to retire asap.

  11. Richard Wiklo says:

    Yup…. CPC just elected a stunning majority Liberal Government. Moderate centrist politics has vanished from Canada. The far Left and the Far Right have destroyed any hope of reasonable, fiscal and progressive social governance in our country. Trudeau is about to unleash a massive wave of spending and tax increases and the Conservatives are turning into a GOP lunatic subsidiary of Donald Trump and Co.
    Time to sell off all assets before the inflation bubble and seek out another country to retire asap.

  12. Doug says:

    A few random thoughts :
    -the official policy platform (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FqXN_QZ7NNnz6SUKKWVDv5LW_TWTpCX-/view?usp=sharing), only mentions conscience rights. The Liberals will always try to impute other socially conservative values. How can the Conservatives proactively fend this off?
    -“Canada’s Back” worked for Trudeau? Why doesn’t “take Canada back” to a time or better fiscal management work for O’Toole? Perhaps only the Liberals can invoke nostalgia
    -why can’t SoCons be at the table? Are inclusiveness and big tents only for Liberals?

    I would have held my nose and supported O’Toole. Mackay’s track record across high profile cabinet positions was lacklustre. Otherwise, he doesn’t have much more on offer than does Trudeau: name recognition, legacy, looks good in a suit, attractive wife, weak on policy and management and other day to day activities

    • Doug,

      I’ll support him but if he goes off the right deep end, I’ll go silent — instead of trying to right the ship, like I’ve done previously under Harper and Trudeau. Warren summed it up best: Life’s Too Short.

  13. Phil In London says:

    I am so tired of hearing that abortion is the number one issue on our minds, and that LGBTQ is more important than competent leadership.

    I am 54 years old and I know personally of ONE ABORTION that occurred in me personal circle.

    I happen to be pro-choice. I have gay friends, beento a gay wedding! I have respectful relationships with people of other racial backgrounds and I feel incredibly upset for women who are treated to grotesque standards of sexism.

    Here is the BUT, if someone wants to MODERATE some current social norms and you would rather vote for a misogynist corrupt incompetent than suicide might be a better option!

    This election like the last 30 or so are between two visions of Canada, if you vote Conservative you may not agree with everyone but if you vote for anyone else you are agreeing the corrupt Trudeau Liberals in a minority or majority are your best choice to govern.

    NDP and BLOC are NOT votes for government and Green vote is below that standard if you have ZERO chance of winning but can block the conservatives, you are VOTING LIBERAL.

    You can’t spend months viciously opposing the Liberal leadership than flopping back on side when there is a sniff of a few things you differ on.
    If it is your feeling that CORRUPTION MEANS less, that it is okay to be racist and sexist if you have a Liberal nomination than by all means DON’T vote for this guy, you don’t deserve a county where people think for themselves.

    Go pull your Barney doll out of the bag and let on that these childish games are more important than choosing a government that represents the nation’s best option for sustainability.

  14. Nick M. says:

    This is what I believe, is it’s important to be consistent.

    It’s a women right to choose, and a man has no business in the matter is like saying it’s Western Canada’s right to choose to develop its own natural resources, and Eastern Canada has no business in the matter.

    Anyone man who wishes to impose his Anti-Abortion agenda on women, has no right to protest Eastern Canadian MPs meddling in issues that occur on the other side of the continent.

  15. Yet Another Calgarian says:

    Every Conservative voter I know comes down on the fiscal side of things not the social side and will be epically displeased if the SoCon wing of the party gets steering privileges. They have every right to their opinions but that doesn’t mean they have to be listened to and enacted on

    O’Toole will know that.

    What gets said and done by him and his team going forward is more meaningful than a party vote. Or should be.

  16. Ron Benn says:

    The social mores of 1955 that some SoCons want but an illusion. US sit coms of the 50’s (My Three Sons, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver) represented such a small sliver of society back then.

  17. Gord says:

    An interesting thought experiment – how would a left-leaning economic populist fare? I.e. someone running on a platform of giving the average working stiff a fair shake. Things like:

    1) Better workplace protections. Mandatory minimum paid sick time, federal minimum wage, mandatory COLAs, mandatory minimum paid vacation, better rights to refuse unsafe work, stronger whistleblower protection).

    2) Helping with cost of living. Capping telecom rates and home heating costs. Offering grants to allow people to buy more energy-efficient vehicles or retrofit their homes. Build more low-cost, affordable housing.

