A little over a month has gone by since Erin O'Toole won the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada and this is my initial assessment of his performance so far.
I realize that I am biased but I am not expecting much from him in the first month. It takes time to learn any job and learning the job of Leader of the Official Opposition of Canada would have a particularly steep learning curve.
When he won the leadership I wrote a post indicating that if he wants to realize any success he is going to have to lead instead of follow. That is, he is going go have to take risks and make tough choices between the interests of some of the single issue Conservatives that won him the leadership and the broader interests of the Conservative Party in winning over centrist voters.
So far he has not done that. He refused to say whether systemic racism exists in Canada and just today he has come out against the current bill outlawing conversion therapy for the thinnest of reasons. Both of these issues are important to Canadians and the majority of Canadians would acknowledge that racism is an issue that that conversion therapy is wrong. So, both issues provided Mr. O'Toole with an opportunity to demonstrate he is the moderate he claims to be. He failed to take either opportunity. Or he could have at least faked it like Stephen Harper use to do.
It has only been a month the longer he takes to make a stand against the social conservatives the more difficult it will be to do. Eventually, he will not be able to do so and people will notice.
Otherwise, his leadership has been more of the same. Piss on Justin Trudeau on a daily basis on twitter and come up with some really lame memes. In short, the same strategy as Mr. Scheer. If he thinks that will gain him more success than Mr. Scheer he if probably in for a great disappointment.
It has only been one month so it is unreasonable to have him turn things all of the way around but he has had enough time to begin putting his stamp on the CPC and there is no sign that he is doing that or even attempting to that.
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He is also against the assisted dying bill that is going to be introduced Monday. He won praise from some of the usual pundits for talking about reconciliation in QP, but the Liberals are planning on passing the landmark U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples before the end of the year and if he doesn't support its ratification he will be squeezed on that. Indigenous people know that he stans for John A. Macdonald and has a bizarre U.S.-imported culture-war fetish about statues of dead racists, so the only people he's targeting are white voters who want to feel comfortable voting for a racist party that pretends (poorly) to not be racist.
As well, there is a little-known bill, C233, about sex-selective abortion (a favorite concern troll wedge issue of the anti-choice caucus) that a Conservative MP introduced, and which pops up every now and then on social media. I believe the MP backing it is named Cathy MacLeod. If this does end up being tabled, it will be political suicide for O'Toole. Then there's the fact that he stands to be overshadowed by Leslyn Lewis when she wins a seat in a safe blue riding, and all the erratic comments about Trudeau being a communist dictator she has made as of late, in op-eds for the Post.
The Conservatives believe her to be a "shield" because they are cynically exploiting her race and gender while decrying the Liberals as wedded to identity politics. I doubt she will find many friends in the Parliamentary Black Caucus or Women's Caucus or really anywhere but her so-con cult. She is the Black version of Amy Coney-Barrett or a female Ben Carson, and O'Toole is in hock to her "movement".
The media as usual are clueless and desperate for him to be the "great white hope." But even if they try to polish a turd (or a rusty Toole), the Liberal war machine will come out with ads closer to the campaign (whenever it may be), just like they did with Scheer after the media ran interference for him for two whole years. I have no doubt they are plenty aware of Jeff Ballingall and the deplorable operation he has created. It's usually a bad sign when your campaign staff become part of the story. They're supposed to be behind the scenes.
So the Conservatives have nothing to offer to deflect from this but trying to reactivate the WE issue when the committees reconvene, and threatening to hold the government in contempt of parliament for not buckling to their incessant ransom demands. I'm hopeful that the sitting calendar for the remainder of the year is short enough for the Liberals to stonewall, filibuster, kick the can until the December break, which will be here before you know it. Or that Canadians lack patience for this tired gamesmanship amid the second wave of a pandemic. Barring that, I try to keep reminding myself that when last this happened, Harper campaigned on the opposition pushing "mischief" and won a majority government. I could be wishcasting, but it's theoretically possible that the Liberals are ripping pages from the enemy playbook and the Conservatives can't stand it.
In any event O'Toole has his own balancing act to contend with, which is why he has tasked the likes of insufferable Poilievre to yap and screech and throw papers and commence Benghazi-style witch hunts to throw the Liberals off track. Judging by his responses in QP as of late, Justin Trudeau isn't having it, snapping back at Poilievre that the Conservatives were peddling conspiracy theories while the Liberals were focused on serious issues like childcare and the pandemic. About time he bit back at them. He's been too nice for too long.
Correction: It wasn't Cathy MacLeod it was Cathay Wagantall who sponsored C233.
The ironically named Garnett "Stable" Genius is all "you go girl" about it.
https://twitter.com/GarnettGenuis/status/1309182442465525760
Crickets from O'Toole because he's too busy sweating bullets.
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