01.21.2020 02:32 PM

Charest: no thanks

He would’ve been a great leader for them. But the Tories never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.


24 Comments

  1. Gord Tulk says:

    He made a wise decision- he would have been humiliated.

    • J.H. says:

      Too much baggage.
      You always have to be suspicious when Trudeau’s Media Pals in the Ottawa Press Gallery and well-known Liberals like WK start touting a CPC leadership candidate. You just know there’s another shoe to be dropped and the negative files are already prepared in the war rooms and news rooms.

      • Warren says:

        “Well-known Liberals.”

        I did more to batter the Trudeau team in one day in 2019 than you’ve done in a lifetime.

        • I guess he was out of town recently and missed their counter-attack. PMO Karma Bank = overflowing. Not good, for them.

        • J.H. says:

          Don’t want to fight WK, but you certainly do have a bigger platform, with which to hold forth. However, I do detect a softening of attitude of late. Is it kiss and make up time?
          I would understand it of course, since the LPC is your natural second home or at least was for a long time.
          Meanwhile poor plebs like myself do what we can to oppose the Trust Fund babies and their Laurentian Elite masters.
          Likewise any journos pretending to advise us on CPC leadership candidates. The negative news stories on them, no doubt are already written. No matter who wins.

          • Warren says:

            Nope. Me and others made our case – on blackface, SNC, Aga Khan, etc. etc. – and millions of Canadians considered what we had to say, and decided things differently.

            If I’m a democrat – which I am – I have an obligation to accept that my side of the argument lost.

            So, we move on.

          • Fred from BC says:

            “If I’m a democrat – which I am – I have an obligation to accept that my side of the argument lost. ”

            Yes, but with more than a little help from Andrew Scheer.

  2. Steve T says:

    I have spoken to various people in the CPC, and their main concern with Charest is that he is the reddest of Red Tories. Many people referred to him as “Justin-lite”.

    Lest you think these are mouth-breathing redneck Tories, these same people have indicated support for Mackay (over Pierre P), or Rona if she were to run (which she won’t, unfortunately).

    • PJH says:

      Reddest of Red Tories?….Nothing to be ashamed of. Traditional Red Tories are socially progressive and fiscally conservative. The Rt Hon. Robert Stanfield comes to mind. Mr. Stanfield was to the manor born, but he cared about the welfare of the less fortunate.
      I agree with Mr. Kinsella, the party missed a great opportunity to have a leader with great appeal across the country…..especially where the Conservatives need to do better….with women, with environmentalists, and in La Belle Provence….

      • Fred from BC says:

        “Traditional Red Tories are socially progressive and fiscally conservative.”

        An impossibility, I’m afraid.

        “especially where the Conservatives need to do better….with women, with environmentalists, and in La Belle Provence….”

        So, your prescription for success would have been pandering, pandering and *more* pandering? The Liberals have that all locked up, sorry…

        • PJH says:

          It’s called being realistic and pragmatic, Fred from BC. Doing the right thing is never pandering. In many cases, being progressive on social issues saves money in the long run. Needle exchanges, safe injection sites, and affordable housing are but three examples. Now on the other hand, I want to see tax dollars wisely spent(temporary skating rinks on Parliament Hill and the PM’s disasterous India visit are prime examples of how not to spend taxpayers dollars) As, well, when it comes to law and order, I am a little to the right of Atilla the Hun.

          Mr. Kinsella hates these tiresome exchanges, so this will be my last reply to you(for now…;)

          • Fred from BC says:

            “It’s called being realistic and pragmatic, Fred from BC.”

            Nope. It’s called being two-faced, because those things are mutually exclusive. Progre$$ivism is expensive.

            ” Needle exchanges, safe injection sites, and affordable housing are but three examples. ”

            So keeping drug addicts alive to commit their daily crimes doesn’t cost money, to you? Ask someone who lives near one of those places to tell you how much they love them.

            And don’t even get me started on the constantly repeated LIE that some politician or another is going to make housing “affordable” again. THEY WON’T. THEY CAN’T. They won’t even try…because the only possible way to do so is to lower the average house price, which would involve legislating new rules restricting the ability of the banks to offer mortgages and new controls on builders and developers (to name just a couple of the necessary actions), which would cause the housing prices to plummet, which would then *destroy most of the existing equity* homeowners now enjoy. Political suicide. Not even the NDP would dare to go there, and anyone who believes otherwise is just gullible.

            (and please note, that I am not talking about *subsidized* housing, which is a completely different thing…and the exact opposite of being “fiscally conservative”, sorry…)

            “As, well, when it comes to law and order, I am a little to the right of Atilla the Hun.”

            And yet you favor spending tax money on keeping drug addicts alive and stealing. Hmmm…

          • Fred,

            This isn’t meant as a shot at you, but my philosophy is: what would Jesus do? Don’t know for sure but I’ve got a fair idea.

          • Fred from BC says:

            “This isn’t meant as a shot at you, but my philosophy is: what would Jesus do? Don’t know for sure but I’ve got a fair idea.”

            Whatever the answer is, it would be much closer to your position than mine, for sure.

          • I don’t think He would be impling it would be cheaper to let drug addicts die.

  3. Gilbert says:

    Jean Charest is not the leader the Conservatives need. It’s no secret Stephen Harper didn’t support him.

  4. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Charest needs this leadership like a hole in the head. What with UPAC uncertainty and CPC party dynamics, it was already a no-go even before Harper went semi-public. The latter was the Mother-Of-All-CPC-Telegraphing.

  5. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    But the real story is how Ambrose has seriously damaged herself. What with her better half being resolutely opposed, time crawls by without a puff of white smoke. Translation: she goes out of her way to appropriate the Dithers Monicker from Martin. And that’s politically deadly for the newly crowned Ms. Dithers. Rona should have had more political smarts than that.

  6. Pedro says:

    Dodged a bullet I’d say the CPC did. Charest is clueless re: conservatism. Call it Red Toryism (the two words alone and together are sooo late 1970-ish) even I, of the same vintage as Warren, fondly recalling those years, am happy that it is, ahem, 2020. Is it me or is this whole community here still in 1986? OK Boomers.

  7. Paige says:

    Whew. Dodged a bullet. Hopefully he will phone McKay and remind him the P in CPC stands for party not progressive.

    • Paige,

      I get a laugh when people post like this. Facts are facts. Everyone and his brother and sister knows the Alliance cohort will carry the day. They will decide who’s leader, not the PCP contingent. So MacKay has the greatest selling job of his life to do. I was an extremely easy sell as a former PCP but the big job lies ahead and Peter is more than aware of that.

  8. Well, Quebec former PCP types were one thing, the average reaction I got in the street was quite another. I’ll leave it at that.

  9. Pedant says:

    I disagree with you Warren. We already have TWO federal caucuses led by Quebec-1st / Canada-2nd (or Canada-last) politicians. We don’t need another.

  10. I suspect if he thought he could win the leadership, and then win the next federal election, he would have thrown his hat into the ring. IMHO, after some time reviewing the matter, he didn’t think either was probable, so he has saved himself the aggravation.

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