A close race could help push left-leaning voters toward the favoured Liberals, especially if the NDP doesn’t get its act together.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 23, 2021.

Many punches were thrown in the first week of the campaign. Few landed.

From vaccines to abortions, the two main leaders sparred on the wedge issues that could shape the campaign. But the one issue that could be decisive got no attention whatsoever.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole unveiled his party’s slick promotional magazine touting various aspects of the platform. Most commentary focused on his buff body and how great he looked in a black t-shirt. The magazine was obviously intended to appeal to the millennial crowd, a voter cohort that has traditionally shied away from the Conservatives. But he will have a tough time beating the TikTok king Jagmeet Singh, who was recognized on the streets of Vancouver not as a political leader but as “that TikTok guy”. Liberals are perusing the Tory document for ammunition they might use to widen the wedge between themselves and their main opponent.

Outgoing Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef was quick to point out a line in the platform promising to enshrine “conscience rights” for medical professionals in legislation. In and of itself, this might not be problematic, but O’Toole stated in July that he would not intervene if provinces defunded abortions in their health care planning.

“How provinces run their health care system is not what the federal government should be interfering with,” he told reporters during a whistle-stop in Fredericton, where the provincial government refuses to fund abortions performed outside the hospital setting.

The controversy swirls around a clinic that offers reproductive and general services to the LGTBQ community called Clinic 554. The federal Liberals have been withholding health transfers to the province because of their refusal to fund it, and the fact that there are no hospitals providing abortions in Fredericton.

O’Toole went to great lengths last week to convince Quebecers that he was pro-choice. But the fact that the majority of his caucus voted in the last Parliament to limit abortions does cast doubt on his affirmations.

Voteprolife has shut down public access to its website, which tracks abortion views of all candidates in the upcoming election. However, there is no doubt that over the course of the campaign, the views of all candidates will become public, and O’Toole’s solemn personal views will likely clash with his caucus majority.

In the last election, abortion became enough of a wedge to move some doubtful women voters over to the Liberals. I don’t think that is the issue to do so this time. Instead, the positions of the two main parties on childcare will cost the Tories dearly in terms of their capacity to attract support from the swathe of Greater Toronto Area so-called soccer moms so crucial to victory.

The value proposition for parents is clear: do you want money, or do you want safe childcare?

But parents with young children know that money is only part of the problem. The other issue is access to excellent licensed childcare spots. And a $10 dollar a day government-approved childcare establishment gives parents a lot more reassurance than a year-end refundable tax credit.

O’Toole won’t be able to attack the Liberal plan as profligate, since his approach costs approximately the same amount of money. In addition, he will have to tear up agreements with multiple Conservative provinces that have already signed onto the plan. But the biggest blunder is what could happen to his electoral chances in Quebec. La belle province has been living with subsidized childcare since it was introduced for $5 dollars a day by the Parti Quebecois government in 1997. With almost a quarter-century of experience, Quebecers are not about to give up a social program that they believe contributes to positive family and community life. And the government of Quebec has already signed an agreement to top up provincial spending with a lucrative cash transfer from the federal government. The childcare program is supported by the Bloc Quebecois as well, and they will be pounding hard at the Tories on this issue.

With several provincial governments already lining up to introduce more licensed childcare spaces to complement the federal plan, O’Toole’s promise to tear up those deals is not going to win him any support.

Instead, it will turn women off, the very voters he needs if he is to form the government.

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.