Conservative Party of Canada Leadership Race Megathread-May 27th 2017

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10% (actually, he is at 11%) isn't popular at all, really. But he is in 4th place, behind MacKay (might not run), O'Leary (probably won't run) and Kenney (will not run). So, who knows.

I'm picking Leitch as the underground Brownesque candidate right now. But that's based on circumstantial evidence.

Ehh... maybe it's soon to count out Raitt after all. We'll see.  

Did that poll also give Bernier's level of support in Quebec?  My guess is that if Bernier is at 11% nationally, he's probably at between 20-25% in Quebec.

Yes, he is polling at around 30% in Quebec. Outside of Quebec he's in single digits.

Interestingly, he is doing well with younger voters, perhaps because young Tories tend to be Libertarian? He's also doing much better among men than women for probably the same reason.

Thanks.  Not to make too much out of this, but I'd say this more or less backs up my initial point: Bernier has a good deal of backing from Quebec Conservatives and he's liked in Quebec by people other than those who live in his riding.

I would say that as other candidates enter the race or the candidates already in the race get better known, Bernier's support could obviously decline in Quebec (especially maybe if another Quebecer like Steven Blaney gets in the race) however, similarly, as Bernier gets better known outside of Quebec, his support level in the rest of Canada would likely increase.

Either way, at this point I think Bernier has to be considered one of the front-runners with Raitt, Clement and Leitch if MacKay doesn't run.

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MacKay interview with Solomon. He doesn't sound terribly interested, IMO. Besides, where would he run? He can't be outside the House for 2+ years or carpetbag in ON and get Meighen'd given our ON numbers right now.

He wouldn't be carpbetbagging.  He now lives in the Toronto area in order to work at the law firm that hired him.There are some relatively safe exurban ridings in Simcoe he would likely easily win.  Thornhill though would be his best bet, I would think.

2015
Peter Kent, Conservative 31,911
Nancy Coldham, Liberal 18,395

I'm sure Netanyahu could coincidentally time a visit to the riding just to ensure a MacKay victory. If that's proves to be a logistical problem he could always say that the Liberal Government is anti-Israel or anti-Jewish, which is the same thing to him.

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the CEO of Peterson Capital, Rick Peterson is looking at joining the race.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/vancouver-venture-capitalist-rick-peterson-considers-joining-conservative-leadership-race

Rick Peterson ran for the leadership of the B.C Conservative Party (no affiliation) in 2014 losing to Dan Brooks roughly 60-40%

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O'Toole expected to decide within the next few days.

Kellie Leitch supposedly has a great campaign organization.  Then there was a story on how Andrew Scheer, if he runs, will have a great organization and will unite the party behind him because he's young and, while being a veteran M.P, won't have the baggage of the Harper years.  Now there is a story on Erin O'Toole saying pretty much the same thing (O'Toole isn't a veteran M.P but was briefly a Cabinet Minister.)

It seems nearly every Conservative running is a front-runner with a great campaign organization.

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Clown car keeps growing.

I think this is further evidence that the Conservatives don't believe Peter MacKay is going to run.  I could also see these M.Ps (and shadow cabinet ministers) looking at running if MacKay doesn't based on their relatively high profiles: James Bezan, Pierre Polievre and Peter Van Loan.

Some might add Michelle Rempel, but given her recent revelation that she is suffering from PTSD stemming from the Ottawa shooting incident I think it would be a bit odd for her to turn around and run for leader.  Also, Rempel is said to be pushing Lisa Raitt to run.

If MacKay doesn't run, it would mean the entire top tier of Conservative successors to Harper decided to take a pass:
1.James Moore
2.Jason Kenney
3.Brad Wall
4.John Baird
5.Jean Charest
6.Bernard Lord
7.Peter MacKay

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The Globe and Mail article also mentioned Adrienne Snow as planning to run.
This is an article on her: http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/outside-candidate-adrienne-snow-launches-bid-for-tory-leadership/

She seems like a rather nasty piece of work.

I think this is everybody:
Running or Planning to run:
1.Deepak Obhrai
2.Bradley Trost
3.Kellie Leitch
4.Michael Chong
5.Tony Clement
6.Maxime Bernier
7.Pierre Lemieux
8.Adrienne Snow

Considering running:
1.Andrew Scheer
2.Lisa Raitt
3.Erin O'Toole
4.Steven Blaney
5.Peter MacKay
6.Andrew Saxton
7.Rick Peterson
8.Dan Lindsay
9.Kevin O'Leary

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I'd quibble with the size of that 'top-tier' list. If your last experience in politics was losing an election > 5 years ago, I wouldn't call you top tier. Charest and Lord don't belong there.

