By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 25, 2023.

OTTAWA—Protests and counter-protests on the rights of children to use their chosen pronouns were held across the country last week.

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh led a counter-protest in Ottawa, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to X (formerly Twitter) to condemn “hate and its manifestations,” and reiterate his support for the 2SLGBTQ+ community across Canada.

Not surprisingly, Conservative Members of Parliament were silent on the issue, with the Canadian Press reporting that the leader’s office had told them not to discuss the protests with the media or on social media outlets.

A memo, shared with CP, was sent from the leader’s office claiming that protesters against LGBTQ education in the schools have a legitimate point to make about “parental rights.”

Heated clashes in cities across the country led to arrests in Halifax, Vancouver, Victoria, and Ottawa. The issue is heating up as governments in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan have introduced legislation requiring students to get their parents’ permission before teachers can address them in their preferred he/she/they pronoun.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office may not be able to stop Members of Parliament from weighing in when so many of them were elected thanks to support they received from social conservatives who do not support LGBTQ education in schools. The fact that the opposition leader is trying to keep a lid on comments shows that he understands the issue is a political hot potato that will win his party no new supporters.

As his party’s numbers climb, Poilievre has to be very careful to appeal to voters who are leery of social conservatism. Chances are the solidarity of potential power will not be enough to silence those in the caucus who got their political feet wet on recruiting social conservatives.

It is no coincidence that when Leslyn Lewis first ran for her party’s leadership in 2020, she was the first choice of Saskatchewan Tories. She swept the province where the premier and his government have recently enacted legislation to prevent minors from changing their pronouns without their parents’ permission.

Anti-trans rallies were organized across Canada last week by a group identifying itself as the “One Million March For Children,” which said it stood against gender ideology. But the marches were countered by groups defending the rights of 2SLGBTQ+ youth. Some are concerned that adolescents should not be outed to parents, and others wanted to support those teenagers who have self-identified as trans or gay.

Hate crimes against the gay community are on the rise, according to a report by Statistics Canada released last December. The report stated that police-reported hate crimes increased by 60 per cent between 2019 and 2021, reaching their highest level in five years.

Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised to change the sex education curriculum when he was courting socially conservative voters during his leadership campaign. However, while in government, he was accused of re-introducing a sex education curriculum that was virtually identical to the one he had criticized during his campaign. Ford learned quickly that modifying sex education is probably not a top-of-mind priority for most Ontarians.

Poilievre is likely discovering the same challenge at the federal level. But how is he going to be able to stop his right-wing caucus members from aligning themselves with the thousands who rallied across the country against sex education involving the 2SLGBTQ+ community? The temperature is rising on both sides, so it is difficult to see how the Conservatives are going to be able to stay out of the fray.

And when the leader of the New Democrats makes it his business to lead the counter-demonstration, he obviously understands the political issues at stake.

Most Canadians don’t really involve themselves in the adolescent pronoun debate. However, they do support rights for the LGBTQ community. With the advent of same-sex marriage and support for choice in sexual orientation, most people appreciate the wave of equality that has evolved in the past two decades.

But the small percentage of people who oppose transgender teaching in schools has unleashed the wrath of the silent minority. The number of parents and grandparents who showed up last week to support their transgender progeny could translate into a significant voting bloc in the next election.

If the issue provokes enough interest, it will actually move votes in the next election. Therein the reason why the Tories don’t want to be on the record with any comment when it comes to transgender policies in local school sectors.

Their political silence is golden. But it may not be sustainable.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

It would be a huge mistake to think that a right-wing Conservative is unelectable in Canada. In politics, anything is possible.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 8, 2022.

OTTAWA—Jean Charest was at his most eloquent during the recent Conservative debate last week.

The only problem, the lights were on, but there was no Tory home.

The debate did not attract major television attention and was held at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, pretty much the worst possible slot for widespread coverage.

But the whole purpose of the event was to avoid national attention.

After all, what political party has a debate where the front-runner refuses to attend and simply pays a $50,000 fine to absent himself from the proceedings?

Pierre Poilievre and Leslyn Lewis both coughed up the $50,000 so the party actually made money by allowing two candidates to duck out of a leadership debate.

That will probably not be the end of the story.

Elections Canada, which has some oversight of party nomination processes, will probably be asked to take a look at the payments, as the Tories might have benefited from a tax credit courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer.

But the sad thing about the non-debate is that nobody beyond those actually voting in the leadership even care about this egregious abuse of process.

Too bad for the Conservatives. Had they actually watched Charest in action, they might have come to the conclusion that the rest of the country has already arrived at: Charest stands the best chance of all Tory candidates of defeating the current government.

