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.

By Sheila Copps

First published in The Hill Times on August 27, 2018.

OTTAWA—Maxime Bernier’s surprise resignation last week will not put an end to a raucous Tory debate on identity politics.

Instead of buying peace in advance of the writ, the Conservative announcement of a Canada-wide immigration tour will serve to magnify internal differences of viewpoint.

As for Bernier’s plan to start a new party, his reach far exceeds his grasp. Former allies will be reluctant to throw their support behind an also-ran who seems to be suffering from an aggravated attack of sour grapes. His claim that he did not change, but the party did, is simply not credible.

On the diversity issue, Bernier is stoking the same flames as former leader Stephen Harper, who supported a snitch line for un-Canadian behaviour in the dying days of the last campaign. Harper thought it was a winning wedge issue, but he turned out to be dead wrong and it was one of the reasons he lost the election.

When it comes to multiculturalism, the Tory party may embrace less diversity. But the country does not. Consider the backlash already facing immigration critic Michelle Rempel for her supportive statements about a white supremacist’s heckle directed at the prime minister.

Rempel sided with a right-wing, anti-immigrant group member who asked Trudeau whether he was tolerant of “vieille souche” (old stock) Quebecers. The meaning of that phrase has evolved over time.

In recent years it has become code for race, but the term is much older. It harkens back to a time when divisions in Quebec were based on battle lines drawn between French and English. The designation of “old stock” was a way of differentiating francophones from anglophones.

Like another Quebec term “pure laine” (pure wool), the definition references those who share unblemished French roots.

Former CBC journalist Normand Lester, who was fired from Radio Canada for publishing a three volume “Black Book on English Canada,” presents a frightening perspective of old-stock thinking in his tomes.

According to Lester, “Since the Conquest, English Canada has been guilty of crimes, of violations of human rights, of exclusionary behaviour toward all those who did not have the happiness to be white, protestant Anglo-Saxons. This overview of the history of Canada reveals injustices, discriminatory practices, racist and hateful utterances, encouragement to commit violence and claims by political men, journalists, and Anglo-Canadian intellectuals against French-Canadians.”

In Lester’s words, I was one of the main perpetrators of lies because as minister of Canadian Heritage, I funded projects that promoted an understanding of our shared history.

Lester had no idea that my own mother’s French roots are traced to the fifty founding Acadian families that settled in Nova Scotia four centuries ago, and fought against the English in the battle of Grand-Pre.

Our prime minister is also the product of a so-called mixed-marriage, as his grandfather was French-Canadian and his grandmother was Scottish. His mother is also an anglophone. The Elliott in his father’s middle name is an homage to that side of the family.

Add race to the mix and you have potential for a real political explosion.

Politics is about identifying and rallying like-minded people and convincing them to support your position, and your party. Increasingly, in the Canadian context, individuals have multiple identifiers.

In the last century, many political battles were based on religion. Catholics fought Protestants, everyone else fought the Jews. But as religions became less dominant in Canadian life, their political importance diminished. Unlike the United States, where churches still play a huge role in politics, the dominance of Canadian secularism supersedes that influence.

Provinces like Quebec and Newfoundland have largely rejected former political fiats from the Catholic Church in their national affairs. In Ontario, the Orange Order can no longer use their clout to ensure the election of Protestants to public office. Those powers have been diluted by religious intermarriage and the convergence of many cultures.

Bernier may decry the notion of “extreme multiculturalism” but he is marching against time. So are those Canadians, mostly Tories, who support him.

So-called visible minorities are actually the majority in Toronto, and identity markers are multiplying at a phenomenal rate.
My own daughter has ancestors from Europe, Latin America and Asia. She is hardly going to respond to an old stock call for support. And neither will most of her generation.

Bernier is playing with fire. That does not matter to a man on his own leadership mission. Burning down the Tory house suits this twisted narrative. Bernier may torch his former rival in the process.

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