    3) Make having a family more affordable. Higher subsidies for child care. Allowing income splitting / joint filing for working families. Reduce means testing on CCB so that only the very wealthiest have it clawed back. Increase the RESP grants to make it easier to save for post-secondary eduction or training.

    4) Aggressively go after tax shelters, trusts and tax dodgers. Implement an estate / inheritance tax on the very wealthiest. Increase taxes on passive income. Implement additional tax brackets for the very wealthiest. Ban foreign ownership of residential real estate.

    5) Adopt stronger public accountability and anti-corruption measures. Give the ethics commissioner the right to lay criminal charges. Crack down on money laundering.

    In short, ditch the boutique social issues, and focus on bread-and-butter economic concerns and sticking it to Bay Street and the Annex crowd. Have a platform that an unemployed oil rig worker in Alberta, a struggling artist in Montreal and a working family in Cape Breton would all vote for.

    I know ‘populism’ is a dirty word these days thanks to Trump, but I think someone running on a Huey Long-style “Every Man a King” platform could do well in Canada.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Gord,

      I hope you will soon be in government. Talk about good old fashioned common sense.

      • He just listed off the NDP platform.

        • Gord says:

          It’s close, but minus the following from the NDP platform:
          – Increase funding for the CBC
          – Oppose all pipeline construction
          – Ban non-renewable electricity sources by 2030
          – Ban handguns
          – Increase foreign aid spending
          – Implement a national ban on carding
          – Only appoint bilingual Supreme Court judges
          – Eliminate the Safe Third Country agreement
          – Eliminate the cap on sponsoring parent and grandparents for immigration
          – Require that people be referred to by others using the pronoun that aligns with their gender identity

          I.e. the things I referred to above, admittedly somewhat glibly, as boutique social issues.

    • Derek Pearce says:

      You realize when you say things like tax “the very wealthiest” and then say this will stick it to Bay Street and the Annex, that you are overwhelmingly talking about upper-middle class professionals, not Jeff Bezos types. This is why Conservatives lose so often in urban areas. Not even trying to understand those voters.

      • Gord says:

        I don’t know too many “upper-middle class professionals” making in excess of $500,000 per year. And there’s a lot more people making a lot less. In any event, I wouldn’t expect a left-leaning populist platform to be too popular in places like University-Rosedale, St. Paul’s or Westmount any more than I’d expect the Liberal platform to be popular in Swift Current, Red Deer or Fort St. John.

  18. Douglas W says:

    Here’s what I have seen and read in the past 12 hours:

    O’Toole will not re-open the abortion debate.
    He won’t enact government legislation to protect the unborn.
    He’s in favour of a bill that’ll provide new rights to “gender identity” and “gender expression”.
    He will not repeal the gender identity bill if he becomes the Prime Minister.

    Scary? Not really.

    And, in other news, the Libs awarded 142 contracts to SNC since the scandal broke, last year.

  19. Robert White says:

    Harper’s rebranding of the Progressive Conservatives has been a one hit wonder only. O’Tool is not the populist leader party brass thinks he might be. And Andrew Scheer was a better moderate than O’Tool is IMHO.

    The days of balanced budgets are clearly over as we are all Keynesians whether we admit it or not, and the Great Financial Reset is upon us whereby deficit spending will be here for quite some time yet.

    If Conservatives wanted balanced budgets the would have stayed on a gold backed currency. Everyone in Finance knows that balanced budgets went out with Tricky Dick in 1971.

    And abortion rights for women is not a debate. In Canada women have rights and control of their own reproductive rights.

    Conservative white dudes need not apply, thank God.

    I give the new leadership 1 out of 10 for beating Peter MacKay.

    I hold no hope for the Canadian Conservatives anymore. Warren is right that they just suicided before our very eyes coast-to-coast-to-coast.

    Way to go, HarpyCONs.

    Winning like Charlie Sheen IMHO.

    RW

  20. William says:

    As a friend in California said to me this morning. I hear you got a guy named Adolph O’toole running for the Conservatives up there. I damn near pissed myself.

  21. Brock says:

    Warren,

    I love reading your thoughts, but every so often you seen badly offside.

    The facile version of O’Toole’s position (and conservative concerns) re conscience rights is playing to the same alarmist nonsense that means no one in this country can have a serious conversation about things like sex (or other trait)-selective abortion. Most Canadians will reluctantly tolerate abortion through the second trimester, but the idea that anyone should be compelled to terminate the life of what is observably a small human doesn’t have the broad support you seem to assume.