They were promoted early on and regarded as being major candidates had they run.  I agree that neither of them made any sense as Conservative Party leadership candidates.

I suspect Charest would have sunk pretty quickly had he got in, but the media at least would have initially treated him as a serious contender.  Lord was promoted as the most senior Conservative who could have run from the Atlantic Provinces after MacKay.

I was also surprised when he was mentioned as a possible candidate.

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I think this is further evidence that the Conservatives don't believe Peter MacKay is going to run.  I could also see these M.Ps (and shadow cabinet ministers) looking at running if MacKay doesn't based on their relatively high profiles: James Bezan, Pierre Polievre and Peter Van Loan.

I'm not so sure about that. For the moment no one knows if McKay will run or not and so it doesnt do anyone any harm to muse about running and getting a bit of publicity so that if McKay does NOT run - they already have a teeny bit of name recognition. Keep in mind that you need to pay $100,000 to enter the race, so I have a feeling that many of the people talking about running right now are either floating trial balloons or are stalking horses for someone else or just want a bit of free publicity.

I say show me the money! Until someone is seriously ready to pony up $100k - I don't take them seriously

Good point DL. I hadn't thought about that. If we narrow the field to candidates who actually have put up the money only Bernier, Chong, Clement and Leitch are in.

Who else will put up? I figure at least one socon (probably Trost, maybe Scheer if I'm lucky ), another red Tory (MacKay or Raitt?), and maybe 1-2 random fillers (think Martin Singh).

Yes, that is a good point.  I see that is the difference between those who are actually running and those who have announced their intention to run.

Also:
1.Peter MacKay is NOT a red Tory.  Just because he chose, clearly as a flag of convenience, to run for the Progressive Conservatives does not make him a red Tory.  He never held an economic portfolio, so I don't know what his fiscal policies would be, but he was as ardent a social conservative as Kellie Leitch if not Brad Trost.

2.Why have Martin Singh when you can have Ryan Cleary, clearly?

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2.Why have Martin Singh when you can have Ryan Cleary, clearly?

I think his point was that someone a la Martin Singh who noone has ever heard of could pony up the cash for a run.

Oh, I see.  I thought he was saying that Martin Singh was now backing the Conservative Party.  Still, as lame as my response was, I thought people here would cleary clearly see it was a joke.  Not a funny joke, but still a joke.

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Leitch should get outta the race now.

She's giving the same response as she gave to Rosie Barton when she first got into the race.  I like it that some Conservatives (and conservatives) think she would make a better Prime Minister than Justin Trudeau because she's a medical doctor (or a specialist) while Trudeau was nothing but a 'part time drama teacher' or nothing but a 'ski instructor,'  even though Trudeau rarely ever says anything this incoherent while Leitch rarely ever says anything that isn't incoherent.

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Leitch should get outta the race now.

Coming from a religious community that's a bit out of the Canadian mainstream, this scares the crap out of me. I think Leitch will be hugging the bottom of my preferences with Bernier.

I wish Bernier would join the Liberal Party, be appointed Minister of Industry (or whatever it has been renamed) and implement all his pro free enterprise policies.

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So what are people thinking for their ballots, (or hypothetical ballots for non-Tories)? Mine will probably look like:

SoCon protest vote/Serious vote for Scheer if possible
Chong
Clement
Random filler
Bernier
Leitch

What if Lisa Raitt runs?  She seems to be pretty moderate and a genuinely nice person as well.

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Adam: I thought that was Brison's job.

That would be nice, but he's the Treasury Board President.   Navdeep Bains is the Minister for the renamed Industry portfolio.

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The latest National Post article on the Conservative Leadership race by Jason Fekete labeled Kellie Leitch as a 'Red Tory.'

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At this moment who do you think will win. I would be surprised if either O'Leary, or MacKay run,although MacKay is probably one of the favorites if he does run. The way I see it now it is probably a three way race with Bernier, Clement, and Raitt (assuming she runs) as the favorites. While Leitch probably was in the mix at one point, her chances have been hurt significantly by recent comments on Immigration. Chong and Obhrai are probably to moderate to win the leadership, while Lemieux,  Snow, Scheer and Tost are too socially conservative to win.Right now  Raitt probably wins, with Bernier in second and Clement in third.

Scheer is socially conservative but it remains to be seen how socially conservative he runs, he also says that he plans to run a broad based issues campaign and not focus just on social issues.  I'd place him with your other three front-runners.