He is seen as capable, moderate, and appeals to those in the centre who have kept the Tories out of power for years.

The debate was a bit of a moot point. According to official Conservative records, in excess of 100,000 ballots have already been mailed into headquarters, more than a month before the winner’s announcement on Sept. 10.

If the twitterverse is any indication, dozens of voters claimed that Charest’s performance could not change their minds, as they had already voted for Poilievre.

The eligible voters’ list is more than 600,000, but there is a chance many of them may not vote.

The decision of the party to turf candidate Patrick Brown because of alleged irregularities will undoubtedly cause some of his supporters to boycott the race.

Others will likely throw their support behind Charest, who is the most closely linked to Brown in political ideology.

But if history is any indication, the party will be hard-pressed to get a 50 per cent voter turnout in the dog days of summer.

The whole intent of the campaign was to keep it as low-key as possible, which plays in the favour of front-runner Poilievre.

The race is certainly as close to a coronation that any party could carry out. Sometimes, a healthy and robust leadership race can be good for the process.

Liberals had their experience with a coronation and it did not end well. When the party believed that finance minister Paul Martin was the obvious choice, the race became a coronation.

At the final Toronto celebration, in a standing-room-only Air Canada Centre event, even international celebrities like Bono attended to congratulate the future prime minister.

The biggest question facing Martin’s leadership at that moment was how many years he would stay. In the end, the coronation fractured the party.

In the current Conservative leadership, a similar front-runner phenomenon is unfolding.

Unlike Martin, who was already extremely popular with the public at large when he was chosen, Poilievre mainly appeals to the right-wing of his own party.

He will have a hard time convincing the moderate middle to support him.

That is what all other parties, especially Liberals, are counting on.

If Charest were to be successful in September, Liberals on the Hill would sit up and take notice.

They know he has the capacity to turn things around in Quebec, and whither Quebec goes, so goes the country.

Charest would also bring progressive Conservatives back into the fold. These are the Red Tories who the party must attract to win elections.

If Poilievre succeeds, as is most likely, Liberals will be counting on him to stay in the opposition benches.

However, there is a truism in politics.

When it comes to elections, opposition parties don’t win, governments lose.

When voters decide they have had enough, they will move to throw the government out. In most cases, they are prepared to give the opposition leader the benefit of the doubt.

A Poilievre win could be very feasible.

It would be a huge mistake to think that a right-wing Conservative is unelectable in Canada.

In politics, anything is possible.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

That is what we can expect if Pierre Poilievre wins the Conservative leadership, according to chief rival Jean Charest.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 30, 2022.

OTTAWA—The Americanization of Canadian politics. That is what we can expect if Pierre Poilievre wins the Conservative leadership, according to chief rival Jean Charest.

Charest pulled no punches in an aggressive closing statement at the party’s French, and final, debate in Laval last Wednesday night.

“The question we face is a very serious one. Will we in the Conservative Party take the path of American-style politics, the politics of attack, the politics where we play one group against another, the politics where every answer is a dodge? Or are we going to do Canadian politics for Canadians. That is the option I offer, not to be a pseudo-American. That is not what we want as a country. We want a leader who is able to unite the party and who has judgment, who does not send signals about conspiracy theories, who spills over into theories about the Bank of Canada or Bitcoin.”

Fellow candidate Patrick Brown doubled down in tandem attacks on Poilievre. Both candidates appeared so closely aligned in their views of Poilievre that they were asked whether they had already crafted a political pact to defeat the putative front-runner.

Brown ventured even further in a presser following the debate. He went so far as to say Poilievre has no chance of becoming prime minister.

By contrast, Charest insisted that his character and experience included the qualities to become prime minister, not just the leader of the official opposition.

But Charest’s record also provided fodder for attacks from Poilievre, who accused the former Quebec premier of raising taxes, and supporting carbon pricing.

When Poilievre was attacked for supporting the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy, he blasted back that he had no lessons to learn from Charest, referencing the Charbonneau Commission as an example of Charest’s questionable record.

When Charest told the crowd it would be his job as Conservative leader to retire the 32 Bloc Québécois members currently sitting in the Canadian Parliament, Poilievre retorted that Charest was the one who was retired by separatists.

At the end of the fiery debate, the other three candidates for the Conservative leadership were literally left in the proverbial dust.

Their poor grasp of the French language left them all ill-equipped to spar with the ease of the three on top.

Leslyn Lewis struggled with her cue cards, and Roman Baber used his limited French to primarily decry his birthplace in the former Soviet Union.

Scott Aitchison managed to master the ask in multiple, comic attempts to direct viewers to his website.

That recruitment technique will not vault him to the top, but all candidates are pushing hard to sell as many memberships as possible before the cut-off date on Friday, June 3.

