The Tory Leadership Contest Is Over

Don't say you haven't been given a choice. You can vote for Erin O'Toole.

The deadline has passed.

It seems nobody wants to lead the Canadian Conservative Party. Nobody we have heard of, at least, except Peter McKay and Erin O’Toole.

It’s a strikingly thin field considering the apparent electoral prospects: Trudeau was expected to lose last election, and is in a minority. Whoever gets selected now has good prospects, on paper, of being PM within a year or two.

For comparison, look at 1967. Then, too, the Liberals were in a minority. Then too the Tories had fairly recently themselves been in power. The Copnservative leadership contest that year attracted two provincial premiers, the former federal leader, the former Justice Minister and BC provincial leader, the millionaire former Minister of International Trade, a former Minister of Finance and of Justice, and three or four other former federal cabinet ministers.

What’s the difference?

You could see a small field reflecting an absence of talent. But that is not the case: a series of big name Conservatives have declined to run. There is an unusually large number of conservative premiers and provincial administrations currently; and the party was only recently in power, meaning there are many former federal cabinet ministers available.

You could see a small field reflecting the inevitability of one candidate winning. But that is not the case: there are obvious concerns with either McKay or O’Toole as candidates. Lack of bilingualism, lack of charisma, pandering and shifting positions, being too far to the left for the party, timidity with the press.

I had theorized it was because Stephen Harper was about to step in, to become that inevitable candidate. But it did not happen.

You could see it demonstrating a lack of confidence within the party. But not only do the Tories face, on paper, great prospects of winning the next election. In other nations the right wing is ascendant and intellectually vibrant: Boris Johnson’s Tories just won a historic victory in the UK, Trump is dominating the US, right wing parties are surging across Europe. There ought to be excitement and ferment at the grassroots.

Nor is taking a resolute right-wing stand beyond the capabilities of a too-timid Canadian political class. We saw Mike Harris do it successfully in Ontario. We say Ralph Klein do it with great success in Alberta. We just saw Legault elected in Quebec. We saw Rob Ford or Mel Lastman do it successfully in Toronto.

It smells of some kind of corruption, of perhaps a ruling cabal intent on taking certain political options off the table, and pulling strings behind curtains.

This is more or less what Maxime Bernier claimed when he left the Conservative Party.

Looks like he was right. Some vested interests have taken control of the CPC.

I don’t imagine this is very hard in Canada; parties are not that organized or large, in world terms. One can see a relatively small Family Compact taking control. It has happened in our history, after all.

One can almost see the strings moving against the black backdrop. When Harper suddenly resigned from his party position, since it was not in order to get into the race, it seems likely it was because he did not want to be associated with the party corruption.

The most disturbing thing is that we do not know who it is in charge, and in whose interests a Tory government would now be acting.

The reassuring thing is that in our Westminster system, we are protected by the ease with which new parties can form, and old parties die.

Bernier may have seen it all before the rest of us. It is to his great credit. He is, it seems, a true leader.