Otherwise, what is the point?
With Erin O’Toole now under siege following his failure to even match the campaign performance of Andrew Scheer, the CPC is embroiled in a civil war.
CPC National Councilor from Ontario Bert Chen has already launched a petition calling for O’Toole’s removal.
Recall Erin O'Toole as Leader of the Conservative Party – Sign the Petition! https://t.co/pmqzSkgP4T via @CdnChange #cdnpoli #elexn44
— Bert Chen (@bertusbc) September 22, 2021
On social media, you can already see the battle lines being drawn between the O’Toole defenders and those who want him gone after shifting far to the left and still failing to win – or even dent Liberal support.
Before getting more into this, a quick recap of where the CPC results stand:
As more mail in ballots come in, the CPC popular vote percentage is slowly declining.
They now stand at 33.8%, and are leading in 119 seats, though one or two of those may still be lost as additional results are tallied.
By contrast, under Andrew Scheer the CPC won 34.34% of the popular vote, and 121 seats.
Had the Conservatives done better, say winning 36% and 140 or so seats, O’Toole would likely be able to point to some growth for the party and claim his strategy had shown results.
Instead, he has no progress to show whatsoever.
Worse, the CPC is down about 800,000 in raw vote total from 2019, so they only held on to what they had because overall turnout declined dramatically.
With all of that in mind, let’s look at the two sides in the burgeoning CPC civil war:
There are the O’Toole defenders, who argue that ‘Canada is a left-wing place,’ so the CPC must shift further to the left.
Then, there are those who argue that the point of a Conservative Party should be to make the country more conservative.
In essence, the battle is between those who want the CPC to keep becoming more and more like a Liberal Party clone, and those who want it to offer something substantially different from what the Liberals/NDP offer.
Why have democracy?
The question I would ask to those who want the CPC to keep becoming more like the Liberals is this?
Why do we value democracy?
Is it just so we can vote ‘our team’ in to office?
Or is it so we have real debates, and real choices about the direction of our country?
The benefit to democracy is supposed to be that it provides an ability for nations to course-correct when things aren’t working. But that only happens if there are actual choices available to voters, choices that offer a real and distinct chance of moving the country in a different direction, or showing support for the current direction by voting against making a change in course.
With the Liberals and NDP seeking to continually pull Canada to the left, Canada’s Conservative Party should be seeking to pull the country to the right.
An effective argument in this regard was recently made by Carson Jerema in the National Post. Here are a few excerpts:
“The Conservatives’ third defeat at the hands of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals should be considered a rebuke of the party’s strategy to tack hard towards the so-called centre. It definitely shouldn’t mean that the party should try even harder to moderate itself, as leader Erin O’Toole suggested in his concession speech. Instead, the lesson the Conservatives should learn from this loss is that they’d be better off selling their own ideas to voters, rather than watered-down Liberal, or even NDP, policies.”
He later writes, “Centre-right parties are often branded as misers for wanting to shrink the size of government, but rather than ditch their principles, they should reframe them as being better for average people. Yes, deregulation and tax cuts benefit corporate owners and managers, but they also benefit people who those owners and managers might employ. The more businesses that are freed from government shackles, the more options there are for workers.”
In another great article, Rupa Subramanya noted how O’Toole repeatedly seemed to apologized for the CPC:
“That starts with not trying to be all things to all people, as Trudeau already has that market cornered. It also means not being unduly apologetic about being a conservative, as if it’s some sort of a sin for which you have to continuously atone.
It’s striking how many times O’Toole has done this since becoming leader, and especially during this campaign. For example, before winning a coveted endorsement from Mulroney, O’Toole went to the extraordinary length of claiming that the Tories had let down mainstream voters in the past.
This is nothing less than a poke in the eye to traditional Tory voters, and it failed to appeal to whichever voters O’Toole appeared to be courting on that particular day, whether nationalist Quebecers or marginal Liberal supporters. But then, who would want to vote for a party that is ashamed of itself, its values and its history?”
This is the fundamental failure of O’Toole’s campaign:
He tried so desperately to appeal to those who didn’t like the CPC, that he simply reinforced the Liberal framing of the country and demoralized many of his own potential supporters.
By doing so, he facilitates the further movement of Canada to the left.
Canada is awash in big-government parties. And, while a few years ago it would have been reasonable to talk of running small short term deficits, Canada’s debt has surged, money printing was out of control, inflation is rising, the role of intrusive government has grown immensely, and deficits are gigantic.
In this new context, Canada needs a Conservative Party that pushes back against all of that, rather than going along with it.
This is a key reason the PPC tripled their vote. They were the only party offering a different direction, a direction of much smaller government and much more individual freedom. Whether people agree or disagree with that direction, the PPC did a service to Canadian democracy by presenting a real choice.
If the CPC decides to continue moving in the O’Toole direction of entrenching themselves as a big-government, statist party, then the PPC will continue to grow, and the CPC will continue to fracture.
What is the fix?
To start with, the CPC needs to shift right and become a party that is more fiscally conservative, and more libertarian.
Issues like personal freedom, free speech, mandates, and state intrusion are now some of the biggest social issues of our time, and with the Liberals & NDP taking an unabashed authoritarian position, the CPC should be the party of individual freedom.
On the economy, they need to propose a smaller government, less spending, lower taxes, and fewer regulations.
In short, they need to reject the O’Toole approach and present a real ideological alternative to the destructive and unaffordable path Justin Trudeau is pursuing.
Can O’Toole make this change?
At this point, the answer would have to be no.
He started as ‘True Blue,’ then betrayed many Conservatives by flipping dramatically to the left.
If was to all of a sudden try to flip back to the right, nobody would trust it.
So, the CPC needs a new leader who has the strength to actually try and shift this country to the right, rather than surrendering to the narrative and framing of the Trudeau Liberals.
Spencer Fernando
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