As of Friday, the second phase of the campaign moves from recruitment to conversion. Just because one campaign signed up a member, that new recruit can actually change their mind and vote for another candidate in the voting system on Sept. 10.

Whatever the outcome, it is awfully hard to see how the losers will actually line up behind the winner.

The bad blood amongst the party front-runners could end up killing their chances of forming the next government.

It is hard to see how Charest could align himself with a potential Poilievre prime minister if the former Quebec premier loses the race.

He is an experienced politician who knows what it means to burn political bridges. His attack last week sent the signal that if he does not win, it is unlikely that he will be running as part of the Conservative team.

And the charge of “pseudo-American populism” is one that will stick.

In addition to the Tory leadership last week, the whole country witnessed another mass murder in Texas carried out by an 18-year-old American who had no trouble securing two assault weapons after his 18th birthday.

But instead of tackling the gun availability issue, Senator Ted Cruz blamed the massacre on the fact that the school’s back door was left open.

It is painful to watch the mounting pile of bodies dying at the hands of crazed gunmen almost weekly in the United States. As the issue is so polarized, nothing is ever really done to limit access to weapons beyond the usual plethora of post-mortem platitudes from political leaders.

American president Joe Biden has again promised to fight the gun lobby, but his level of success remains to be seen. Regular mass murders without consequence are one reason that Canadians fear “pseudo-American populism.”

Tory populists may disagree.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Last week’s announcement fulfilled a Liberal promise to lift the ban on gay blood donations, but it was also designed to drive a further wedge inside the Conservative Party, especially as it related to leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 2, 2022.

OTTAWA—Full equality moved one step closer in Canada last week when the federal government finally lifted the ban on gay blood donations.

While the announcement was made by the prime minister, several gay colleagues were there to back him up.

The Liberals had promised to remove the ban when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was first elected back in 2015. Because the ban had not been lifted, a discrimination case was slowly making its way through the courts that might have provoked a judicial overturning of the prohibition.

That case claimed that the federal government had no right to impose a ban via Health Canada because the Canadian Blood Services Agency was an independent body. As such, it enjoyed an arm’s length position which meant it should not be subject to federal government interference.

In the case of the Trudeau announcement, the prime minister defended the lengthy delay in delivering on the promise by saying the government needed to fund scientific research to affirm the political promise.

But there is no doubt the announcement was political in nature. The ban removal will cover all Canadians except for those who live in Quebec. Quebec gay donors will still be prohibited but the prime minister said he was confident that Héma-Québec would likely decide to move in the same direction.

Cabinet ministers Seamus O’Regan and Randy Boissonnault and Liberal MP Rob Oliphant were among those commenting on the decision.

Boissonnault is the first openly gay Member of Parliament from Alberta, and he eked out a narrow victory against Conservative incumbent James Cumming in a downtown Edmonton riding.

Unlike some Conservative colleagues, Cumming voted against a Tory party’s motion to ban abortion and voted in favour of criminalizing conversion therapy so both men shared similar views.

In the last election, even in British Columbia, social Conservatives were defeated in almost every urban centre. The defeat of those members stalled the momentum of the Conservative party and left the door open for the Liberals to win another, albeit minority, election.

Last week’s announcement fulfilled a Liberal promise but it was also designed to drive a further wedge inside the Conservative Party, especially as it related to leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre.

Poilievre is no friend of the gay community. One of his first actions as a Member of Parliament was to oppose public health-care funding for people who are undergoing gender reassignment. Poilievre wanted to defund surgery for transgender individuals seeking to change their sex. He went so far as to falsely claim that the reassignment medical procedure does not require surgery.

Back in 2008, Poilievre was the youngest Member of Parliament. In more recent times, he has been focused more on pocketbook issues as an appeal to the young. The bitcoin and blockchain references that he sprinkles in his speeches are designed to appeal to young people even as they miff economists and traditional bankers.

But those same young people are also in favour of non-binary and transgender decision-making.

Poilievre’s colleague in the race, Leslyn Lewis, is recruiting more social conservatives who will be pushing their anti-abortion and pro-conversion perspectives in public policy.

For Poilievre to be embraced by the mainstream, he needs to go mainstream. That involves repudiating positions he has taken in the past that discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

Like any other Canadian, a gay or lesbian voter does not necessarily make their electoral decision strictly on a single issue, even if it affects their own sexuality.

They, too, are interested in tax policy, social issues, and many other elements of governance that are assessed during an election by every voter.

But in a multi-party system, a voter shift of three or four per cent can actually change the face of government.

So, when a health announcement on blood is made, it is just as much a move for the next election as it was for the past one.