    Medically-assisted dying–or the killing of humans by doctors–is not a settled, comfortable matter either. This was decided by the court, not the legislature, and is the thin end of a wedge that has had significant moral implications elsewhere for children and the mentally ill.

    And social conservatives should have a seat at the democratic table. Your progressive views may be dominant NOW, but they were not always, and will not always be. But people committed to democracy shouldn’t deny you your seat at the table when you espouse views that are unpopular, merely on the basis of their unpopularity.

  22. Gilbert says:

    Erin O’Toole is balancing the interests of social conservatives and liverals. He’s practical. Canada needs a serious and hard-working prime minister. He’s the right person for the job.

  23. Quo Vadis says:

    Bang on…

  24. Steve Teller says:

    Bingo! It is tantamount to child abuse letting a pre-pubescent child make such a life-altering decision with potentially permanent health implications.

    Somehow gender-conversion therapy and homosexuality have been lumped together, despite them having very different long-term consequences. Love who you want, be with who you want, marry who you want. But injecting yourself with hormones and undergoing surgery to remove (or install) bodily parts is a very different thing. Certainly not a thing that children should be doing.

  25. Miles Lunn says:

    I think O’Toole is more a symptom than a cause. Fact Sloan who is a Trump like got 14% and Lewis who is a social conservative 20% and combined 35% while MacKay barely a 1/3 shows the membership wants to keep the party on the right. Problem is public is swinging left not right so even a moderate would have faced an uphill battle, but by staying right, just puts a further wedge between progressive majority and right wing minority.

    Now O’Toole is at heart like MacKay a moderate and did this more for strategical reasons. But still as Warren knows full well, Liberals are saving clips of all his right wing comments and will use them in attack ads. And fact only way to win nomination means tacking right shows party has a deep problem and no matter who they choose, they won’t win until they fix this.

    I am a small c conservative, but I think Tories are going to be in the wilderness for a long time. Party doesn’t understand modern Canada and wrongly assumes country is far more conservative than it really is.

    • duojet says:

      Miles – you nailed it.

      IMHO, the Liberals won the election in:
      – 2015 “Harper Out” vote.
      – 2019 “Reject Scheer” vote.

      Looks like CPC is going for a threepeat!

    • Miles,

      I would put it to you that the party has grown somewhat since the Harper days. Just look at the main contenders’ position on the Pride parade, seemingly unthinkable in some CPC circles during the Harper mandates.

      Sure, we aren’t the PCP anymore but we are still capable of putting country first ahead of our various shades of ideology. IMHO, most members know in their heart of hearts that when it comes down to a choice between going for power OR instead focusing on our various BlessedPrinciples, that you can’t win if you put the main emphasis on the latter. Voters will only be led in an election to a place where they willingly are prepared to go. And that means centre-right. Harper was forced to put water in his wine during the two minority mandates and when he stopped after winning the majority, well, we all know what happened the next time Harper faced the voters. He was out on his ass and deservedly so.

      • Miles Lunn says:

        I think O’Toole is more centrist than Harper, but median voter due to millennials and Gen Z coming of age, death of many silent generation and GI generation (who were most conservative generations) have pulled Canada quite a bit left. Pandemic more importantly has made even fiscal conservatism political suicide for now. That may change once economy recovers, but for now people firmly on left so Tories best to wait not go soon.

    • Jim R says:

      I fully admit to having not paid much attention to the race. As such, if there are *in context* full quotes of O’Toole sounding like a bible thumper, I would like to see them. Because, AFAICT O’Toole is a moderate whose only real “crime” so far is saying that social conservatives ““will have a seat at the table”. None the other bullet points that WK makes above contain anything remotely close to a quote or a platform excerpt, and thus are impossible to assess in any meaningful way.

      • Miles Lunn says:

        The quotes Warren uses are false if you read full context, but that doesn’t matter. Warren is an expert at making attack ads that can sink candidates and mark my words, Liberals will use them. Now if he can define himself quickly and explain those, may be less effective, but he needs to define himself very quickly or Liberal party will do it for him just like they did for Stockwell Day, Kim Campbell and Tories did for Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.

  26. Martin says:

    I hope everyone watched O’Toole’s presser. MSM and the CBC will try to spin it the way it has been described above but, if they give him a fair hearing, it won’t work. He also had a smile on his face.

    • The Doctor says:

      I saw that presser too. It’s very early days, but I think he may at least be a better retail politician than Scheer — but that’s not a high bar to clear. It’s true that he has this sunny disposition, which is generally a good thing. Scheer’s deer-in-the-headlights look was very off-putting.

