Column: Introducing the Smirker™

— 05.28.2017 05:08 PM

TORONTO—Smirk.

The economy. Justin Trudeau. Free speech. His deceased mother. ISIS.

On every subject, no matter how sad or serious, Andrew Scheer would smirk. It was, well, weird. His rictus was so off-putting, we started to forget what he was actually saying.

Which, for him, was pretty fortunate. Minutes after he won the Conservative Party leadership last night, Scheer took to the stage at the Toronto Congress Centre, and proceeded to give a speech that was so stilted, so stiff, it made the worst high school student council contestant sound positively Churchillian.

The only time Scheer stirred the crowd was when he promised to withhold funding from universities where “free speech” isn’t protected.

Never mind that universities are wholly the jurisdiction of the provinces. Never mind that there are indeed instances where universities are perfectly entitled to object to Holocaust denial or the sexualization of children. Never mind all that.

“Remember J. Philippe Rushton?” I shouted at my TV set. “The Western University professor who taught that blacks had smaller brains, and who asked his students about their genitalia for his ‘research?’ You okay with that kind of ‘free speech,’ Scheer, you perpetually-grinning harlequin?”

It got worse. At one point, he talked about how important it was to be able “to have a debate about any subject.”

Any subject. Smirk.

We all knew what he must be talking about. The shockingly large social conservative contingent—the ones who had propelled anti-gay, anti-abortion candidates like Brad Trost and Pierre Lemieux to near the very top of the Conservative leadership ballot—wanted abortion and gay marriage banned again. And Scheer was saying: “I’m your guy. We’ll have a ‘debate’ about any subject, including that stuff. Wink, wink.”

Knowing smirk.

Before he exited the sprawling convention centre in Toronto’s west end, Scheer—who had voted against gay equality whenever the subject came up in the House—claimed that abortion and gay marriage weren’t up for debate “under my leadership.” But the damage had been done.

Everyone knew what he truly meant, however, because everyone knew who had put him over the top. So said Postmedia’s John Ivision: “If Scheer wins, it will be because of social conservatives.”

Other media were on to him too. A while ago, the indefatigable Rosie Barton went after The Smirker on her CBC show. Here’s a segment:

Barton: “But do you, yourself, believe [in gay marriage]?”

Scheer: “I, it’s, look, I don’t—it’s absolutely—our party dealt with this issue in Vancouver and, you know, there was a specific policy plank in our platform, and I think members decided, a lot of social conservatives who, you know, have differing views on that decided, look, if it’s not something that’s ever going to be changed, it’s been this way for 10 years—I have my own personal beliefs and, you know, my own faith background, but at this point in time with the Conservative Party of Canada trying to build a national viable coalition, it’s not something that—”

Barton: “But that sounds like, you’re just going to, you’re going to live with it. You’re going to live with the fact that gay people can get married; it’s not, but it’s not something you believe in.”

Scheer: “Look, it doesn’t matter, like if people have personal views on things, there’s a lot of things that divide us as Conservatives and there’s a lot of things that unite us. This is one of those issues that—it’s a—it happened in 2005, you know I was a Member of Parliament at the time, I voted my conscience.”

Get that? “It doesn’t matter.” And: “I voted my conscience.” And: the most weaselly, slippery answer any politician has given since Brian Mulroney was returned to the salons of the Ritz-Carlton.

“His conscience.” Smirk.

The shorthand on Andrew Scheer, when anyone paid any attention to him at all, was that he was “Stephen Harper with a smile.” You’d hear it a lot.

How, exactly, is that a winning formulation, pinstriped Tory boys and girls? Stephen Harper was beaten, soundly, by that guy you all mostly hate but whom Canadians mostly like. Did you think it was because Harper didn’t smile nearly enough, and Justin Trudeau smiles a lot? Seriously?

To the Conservatives, Scheer, however, was the least objectionable of an objectionable lot. Chong liked carbon taxes and had become a bit player in a psychodrama about breastfeeding. Bernier angered the lobby representing millionaire Quebec dairy farmers. Raitt was, well, a woman—just like Hillary! Emails!—So they picked Scheer, the grinning former Speaker of the House of Commons.

Not that it matters now, but here’s one thing to consider: Andrew Scheer was the worst Speaker in generations. He was pathetic.

One time, Scheer refused to let the opposition ask questions about—wait for it—the Harper government’s spending of taxpayer dollars. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, flabbergasted, put it best: “If the Speaker of the House of Commons is going to try to shut down questions about government business from the leader of the official opposition before he even hears the end of the question, then we’ve entered new territory, and I’m telling you right now I’m not going to be told to sit down on questions that have to do with the public and that have to do with government business.”

That was the dimpled Andrew Scheer: quite alright with cutting off the “free speech” of those he opposed. Mr. Free Speech, only in favour of free speech for those with whom he agrees.

Anyway. The SoCon multitudes have made their choice. They wanted Trost or Lemieux or—failing that, per John Ivison—they wanted Andrew Scheer.

They got him.

Smirk.


Comments (32)

From tomorrow’s column about The Smirker

— 05.28.2017 08:13 AM

To wit:

“Barton: But do you, yourself, believe [in gay marriage]?

Scheer: I, it’s, look, I don’t – it’s absolutely – our party dealt with this issue in Vancouver and, you know, there was a specific policy plank in our platform, and I think members decided, a lot of social conservatives who, you know, have differing views on that decided, look, if it’s not something that’s ever going to be changed, it’s been this way for ten years – I have my own personal beliefs and, you know, my own faith background, but at this point in time with the Conservative Party of Canada trying to build a national viable coalition, it’s not something that …

Barton: But that sounds like, you’re just going to, you’re going to live with it. You’re going to live with the fact that gay people can get married; it’s not, but it’s not something you believe in.