Fulfilling the promise on ending gay blood bans was important for the Liberals. With the New Democrats involved in a governance agreement, the Grits believe they have a chance to court a larger swath on the left in the next election.

But in several years of government, enemies are made, and the sunny ways of 2015 have given way to clouds on the Trudeau horizon.

In the next race, it will be crucial to solidify minority votes because Tories will bleed votes from disgruntled former Liberals on the right who fear the fiscal bottom line.

Every LGBTQ vote will count.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

At the heart of the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada is the question of whether the Conservatives want to govern or if they want to sit in perennial Opposition.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 14, 2022.

At the heart of the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada is the question of whether the Conservatives want to govern or if they want to sit in perennial Opposition.

OTTAWA—It’s official. There really will be a race for the Conservative leadership.

For political watchers from all sides, that is a good thing.

We really will be able to witness the fight for the heart and soul of the Conservative Party.

Frontrunner Pierre Poilievre has already laid down the ground rules. He represents a “back to the future” approach for the party, where its membership will swim upstream against abortion, conversion therapy, carbon taxes, and gun registries.

On his side will be colleague and fellow right-winger Member of Parliament Leslyn Lewis, whose socially conservative bent managed to vault her to the top of the Conservative ballot box in Saskatchewan in the last party leadership race.

If Poilievre doesn’t make it on the first ballot, chances are a coalition with Lewis will take him over the top.

But it is also possible he may simply win the race on the first ballot.

Leadership contender Jean Charest obviously doesn’t think so. On Thursday, he made it official, leaving his decade-long political sabbatical to throw his hat into the ring for a party he once knew and loved.

The question is, does that party still exist? Will Charest’s political tentacles reach far enough beyond Quebec to sell the thousands of memberships required to be competitive in the race? Ironically, predecessor Erin O’Toole was elected by thousands of Tory voters, only to be dumped by a handful because of legislation that allows parliamentarians to toss leaders with the ease of a seasonal recess.

Charest obviously believes he will have the numbers and cachet to take over the party at the September convention vote.

And Poilievre has already signalled he intends to promote a scorched-earth policy to ensure that Charest never gets the brass ring.

Before Charest even announced, former prime minister Stephen Harper was making ominous noises about how he would use his influence to make sure that Charest stays down and out.

Poilievre was doing the dirty work that is usually done by other parties, pointing out how Charest’s ethical challenges and left of centre, Quebec-centric policies on the environment and social policy make him unfit to lead a party of the right.

On that account Poilievre is right. And more than right. His position on multiple issues is one that keeps the Conservatives out of government because, in appealing to religious zealots and anti-environmentalists, he manages to alienate the vast majority of the population.

Leader O’Toole got the message in the last election: either move to the centre or die. And in attempting to move his party to the centre, he died.

Charest will try to replicate the same move. And this time he has organizers and financial supporters who will send the message that the Tory grassroots needs to be fertilized with more green and socially progressive policies.

Zealots are more interested in righteousness than power. Because they answer to a higher power in heaven, election victory is not their first priority.

The Tory caucus is littered with bible school graduates who stand on principle and stay in the opposition.

But in the end, most politicians understand that little can be achieved in the opposition benches. They need to get to government to be able to accomplish any of the things that they believe in.

That will be Charest’s message. He knows how to win, and has proven electability on the federal and Quebec scene. His Quebecois roots are key for the party’s capacity to win, as without Quebec and Ontario, Poilievre has zero chance of becoming prime minister.

Charest will count on longstanding Ontario friends, including the likely involvement of provincial minister Carolyn Mulroney, daughter of Charest’s former national leader and prime minister, Brian Mulroney.

With a strong Ontario and Quebec team, Charest actually has a chance, but he may be receiving a poisoned chalice, as the next three months are guaranteed to bring bitter internal party divisions into the public domain.

Charest used to be a Progressive Conservative. The party split down the middle when he left, with many progressives moving over to the federal Liberals.

He may bring those progressives back. But in doing so, he will alienate the same Conservatives who now control the party apparatus.

Without the two coming together, Charest or Poilievre will end up leading a party so split that the Liberals could waltz back into another term.

The next three months will likely determine whether the Progressive Conservatives will be reunited or not.

A Conservative victory means perennial opposition.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

If the Conservatives would ever like to see another PM among their ranks, they need to understand the road to victory involves reaching out to 37 million people, not 73 caucus members.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on February 7, 2022.

OTTAWA—Seventy-three people were able to vote out a leader who was chosen by 100,000 Conservatives. This is democracy?

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole’s departure was as hasty as it was dramatic. And in a touch of irony, the author of the private member’s bill that prompted O’Toole’s demise was one of the few people fighting for the leader to stay.