      • Jim R says:

        Scheer was effing useless. It was *entirely* predictable that the media and opposition parties would come at him concerning social conservatism, and his responses to these broadsides were stilted sentences of little actual content.

        Not to mention that the issues re his insurance industry employment and dual citizenship made him look like he was a less than forthcoming person.

        “Not a high bar to clear” is putting it way too nicely.

        I am, for now, cautiously optimistic that O’Toole will do much better.

  27. Doug says:

    Fully agree. Conversion therapy should be illegal for those under 18 and should not qualify for any government funding.. There are lots of sham treatments out there for weight loss, smoking etc., why single out this one ml

  28. Davide says:

    Fat Shaming isn’t good, even old white guys.

    Leslyn Lewis was a chance for the party to bury the old “hidden agenda” and “Racist Rednecks that will take away your Abortions” line that the Liberals PULL OUT EVERY SINGLE GOD DAMN ELECTION.

    Conservative are too busy measuring each other with their Conservative tape measures and they invariably choose someone that might be barely adequate to their standard but end up being perceived as Extremists by their opposition and middle of the road voters.

    We’re back to the big decision of voting for the Crooks or the Bigots, and the Liberals will gladly live with that.

    • William says:

      Facts are a bitch. Redneck racists are Conservatives and pro lifers are Conservatives and they carry a fair amount of influence in the Con party. They hav3 one or the other running for the leadership every time.

      • William,

        You need to take a more concentrated look at all the parties. If you do, you will find racists and bigots — and yes, pro-life people in all of them. That’s reality.

        I’m not pro-life but if the leader was, I wouldn’t like it but that wouldn’t prevent me from being an advocate for change if a pro-life plank was party policy, which it isn’t now, nor was it under Harper. Accurate facts are a…[sexist term].

  29. Pedant says:

    Well, we’re mere days following the leadership vote and everyone’s already forgotten about the technical glitches.

    I knew nobody would care about the machines malfunctioning despite sending leftists into a tizzy of spit-flecked fury.

  30. Gilbert says:

    Justin Trudeau doesn’t allow Liberals with pro-life views to run for office. Charities that want grants to hire students for summer employment must state that they support women’s access to abortion. That sounds extremely intolerant to me.

    • Robert White says:

      The Government of Canada judiciously guards the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in order to safeguard against intolerance via the Roman Catholic orthodoxy and dogmatic adherence to Canon Law of the church in opposition to our cherished Charter of Rights and Freedoms that have been hard won by tireless constitutional lawyers and litigants over time.

      All of the main political parties have formally stated to all constituencies that abortion is NOT a debate due to the sanctioning of the rights paradigm and codification of the rights of women and their sole control of their own biological reproductive rights forward.

      No religious order or orthodoxy can muster any sort of charter challenge or even discussion amongst mainstream political order due to the supremacy of the charter of rights over religious cannon law.

      Pro-life views are wholly intolerable in secular society governed via secular laws. Our Prime Minister Trudeau is right to protect all Canadians from intrusions of religious orthodoxy as that has proven to be racist, sexist, and misogynist clap trap of historical embarrassment.

      RW

      • Pedant says:

        Does the Charter state that Canadian taxpayers are obligated to cover the cost of killing 35-week old fetuses for the crime of having brown eyes instead of blue?

  31. Gilbert says:

    If I don’t want my taxes to find abortion, can I have my taxes directed elsewhere? Is partial bith abortion acceptable as well as selective sex abortion? How times have changed! It may not be politically correct nor fashionable to protect the unborn, but I believe it’s important. A former university colleague told me abortion is wrong, but we must keep it legal. Even liberal countries like Sweden place restrictions on abortion. Why can’t Canada?

  32. Abortion is all about credible contexts and unquestionable statistics. Only then does it become a legitimate issue for debate. But in the final analysis, it’s the woman who gets to instruct the practitioners as to her wishes as regards the health of her own body and mind. If she wants my opinion or input, she is, of course, free to ask for it.

  33. Doron says:

    Carole James once campaigned to take back BC
    Hillary Clinton once had a Take Back America slogan.

    It’s no deeper than a puddle. Just a slogan

  34. Joan says:

    I wonder exactly what “concerns” he has about banning conversion therapy. It is bad enough that both Lewis and Sloan ran on opposing criminalizing the underground trade in conversion therapy but I thought Erin would oppose the torturing of children. I mean, did we learn nothing from the T&R investigations about torturing children for who they are? I wonder where and when Erin expressed these “concerns”.

Leave a Reply to Dork in East York Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.