Scheer: Look, it doesn’t matter, like if people have personal views on things, there’s a lot of things that divide us as Conservatives and there’s a lot of things that unite us. This is one of those issues that – it’s a – it happened in 2005, you know I was a Member of Parliament at the time, I voted my conscience.”

Get that? “It doesn’t matter.” And: “I voted my conscience.” And: the most weaselly, slippery answer any politician has given since Brian Mulroney slunk back to the august salons of the Ritz-Carlton.

You made a big mistake, Conservatives. You’ll never believe that of me, but you’ll believe it soon enough. 


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This week’s column: the next CPC leader – and what they should be doing 

— 05.25.2017 08:31 PM

Boring.

Drab, dull, flat, insipid, uninspiring, monotonous, prosaic, tedious, interminable.

The leadership race of the Conservative Party of Canada has been all these things, and so many more. If you consult your nearest thesaurus for things that are synonymous with “boring,” like I did, you will find no shortage of words that fit. You might even see the shiny faces of the assembled 13 candidates, smiling up at you.

Oh, sure, the American citizen Kevin O’Leary was an unmitigated clown show, and clown shows are usually pretty entertaining. And, yes, assorted nobodies and Kellie Leitch – She-wolf of the Clueless – raised the temperature, somewhat, with their braying and screeching about refugees and immigrants. But it isn’t ever hard to raise the temperature at, say, a cross-burning.

Apart from the O’Leary interregnum, and the unabashed channeling of Donald Trump, then, it’s been a pretty dreary affair. Joe Clark would have felt right at home.

And, by next week, Joe Clark may be what they ended up with. 

Erin O’Toole and Andrew Scheer have been the Joe Whos of this race. Bland works, per the Muse of Bill Davis, and Messrs. O’Toole and Scheer have been doing their utmost to be toast. As in, as exciting as. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. Me, I feel a nap coming on.

Kellie Leitch, who ran the sort of winning campaign that would win bigly in rural Alabama – but not in urban, urbane Canada – has been, no joke, an utter disgrace. She has been the all-white face of a campaign that has brought out the very worst in Conservatives. And she has single-handedly undone all that Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney did for a decade, working to bring new Canadians into the conservative mainstream. 

She should be ashamed of herself. Instead, she’ll likely keep making videos with the production values of a Fourteenth Century woodcut. You make the zombies on The Walking Dead look like they’re doing the jitterbug, Kel.

Mad Max Bernier, meanwhile, has been precisely the sort of candidate the Conservatives need to offset Justin Trudeau’s strengths: he’s telegenic, he’s charismatic, he’s youthful, he’s unconventional, and he likes ideas. All of those things made him the frontrunner. 

And, natch, all of which means there is an excellent chance his party will reject him. The Conservative multitudes, after all, rarely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. 

Justin Trudeau, as he giddily photobombs high schoolers across the hinterland, must be therefore having a good laugh. Another victory lap in 2019, he must be thinking, is in the proverbial bag. “Gerry, notify the photographers! I’m going canoeing again, shirtless!”

But not so fast, Selfieman. You have vulnerabilities, too. And the Conservatives – led by a credible leader – could exploit same, if they’re smart. Which, on the available evidence, they aren’t.

Anyway. Trudeau’s vulnerabilities, in no particular order:

· Indigenous people: As the father of Trudeau’s Minister of Justice said – and, as a respected Chief, he would certainly know – the much-trumpeted Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiry has become “a bloody farce,” quote unquote. Worse than that: it has become an actual scandal, spending millions to achieve precisely nothing. If the Tories had any strategic sense, they’d be demanding ministerial resignations over this mess. But they haven’t, and they won’t.

· Economy: Finance Minister Bill Morneau, rookie he may be, has evolved into a very capable communicator, and a steady hand on the fiscal ship of state. Notwithstanding that, conservative political options – including even conservative bottom-feeders like Donald Trump – are always seen by voters as better on the economy. So, will the CPC get back to hammering away on ballooning deficits and fiscal uncertainty? Not on your life. They’ll keep yammering about the hijab, like they did during the 2015 campaign. And they’ll get the same result.

· Trump: Trudeau, and his most senior staff, rolled the dice on Agent Orange, hugely. By playing nice with the Unpresident – by refusing to utter a single word that was critical of the racist, sexist, addled Groper-in-Chief – Trudeau et al. reckoned they could avoid his Sauron-like gaze. They were wrong. Softwood lumber; NAFTA; repeatedly calling Canadians names (eg., “a disgrace” and “unfair,” and “a disaster”): all of those things weren’t supposed to happen, because the Prime Minister pretended to be interested in Ivanka Trump’s handbag designs. So, do you think the Conservatives could be bothered to chip away at any of this? Not on your life. They like Donald Trump.

· Promises, promises: I’m a Jean Chrétien guy. We did okay, and we lived our lives according to two immutable principles: one, don’t try and get in the papers all the time. Voters don’t like it. And, two, underpromise and overdeliver. The Trudeau guys have done neither, and it has left them vulnerable. A smart political opponent would exploit that. The Conservatives haven’t.

· Rookie mistakes: There are newbies aplenty in Trudeau’s caucus and cabinet, and many of them are pretty impressive (cf. Philpott, Wilson-Raybould, the aforementioned Morneau). But others have perhaps been elevated to lofty heights too soon (cf. Monsef, Tootoo, Sajjan). At this point in Brian Mulroney’s first majority, we Liberals had hastened the resignations of André Bissonette, Jean Charest, Robert Coates, John Fraser, Roch LaSalle, Marcel Masse and Sinclair Stevens. Have the 100-strong Conservative MPs taken out one (1) cabinet minister? Nope.

The Conservatives, however, will have a new leader by this time next week.

Feeling sleepy yet?

 Zzzzz.

 


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