Michael Chong introduced his private member’s bill, designed to give more power to individual parliamentarians, in 2013. Everyone lined up in favour of the legislation in the belief that empowering members would lead to better leadership.

But in a bizarre twist for this strange law, each party is allowed to opt in to the system, or not, at the beginning of each Parliament.

Not surprisingly, the Conservative party was the only one dumb enough to sign on to a piece of legislation which is guaranteed to create chaos for any opposition leader.

The Conservatives have cycled through six leaders in six years, and O’Toole took them closest to power. His popular vote victory didn’t help much because so much of the weight in numbers came from provinces that could never yield a majority.

And O’Toole failed to make a breakthrough in two key provinces that are crucial for election victory, Ontario and Quebec.

O’Toole, an Ontario member, understood that the failure to make sufficient gains in that province was based on the extreme viewpoints taken by many of his team on social issues like abortion.

After the election, he moved quickly to reposition the party by supporting legislation banning gender therapy conversion in the first session of Parliament.

As for the Quebec vote, his Conservative caucus in that province was verbally supporting the legislation on Broadcasting Act amendments at the same time that Tory fundraisers were out trashing the legislation to buck up their coffers.

The bifurcation in the party was not caused by O’Toole. It was prompted by a party schism that has only been exacerbated because of his departure.

Deputy leader Candice Bergen, who enjoyed coffee with the truckers while the occupation of Ottawa’s downtown core was underway, is a well-known opponent of a woman’s right to control her own body.

It was no accident that she was the only leader to neglect to thank O’Toole in the House of Commons for his work as a four-term parliamentarian, until reminded by the prime minister.

Bergen is part of the right wing of O’Toole’s party who will guarantee that they lose the next election because of their refusal to embrace political moderation.

In the hours following O’Toole’s departure, most blame was aimed at the leader’s inability to manage the caucus and to keep people happy.

Negative comparisons were made with previous leaders like prime minister Brian Mulroney who managed to keep his troops onside even when his own popularity numbers were dipping into the teens.

But that comparison is not a valid one. Mulroney was operating from the prime minister’s chair, first among equals. And with that job comes many opportunities to reward and punish internally.

Mulroney also did not face the crazy Chong legislation that could hit any leader on a bad day. The ousters were working for weeks to collect the requisite number of 35 signatures to trigger a caucus vote.

One of them, Pierre Poilievre, is already being touted as a front-runner to replace O’Toole. He is squarely in the camp of the “stinking albatrosses” that former leadership candidate Peter MacKay characterized as the reason for the party’s failure to launch.

Unlike O’Toole, who embraced diversity in supporting the LGBTQ community, Poilievre actually once introduced a private member’s bill to ban health-care funding for transgender individuals, even though the issue is not federal jurisdiction. Other putative candidates include another social conservative, Leslyn Lewis.

But both of them will push the party further to the right.

Those 73 members who booted O’Toole out may not like his message. But upon his departure, he gave a speech which was a potential road map to victory.

The party could win by embracing diversity. The secret of success for leaders like Brian Mulroney was to embrace the Progressives in his party as well as the Conservatives.

As long as there is no place for progressive politics within the party, the Conservatives have zero chance of forming the government.

Instead of dumping O’Toole, the caucus should have heeded his message. Because the road to victory involves reaching out to 37 million people, not 73 caucus members.

Conservatives who are not progressive just won’t cut it.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

But by associating with these extremists, Tory appeal to ordinary Canadians is diminished. Short-term gain for long-term pain.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 31, 2022.

OTTAWA—Hundreds of anti-vaxx truckers descended on Ottawa on Saturday and the longer the convoy actually goes on, the more the Conservatives seem to be tangled in the anti-vaccination web.

Now even the New Democrats have been embroiled in the drama after the brother–in-law of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh donated $13,000 to support the convoy.

According to Singh’s office, his relative did not fully understand what the convoy was up to and has now applied to have his funds reimbursed through a GoFundMe process.

Meanwhile, the truckers are rolling in the dough with more than $6-million already collected in support of the convoy.

With the funding come questions as to exactly what the money will be used for. Tamara Lich, convoy organizer, is associated with the Maverick Party, a separatist movement in Alberta. She also launched the GoFundMe page which has been under review by the funding platform because of questions about the transparency of the flow of funds and the plan for disbursement.

However, the truckers have no support from any official provincial or national trucking organization. The international vaccine requirement for truckers was instituted both by Canada and the United States, effective mid-January. Almost 90 per cent of international truckers are already vaccinated so convoy protesters represent a very small number of commercial trucking operations.

Truckers are actually ahead of the rest of Canada when it comes to the numbers of fully vaccinated workers.