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Really? what issues does the religious right have in Canada apart from the following?

a. hatred of gays and lesbians and belief that they must be stripped of their rights
b. wanting to ban abortion rights and restrict contraception - likely with jail terms for women who choose to terminate pregnancy
c. a total ban on euthanasia so they can make sure that the terminally ill suffer in the most excruciating pain possible. (I've never understood why these so-called Christians seem to enjoy seeing people suffer)

I'm scratching my head to think of what else the the s-called religious right would want that are in areas of federal jurisdiction...maybe they want to ban all non-Christian immigration to Canada? Maybe they want to erect crucifixes in all public buildings?...maybe they want to find some way to force all schools to teach creationism instead of evolution?

Am I missing anything?

This was some evangelist on a PBS program about American voters called 'The New Deciders' but I think it fits here:

"There are 4 things I want (lower taxes is one, boiler plate stuff)
1.Traditional marriage
2.No abortion
3.limited government

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Candice Bergen (nee Hoeppner) has replaced Andrew Scheer as Conservative House Leader.  I think it can be assumed that Bergen is considering running for the leadership.

On the other hand though, Rona Ambrose was on the CBC Program The House today and said that 'a dozen in our caucus are considering running for  the leadership.'

At most, I can only count 10 and at at least one of them seems to be pretty iffy: Steven Blaney.

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The long national nightmare for the Conservatives is just starting:  Chris Alexander is going to run for leader.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/paulmcleod/chris-alexander-says-he-will-enter-uninspiring-conservative?bftwcanada&utm_term=.utVrbV2JR#.lkrOb4J91

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The most amazing thing of all is that the Conservatives could have continued to make a big fuss over the PMO expense claims for the next few weeks and ended Trudeau's honeymoon. Instead, it barely made one news cycle before they chose to race-bait. Well, not really race-bait, but it seems awfully much like it.

"Anti-Canadian Values screening!" "She was born in Iran not Afghanistan!" If this sets the tone for the leadership race, then the CPC's survival as a national force is in doubt. After electoral reform is introduced (assuming it's a form of PR), and after their second thrashing in 2019, what holds it together?

The only reason why I wouldn't be breaking out the popcorn, is that one of these splinter parties is likely to be a European-style far-right party. And so far, Canada is one of very few western countries without such parties.

They? I'm pretty sure it's Leitch only, to the annoyance of Rona Ambrose and most leadership candidates.

Tony Clement said that 'if' there was to be an investigation of Minister Monsef's background, that she should step down from the cabinet for the duration of the investigation.

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Scheer announcing tomorrow.

Sheerly a pro-forma statement tomorrow

It's interesting the number of Albertans who seem to be jumping aboard his candidacy, given that he is a Saskatchewan M.P.

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If Lisa Raitt does not run, would it be fair to predict that most of her supporters would go to Erin O'Toole (who I think would be a lock to run if Raitt doesn't) or would her support split largely between O'Toole and Michael Chong?

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O'Toole is in.

Looks like there's no chance of an 'Ontario Candidate' happening.

What's O'Toole's appeal anyway?

What's the appeal of our most obscure field (to the general or even medium-info public) in at least 40, maybe 80 years?

Do you mean for just the (Progressive) Conservative Party? The NDP field in 1989 was far more obscure until Dave Barrett belatedly entered the race.

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If the Liberals were ruthless, they would shamelessly plagiarize some of Bernier's ideas like opening up more service sectors to foreign ownership and competition, and scaling back some supply management sectors.

The Liberals seem to be too cautious with respect to how they use their (massive) political capital to attempt anything like this, for better or worse.
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It strikes me as a very good way to make the NDP relevant again.
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The economic nationalists would be unhappy for a while, but I think most voters as consumers would be pleased.

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I don't think any of you fully understood my point (and it was so easy to understand, I thought).   I wasn't referring to voters as consumers in the same way that Susan Delacourt meant it.  

My point was simply that while the economic nationalists will likely never be pleased, that most voters will, because they will see:
1.Lower prices
2.More competition, more/better choices.

After all the fear mongering from the economic nationalists has subsided, these voters will realize that Canada's sovereignty wasn't eroded, but that a bunch of monopoly cartels who used nationalism to maintain their monopoly position had their economic positions eroded while Canadians no longer had to pay some of the highest prices in the world for airline fares, cell/smart phone usage, and dairy products.

In so far as this is all business (which is how the monopoly cartels regard it, their nonsense about nationalism aside) why shouldn't the voters react as market consumers?

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Tony Clement dropped out.  I'm surprised this hasn't been posted already.  Maybe nobody here cares about him either.

I'd find a link, but I don't think there's a need.

I thought he would do better.  I'd say that his failure to catch on as a leadership candidate is a sign that Conservatives understand they can't elect a high profile member of the Harper cabinet as their next leader, but I think this is mostly about Tony Clement being a pathetic candidate and a pathetic person.