August 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election

[Kingpoleon]

I can think of a lot of puns if John Tory becomes Leader. (He was included in a poll)

[Estrella]

I can think of a lot of puns if John Tory becomes Leader. (He was included in a poll)

I wonder if he would end up as much of a hilarious failure as he was in Ontario Not that he would ever get elected - Tory by name, (almost) Liberal by nature.

[RogueBeaver]

Charest sounds very interested, and QC isn't very interested in MacKay.

Charest might be hobbled by the ongoing UPAC investigation into illegal PLQ financing given the contest rule that bars candidates under police investigation or who may be subject to criminal charges or professional sanction. Rayes would support Charest, and Deltell is strongly considering running.

[DC Al Fine]

Charest sounds very interested, and QC isn't very interested in MacKay.

Charest might be hobbled by the ongoing UPAC investigation into illegal PLQ financing given the contest rule that bars candidates under police investigation or who may be subject to criminal charges or professional sanction. Rayes would support Charest, and Deltell is strongly considering running.

Wasn't Rayes an Adequiste? Bit of an odd endorsement choice.

[super6646]

Hope we get Ambrose.

[Hatman 🍁]

I can think of a lot of puns if John Tory becomes Leader. (He was included in a poll)

I wonder if he would end up as much of a hilarious failure as he was in Ontario Not that he would ever get elected - Tory by name, (almost) Liberal by nature.

He fits in well with the right wing Liberal crowd. Very little difference between him and Ottawa's mayor, Jim Watson, despite having sat on different sides of the aisle in Queen's Park.

[CumbrianLefty]

Is it usual for leadership elections in Canada to take that long? Certain people here are having fits of the vapours merely because Corbyn intends to remain Labour leader until March

[RogueBeaver]

Yes. For comparison Trudeau was elected leader almost 2 years after the 2011 election. Joe Clark was elected leader 18 months after the 1974 election. Jean Chretien's forced retirement announcement and handover were 15 months apart. Quickest turnarounds included Turner, Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, which were all 6 months or less.

[CumbrianLefty]

That is very different to this country generally! Any possible reasons?

[politicallefty]

If the party is going to stick to its base of AB and SK, Ambrose does seem to be one of the better and more logical choices. I would say it's important to have a woman leader, although she does seem quite conservative for most urban and a lot of suburban areas the Tories need to win. If she can pull to the centre, Ontario could be for the taking so long as Doug Ford goes down next election.

[brucejoel99]

That is very different to this country generally! Any possible reasons?

There's a variety of reasons:

A. It's usually because parties wanna give themselves a breather after an election which they've lost, while also giving their next leader time to make themselves known prior to the the next election.

B. Candidates need time to gauge whether they have enough money, influence, & support before announcing. Indeed, cost is a pretty big issue, as parties have to impose pretty strict spending limits so as to ensure that 1) it's not simply the candidate with the most money who wins, & 2) the process doesn't tap out the party's donor base.

C. Parties prefer to wait & see what issues crystallize around the new government &, thus, what their constituents want of them.

D. There's no rush, in that the Liberals have a pretty solid minority, & that the NDP are broke, so there's no chance that they'll be bringing down the government, meaning an election won't be happening for a good while.

[Hatman 🍁]

As with so many things, we like to be a mix of the UK and the US. In this case Parliamentary democracy and the long length of leadership campaigns. Watching how long presidential primaries are in the US, we don't really see our leadership elections as being excessively long in contrast.

[DL]

I presume that the ridiculously long leadership contests in Canada is a vestige of the days when the geographic size of Canada was more of a "thing". Remember that ever since Mackenzie King became Liberal leader in 1919 - Canada has had delegated leadership contests (and more recently mostly one member, one vote) - and back in the day organizing delegated contests was a long process involving delegate selection meetings and lots of crisscrossing the country. Nowadays there is really no reason to wait so long and all it does is reduce the amount of time the party has to introduice its new leader to the public.

Also, parties cling to this myth that by waiting years to pick a new leader, they we undergo some sort of renewal and will find answers to all these existential questions - none of which ever happens.

To this day it mystifies me why the NDP thought it was a good idea to wait 18 months before picking a successor to Mulcair. There was zero party renewal during that period - it was just 18 months or demoralizing drift - and the outcome was likely exactly the same as it would have been if a new leader had been picked a year earlier     

[CumbrianLefty]

This is actually an interesting discussion

I'm not mad keen on the recent trend for party leaders in the UK quitting almost instantly after a bad result (though occasionally, as with Jo Swinson, there may be little practical alternative) but it may be possible to overdo the "debate and discussion" thing too. On this at least, Corbyn maybe has it about right?