That hasn’t seemed to stop the Conservatives from throwing their support behind the movement, with vocal, high-profile approval from former leader Andrew Scheer and current deputy leader Candice Bergen.

Likewise, leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis has accused the vaccine mandate of promoting segregation. Outspoken critic Pierre Poilievre has called the federal requirement a “vaccine vendetta.”

As usual, leader Erin O’Toole is sending out a confusing vaccine message. On the one hand, he refused last week to say whether he planned to meet with truckers, but his caucus was collecting signatures for a petition seeking the reversal of the vaccine mandate for federal workers and international truckers.

If the GoFundMe response is any indication, the Tories could raise a lot of money by jumping on the anti-vaxx wagon. But they also risk alienating a huge percentage of the population that is simply fed up with the refusal of anti-vaxxers to consider science and society in defending their positions.

Just last week, Canadian musical icon Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify after the music streaming platform refused to drop anti-vaxxer and podcaster Joe Rogan. In another health twist, a Boston hospital patient was removed from the wait-list for a heart transplant after refusing to be vaccinated.

The hospital explained its decision by saying vaccination is a lifestyle behaviour “required for transplant candidates … in order to create both the best chance for a successful operation and to optimize the patient’s survival after transplantation.”

The medical community is unanimous, and the public is not far behind, in Canada and globally.

Tennis whiz Novak Djokovic was literally run out from Down Under after failing to meet Australian Open tennis vaccination requirements. Djokovic said he was planning on studying the matter further after he was deported. He faces the same requirement for the upcoming French Open and apparently may take a pass there as well.

Bearing the new nickname NoVax, Djokovic has allied himself with the same group of vaccine deniers who came to Ottawa.

Some of the Canadian protesters have even gone so far as to suggest they wanted to replicate the Jan. 6 takedown of the American capital, which resulted in five deaths.

Two Canadian convoy participants were photographed—one wearing a Donald Trump MAGA hat and the other wearing a yellow star of David—mimicking the Nazi requirement for Jewish identification.

Convoy organizers have distanced themselves from racist supporters but that didn’t stop white supremacist Paul Fromm from tweeting “I pray this is Canada’s Budapest, 1956, when patriots and ordinary citizens rose up and overthrew tyranny.”

With so few anti-vaxxers, why would the Conservatives even bother to align themselves with the so-called “Canada Unity Convoy.”

Some of it is about building a power base, with petitioners getting embedded into future Conservative communications. Some is about raising money, because the angry folks attached to this convoy are ripe for campaign donation pitches.

But by associating with these extremists, Tory appeal to ordinary Canadians is diminished.

Short-term gain for long-term pain.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

And it appears as though Erin O’Toole is about to make the same mistake as his predecessor, Andrew Scheer.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 22, 2021.

Leslyn Lewis is no Peter MacKay.

And the fact that MacKay was missing in action while Lewis was co-chair of the virtual national Conservative convention spells trouble.

It basically means that Erin O’Toole is making his bed with the social conservatives who have cost Tories a couple of elections.

MacKay characterized the social conservative views of his party as a “stinking albatross.” That statement probably cost him the leadership, but its truthfulness was borne out by the election results.

And it appears as though O’Toole is about to make the same mistake as his predecessor, Andrew Scheer.

By giving the convention spotlight to Lewis, the leader plans to line up behind a wing in his party that is anti-choice, anti-gay, and supportive of conversion therapy.

Her “surprising” sweep of Saskatchewan during the leadership against O’Toole was not surprising at all. The Saskatchewan wing of the party is dominated by social conservatism.

O’Toole has also made the mistake of letting MacKay know that his presence is not wanted in the next election.

That, in and of itself, is a gift to the Liberals.

MacKay and his father, Elmer, have deep Atlantic roots that started with the Progressive Conservatives.

MacKay distinguished himself as a fiscal conservative and social liberal, following the road map set out by successful past leaders including two-time Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney.

MacKay could have done some serious damage to Liberal hegemony in Atlantic Canada. He would also have been able to enlist support from long-time Mulroney supporters who are somewhat reluctant to jump in bed with the albatrosses that O’Toole is favouring.

Lewis, the first woman of colour to run for the federal party’s leadership, is bright and well-educated but has very little political experience.

She has been acclaimed to run in the Haldimand-Norfolk, Ont., riding that is being vacated by long-time Conservative heavyweight Diane Finley.

The riding has been characterized in the media as a Conservative stronghold, but history does not actually back up that claim.

Former Liberal MP Bob Speller actually held the riding from 1988 to 2004 and he had huge margins over his Progressive Conservative opponents until the arrival of Finley.

Lewis is being introduced into the riding by Finley but coming as a parachute from Toronto will not make things easy for her.

