Named after his father, perhaps?
I just keep hoping he’ll be the next Bond Girl.
This has always been one of the unusual features of Canadian party politics. Most parliaementary systems have two large parties, centre-right and centre-left, and then some smaller parties farther to the right and to the left; sort of a bell curve distribution.
But in Canada, there’s generally never been a smaller party to the right of the PC / Conservatives, in a stable alignment. There were the Socreds for about 15 years, and then the Reform, but neiether was a stable alignment. The Socreds gradually lost support, leaving the PCs alone on the right, and then the Reformers defeated the PCs in 1993, leading to the major realignment we have today, with no smaller right-wing party in Parliament. Bernier tried but didn’t get traction.
This was one of the things that frustrated Harper, apparently - that Duverger’s so-called “Law” doesn’t apply in Canada, and the Liberals here haven’t gone the way of the Liberals in Britain, leaving a clearer left-right divide between the two main parties (which he thought would be Conservatives and NDP). Harper apparently believed that if that kind of split were to emerge, the Tories would benefit, rather than having a generally centralist party like the Liberals that can tack either way.
I did not know that Harper thought along these lines - interesting.
It is looking like the right side of the Canadian political spectrum is in for a rocky ride in the next while. Kenney in Alberta and Ford in Ontario are both having to deal with the far-right rump of their party. They have to reign them in without pissing them off and this is going to pose some challenges. Having some of them waving swastikas about and mouthing off with racist statements is not helping them either. Having to deal with anti-science anti-vax idiots is another problem for both Kenney and Ford.
And O’Toole is now being attacked by his own members who apparently think that support for conversion therapy is going to be a big election winner going forward. Well they’ll probably also try the “We hate Trudeau and so should you” bit again.
Here’s a good article from The New Republic on the issue:
Thanks for that; I like articles that go into some depth like this one.
And just as a point of interest, the Beauce riding, which Bernier used to hold, was a riding that repeatedly elected Créditiste members, a little fact that helps put Maxime in context.
It seems to me that waving Nazi flags is kind of a “crossing the Rubicon” thing. Exactly what would “reigning them in” look like? Even if they stopped actively waving Nazi flags, everyone they’re trying to convince to vote for them will remember that they did wave Nazi flags.
If O’Toole is serious about actually bringing the CPC back to a more moderate, center-right position that can provide a credible alternative to the Liberals and NDP, that’s going to be a years-long effort. He’s got to do what he can to minimize the influence of his MPs who are causing problems. Toss some from the party entirely, convince others to retire on their own, and replace them all with moderate candidates.
While he’s doing that, he’s got to come up with an actual message that he can actually stick to, and just accept that this will lose him some segment of the loony fringe of his supporters. He then needs to start actually making an effort to promote that message with an actual agenda. Put up a few bills that aren’t intended purely as dogwhistles to the party base - make some real-world proposals, and make the Liberals and the NDP debate them on their merits. Most will fail, maybe all, but give us some kind of idea of what they might try to pass if they form the government.
And he needs enough loyalty from the party that he can survive at least one more election loss, since it’s going to be an uphill battle convincing people that the above changes are real, and not just window dressing intended to fool everyone.
The problem is, I can’t see any of that actually happening with the circus the CPC and the right wing in Canada has become.
From my viewing of social media posts, what they’re trying to do now, is to claim that it never happened and the lying main stream media is trying to make them look bad.
In other words, the “fake news, media bad” gambit.
Which is great for shoring up weak support from your base, but kind of lacking if you want to get new voters.
Of course, if they understood that, they wouldn’t be suggesting PP as a potential new leader. Scoring cheap points can be fun, but it’s not terribly productive.
I am in a local Jewish Facebook group and the hard right hawks of the group are actually supportive of the people equating mandates to the yellow stars of the Holocaust and that the swastika people in the convoy or crisis actors or antifa. The brainwashing is incredible.
I slightly sympathize with the difficulties of O’Toole. To win an election he must be compassionate, with acceptable policies. There are parts of his party, and sometimes smaller parties, that oppose such obvious notions and endorse policies unlikely to win broad support. I do not think he has done a great job of uniting his party. Trudeau should be held to account, particularly on spending, and the party has instead turned to infighting over things like vaccines, which most Canadians would prefer not be politicized. The Outaouais I know would not appreciate O’Toole’s trucker compromises. I do not know if this schism can be easily healed. Separate parties will simply further divide their available vote. A less capable candidate would not be more successful at fostering party unity.
Ford has done a credible job of a difficult balancing act. Kenney has had more difficulties. Conservative people I know in the Alberta health industry are not impressed.
Harper was an underrated leader. He had the sense to quell losing social issues. It’s tougher to do this these days. I can’t see a Conservative being popular in Quebec or satisfying incompatible factions in the short term.
Harper seemed to have good control over the loopier portions of his caucus. I think they knew that if they got out of line, and started to be tempted to espouse some of their more … unacceptable in this century… social positions, he’d punt them out of the party so fast their head would spin. I suspect there were some private meetings where he told them this explicitly.
Like our friends down south, I suspect that the lunatics think that they can now run the asylum. But there is no appetite (I think) for a populist demagogue in Canada, and we don’t have quite the history of racist animus to tap into. Not to say we don’t have racists, or a history of abysmal racism… But it’s not as ingrained into a portion of society.
As often, Coyne puts it well.
Agreed, I think Coyne makes excellent points here. I’m sure he’ll be ignored. He’s always impressed me - I don’t always agree with him, but he’s a good writer and obviously knows what he’s talking about.
I liked this part, and agree with it:
In a word, the party’s problem is extremism, which though it does not define the party as a whole is enough to taint the remainder.
Harsh reality seems to be too difficult a thing for most politicians and their parties to actually solidly address. They do not respond with their possible solutions to the most basic important issues of running a country. Instead they contort to satisfy the loudest but soft issue stances, as perversely amplified by mainstream and social media. These things often being quieted down sufficiently with words, not actions.
For several election cycles now, I find it difficult to divine what any party’s actual legislative intent is on most issues of importance. The platforms are built on and presented as buzzword, fuzzy conceptual, never to be pinned down, maybe popular fluff.
In contrast. Contrary comment to a party’s possible real or imagined ideas on things are lately instantly magnified to hysterical extremes. Party A is a bunch of fascists, Hitlers, party B is a bunch of communists, anarchists. And often party c, d, e… and even outside the lines A and B party hopefuls, are just media nonentities. Do not exist in any ideals or meaning. All misfits.
I don’t think O’toole is the best the Conservatives could find. Nor the worst. I think the Liberals could do much better than Trudeau. I hoped he would be better.
It is not the figurehead we need to pay so much attention to. But the history of the party and all the current folks in the background. And of course your local persons running for election. A political party is not just the words, actions, history, of the leader. They are often just a face spouting party lines or also misspeaking here and there.
Right now I see no good options in Canadian federal politics. That is very depressing to me.
And it is official, O’Toole is out.
Conservative MPs vote to remove Erin O’Toole as leader | CBC News
No surprise, really.
Now the real “fun” begins. How far down the rabbit hole will the next leader be? They’ve already set the bar at “Doug Ford” in Ontario.
Let’s see:
Pierre Poliviere
Patrick Brown
Leslyn Lewis
Maxime Bernier
I would think Patrick Brown might have a shot, but otherwise it bodes will for Liberal PM Freeland.