[VPH]

Montreal movie theatre magnate and Dragon's Den star Vincenzo Guzzo might run for CPC leadership.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/dragons-den-star-vincenzo-guzzo-mulls-swapping-reality-tv-for-the-tory-leadership

Guzzo is similar to O'Leary in some ways. He's known to be flashy but brash, as seen by his response to fmr. Minister Mélanie Joly when she scolded him for showing "Unplanned" in his theatres. He calls out political correctness and tweets an awful lot too.

[Hatman 🍁]

This is actually an interesting discussion

I'm not mad keen on the recent trend for party leaders in the UK quitting almost instantly after a bad result

This happens all the time in Canada too.

[Gary J]

This is actually an interesting discussion

I'm not mad keen on the recent trend for party leaders in the UK quitting almost instantly after a bad result (though occasionally, as with Jo Swinson, there may be little practical alternative) but it may be possible to overdo the "debate and discussion" thing too. On this at least, Corbyn maybe has it about right?

The UK Liberal Democrats constitution requires the national party leader to be an MP, so Jo Swinson ceased to be leader when she failed to be re-elected. This is quite different from the Canadian practice, where it is quite common to select a new federal leader from outside the existing parliamentary caucus.

[Continential]

This is actually an interesting discussion

I'm not mad keen on the recent trend for party leaders in the UK quitting almost instantly after a bad result (though occasionally, as with Jo Swinson, there may be little practical alternative) but it may be possible to overdo the "debate and discussion" thing too. On this at least, Corbyn maybe has it about right?

The UK Liberal Democrats constitution requires the national party leader to be an MP, so Jo Swinson ceased to be leader when she failed to be re-elected. This is quite different from the Canadian practice, where it is quite common to select a new federal leader from outside the existing parliamentary caucus.

John Turner was PM while not having a seat.

[CumbrianLefty]

So was our own Alec Douglas Home (very briefly)

[RogueBeaver]

Turner was PM for less than 3 months and Parliament was dissolved 10 days after he was sworn in. Alas, the Trudeau wing temporarily decided not to depose him after he won his seat.

[DC Al Fine]

Angus Reid has a poll out with some interesting data about why the Tories lost last time. (PDF warning)

In the poll,  voters were divided into "core conservatives" (i.e. Tory voters), "possible conservatives", "unlikely conservatives" and "never conservatives", and asked their opinion about the Tories on a variety of issues. I'm mainly concerned with possible conservatives here, since the core vote plus half the possibles would be majority territory. Among possible conservatives, the poll found the following major problems

1) 64% don't agree that the Tories welcome people from different backgrounds.

2) 59% don't believe the party reflects their region of Canada.

3) 54% believe the party did a poor job of communicating what it stands for.

4) 46% think the Tories need to take climate change more seriously

5) Only 38% think the party is too socially conservative and only 24% think the party represents "the past". Interestingly enough, possible conservatives are less reticent about Tory soconism than actual Tory voters.

[DC Al Fine]

Which leads me to my thoughts on the leadership race:

I'm becoming increasingly nervous about the Tories' prospects in the next election. The consensus among party elites, staffers, and even large parts of the membership seems to be that "Pipelines and Pride Parades" is the solution to the party's woes. That is, the primary cause of the loss was Scheer's social stances, so not much change is required beyond liberalizing on abortion and LGBT issues. This solution would be disastrous for the party.

While I am not so foolish as to think that social stances were a non-issue, "Pipelines and Pride Parades" would ignore several key problems with swing voters that are even more pressing. The Harper era goodwill among immigrants is mostly gone, we don't have a credible 'shield' on climate change, and worst of all, the party is coming off as increasingly West-centric. I know personally, even though I should be a core Tory voter, I was starting to find myself alienated by the constant oil, pipeline, and Alberta rhetoric, with no real talk about the Maritimes.

So with that in mind, I'm looking to support a leader who realizes that "Pipelines and Pride Parades" isn't the way to go. We need a leader who realizes that there are other serious problems for the party, and wants to try and solve them. Bonus points if they want the platform to be more than rehashed Harper-'08 boutique tax credits.

[adma]

5) Only 38% think the party is too socially conservative and only 24% think the party represents "the past". Interestingly enough, possible conservatives are less reticent about Tory soconism than actual Tory voters.

Wonder how much of the non-reticent is "swing ethnoburbans", i.e. the Ford Nationals who returned to Justin federally...

[Hatman 🍁]

Perhaps I'm too geography obsessed, but to win, the Tories have to get the 905 back (and similar suburban voters across the country). These are the people they need to exclusively cater too. Best to ignore social issues altogether, and focus on pocket book measures.  Lower taxes on the middle class, and don't threaten to cut any programs (at least nothing major).

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/cath_cullen/status/1213197976409128962?fbclid=IwAR1y1lxAhlrk...

https://twitter.com/cath_cullen/status/1213207309016608769

https://twitter.com/natnewswatch/status/1213223192447377408