Her coattails are largely held by the group that the Conservatives want to distance themselves from.

But MacKay actually has coattails that can bring the progressive and regionally diverse regions back into the fold.

For the Conservatives to form government, they must make a breakthrough in Atlantic Canada, and the presence of MacKay supporters would have assisted in that regard.

The convention has made a point of kicking Derek Sloan off the team, ostensibly because of his poisonous comments on multiple issues.

But then they go and elevate his counterpart, Lewis, who has shared the similar viewpoint about social issues that he espouses.

Here’s how she explained her opposition to a ban on conversion therapy, citing the concern of parents and pastors “that their parental autonomy is being limited because the government is basically somewhat stepped in as a surrogate to tell them what they can and cannot do.”

In her platform for leadership, Lewis promised to “end abortion funding overseas … criminalize coerced abortions.”

During the leadership, she was lauded by Christianity Today as “the only one [candidate] speaking about her faith.”

So, O’Toole definitely did not need to kick out two social conservatives from the party, especially since their supporters actually delivered him the leadership.

But he certainly should not have elevated a social conservative to star status if he actually wants to win the next election.

Most Canadians believe firmly in the separation of church and state, and the vast majority do not believe that parents or pastors can convince young people to change their sexual orientation.

O’Toole’s first words after the leadership convention involved assuring Canadians that he would be marching in Gay Pride parades, unlike his predecessor. That was an important step in moving the party back to the moderate middle.

That is where they need to be if they intend to convince voters that they can be trusted not to tamper with basic reproductive rights and sexual orientation laws.

But all the work was thrown away on the weekend, as it became increasingly clear that the social conservatives are in charge of the federal Conservative team.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

If Erin O’Toole really wants to appeal to non-traditional Conservatives, he will have to cut ties with social conservatives and the far right.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 31, 2020.

OTTAWA—It would be a mistake to underestimate the electability of Erin O’Toole.

He has many things going for him, the first of which is that he is a relative unknown. These days, the shelf-life of a politician is generally one election. It used to be that if you were doing a decent job, voters might keep you around for a second term.

The longevity of a local politician is still in the double digits. Just ask Ottawa mayor Jim Watson how many ministers on the federal and provincial level that he has outlived. But party politics is one place where the more experience you get, the more people want to get rid of you.

Just look at how many people rabidly despised Hillary Clinton, even though she had more experience than any other candidate at the national and international level. She wore her husband’s warts, and then some.

Clinton was also suffering from the same swathe of sexism that came to the fore when Chrystia Freeland was recently named finance minister. Multiple journalists attacked Freeland’s lack of financial credentials. These same journalists never questioned the bona fides of lawyers cum finance ministers, like Jim Flaherty and Ralph Goodale. Freeland, like ministerial colleague Catherine McKenna, was dished up a particularly vitriolic dose of misogyny.

O’Toole has a chance to shape his brand, and in his early morning victory speech last week, he hit all the right buttons. He spoke at length about how to broaden the party base and invite those who have never voted Conservative to join him. He outlined his support of the LGBTQ community and his opposition to reopening the abortion question.

But O’Toole will also have to stickhandle the demands within his own party, as the radical right gained strength and visibility during the Conservative leadership race.

Tory pundits were lauding the fact that a Black woman surpassed Peter MacKay’s support in all western provinces. They claimed that the support for Leslyn Lewis was testament to Tories’ openness to diversity.

Hogwash. Lewis was a stalking horse for the anti-choice movement, which continues to grow deep and strong roots in the Conservative party.

The fact that a candidate for leadership, who could not speak French, would get 20 per cent of the party’s vote on a first ballot is truly frightening. When you couple her party support with that of Derek Sloan, the pair of proudly evangelical politicians garnered 40 per cent of the Conservative Party’s 174,404 voters. That is scary.

Lewis is now being touted as a new leading light in her party. That blows up O’Toole’s shout-out to inclusivity on election night. Her leadership transcendence was driven by those who would like to turn back the clock on issues like abortion.

Sloan had a 12-point plan on the issue. His first commitment was to promise to work with party grassroots to revoke Conservative Party policy No. 70. That policy, slimly endorsed at their 2018 Halifax policy convention, states that “a Conservative government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion.”

Lewis was ranked No. 1 on the voter’s list recommended by the anti-choice group RightNow. Sloan was ranked second. O’Toole was ranked third, and MacKay came dead last.

RightNow describes itself as the political arm of the pro-life movement and promotes a mandate to work full-time to secure nominations and elections for candidates who oppose abortion. No surprise that Lewis was their chosen candidate.

Like Sloan, she does not support abortion and is opposed to a government ban on conversion therapy, a controversial practice to modify the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians.

MacKay, who ran behind Lewis in all western provinces on the first ballot, was directly attacked by her for claiming that social conservatism was like a “stinking albatross” around the neck of party in the last election.

At some point during the race, one-third of Tory voters cast a ballot for Lewis.

Lewis, who has four degrees including a master’s in environmental science, opposes the carbon tax. She also received support during the race from the gun lobby. She and Sloan both oppose Canada’s current immigration policy and Lewis promised to roll back legalization of marijuana.

If O’Toole elevates her to a senior party position, he will be playing right into the hands of RightNow, whose stated intention is to re-criminalize abortion.

During his victory speech, O’Toole promised to reach out to a broad coalition of Canadians. To do so, he needs to visibly cut ties with his own party’s radical right.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Erin O’Toole’s fundraising in the second quarter was $1.24-million with Peter MacKay’s raising $1.16-million. The difference is not that great, but the momentum shift definitely favours O’Toole. The Conservative voting system also lends itself to surprises.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 10, 2020.

OTTAWA—In two shorts weeks, the Conservative Party of Canada will vote for a new leader.

If the recent uptick in fundraising numbers holds for Erin O’Toole, the race momentum appears to be shifting.

Internal and public polling put veteran Peter MacKay far ahead of the rest of the pack in terms of party and national support.

The race has been MacKay’s to lose. But like Donald Trump, MacKay has faced a few COVID-caused problems beyond his control.

The front-runner spot in any political race is a double-edged sword. People like to support a winner but if you are too far ahead, you become the lightning rod for all disgruntled party members.

If MacKay is too strong, all other leadership hopefuls will band together to blunt his momentum.

The unforeseen lockdown prompted by the coronavirus forced the party to suspend campaigning and delay the proposed vote by three months.

That spawned more all-candidate discussions, boycotted by MacKay. He attended the two official party debates, both held in Toronto, but declined a debate in Vancouver and another Toronto debate.

He also refused to attend a town hall organized by the Independent Press Gallery of Canada; an organization founded to counter the influence of what it characterizes as “the government-influenced Parliamentary Press Gallery.”

It is common for the front-runner to minimize debate appearances because the format tends to focus everyone’s attack on the leader.

His refusal to attend the Vancouver debate was spun as a spurning of the West.

O’Toole’s strength is certainly more western-centric, with the endorsement of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney bringing a broad swathe of elected officials into the O’Toole corner.

The delay appears to have worked slightly in favour of O’Toole, who raised the most money in the last quarter, and also spread the donations amongst a greater number of supporters than the MacKay fundraising efforts.

The candidate with the broadest range of donors is social conservative and Toronto lawyer Leslyn Lewis. She doubled her quarterly financial haul, increasing donations from $448,000 to $996,000.

Lewis also attracted the most individual donors this quarter with 10,000 contributors, compared to 8,900 for O’Toole and 6,800 for MacKay.

O’Toole fundraising in the second quarter was $1.24-million with MacKay raising $1.16-million.

The difference is not that great, but the momentum shift definitely favours O’Toole.

The Conservative voting system also lends itself to surprises.

The party votes on a points system by riding. With 100 points attached to each riding, divided amongst candidates, a constituency with 10 members has equal voting power to a constituency with 1,000 members.

That means a front-runner in the national popular vote does not necessarily win the election.

We witnessed that phenomenon when future Ontario Premier Doug Ford beat the front-runner in a race that was supposed to be Christine Elliot’s to lose.

Her team was so sure she had the upper hand that they refused a unanimous request by all other candidates to extend the membership deadline to accommodate more participants, and fix glitches in the system.

Ford managed to secure support in remote areas where a few votes actually turned the tide and delivered him the victory.

In reality, Elliott led in the popular vote within the party, but the strategic organizing by the Ford team won the day.

The same thing could happen in the federal race where the first candidate to reach 16,901 points in the race will be elected winner. However, the counting could take several days, because of the complexity of this election system.

MacKay’s campaign strategy to date has been very similar to that of American Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden. Say little and do even less.

Biden’s numbers have been climbing since he adopted the silence is golden strategy.

But the same cannot be said for the Conservative front-runner.

The quieter he has become, the more momentum has migrated to his main opponent.

The other element that will help O’Toole is age. The majority of his parliamentary endorsements are newer and younger members.

There is an old adage in politics that says the more experienced you are, the more you have to say and the less you have to do.

New Members of Parliament are out to make their mark and that means delivering as many votes as possible to their preferred candidate.

At this point, the parliamentary endorsements for MacKay and O’Toole are almost equal.

On the eve of the vote, MacKay’s front-runner status is no longer secure. A surprise may be in store.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.