At the beginning of the 2017 Conservative Party leadership contest, I and other supporters of one candidate considered Simcoe—Grey MP Kellie Leitch our toughest competition.  Within a few months, amid unworkable policy proposals, campaign upheaval and terrible video production, she was a punch line.  Now that she has wisely decided to retire from Parliament in 2019 and return to medicine full-time, we and, it seems, the Conservative caucus are just glad to be nearly rid of her.

Was that the real Kellie Leitch vowing to defend scarcely specified Canadian values from all immigrants, refugees and tourists?  It didn't seem so at first, especially not after her tearful recantation of the "barbaric cultural practices" tip line that never was.  Her endless jabs at "elites" didn't match the self-aggrandizement she is reported to exhibit in private.  Her attempts to copy tactics that worked for U.S. President Donald Trump were so transparent that they were rightfully compared to karaoke.  Her voice on that campaign trail was many things, but few called it "authentic."

But like all Members of Parliament, Leitch has spent years being discouraged from expressing a thought or developing a persona that might conflict with the whims of her leader.  With Stephen Harper packing it in, and immigration-skeptical populism making a comeback, the timing for Leitch to spread her proverbial wings couldn't have been better.  Campaign manager Nick Kouvalis repeatedly insisted he ran the campaign she wanted him to run.  That only got her as far as sixth place, but it ensured that she would never be dismissed as a trained seal again.  Perhaps her leadership campaign was not a ploy, but a revelation, albeit a poorly executed one.

For all the comment section denizens who found her a breath of fresh air, most Conservatives weren't having it.  The biggest difference between the two main parties on immigration is that the Tories are willing to take greater pains to identify newcomers who are committed to searching for opportunity, stability and freedom exactly the Canadian values Leitch sought to protect.  But sometimes those pains can be too great for Canadians' comfort, as she learned during that unfortunate CBC interview.  Party members as a whole are not the intractable xenophobes that low-info Liberals claim, and electing the wrong leader would provide those Liberals with too much ammunition.

So what was to be done with Leitch after Andrew Scheer took the helm?  One of the top four critic portfolios Finance, Justice, National Defence or Foreign Affairs was out of the question.  Immigration and Citizenship was way out of the question.  Putting her back on the Health file might have made sense; it would certainly have been her wheelhouse, and it would have quashed any possibility of Scheer being called petty.  Instead, that file went to Marilyn Gladu, a chemical engineer by trade, and Leitch got nothing.  Not even Deputy Critic for Curling, or whatever token portfolios new governments like to invent.  Letters, I'm sure, went flying.

Why she has announced her retirement so soon may never be clear to the public.  Unsurprisingly, Scheer's office has not offered much clarity of their own.  Forced resignation is unlikely, unless there's a behind-the-scenes firing offence they're not willing to mention.  A refusal to sign Leitch's nomination papers is possible.  But if the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, the answer is that she saw no future for herself or her agenda.  Her foresight may have failed her when she designed her campaign, but she may have very recently recovered it.

The best example of Leitch's service that Scheer's statement cited was her development of the Children's Fitness Tax Credit.  In fact, the best thing she did for the Conservative Party was to highlight a new bloc of voters, proponents of bumper-sticker nationalism and skeptics of globalists, elites and worst of all globalist elites.  These voters believe immigration will inevitably become a flashpoint in Canada on the level of the United States or Europe or wish to make it so.  They may never dominate the party, but they may try to force it to the right on immigration, the way social conservative groups still try to do on abortion and euthanasia.  By drawing their voices out, Leitch has made it all the more likely that they, too, will be shunted to the back benches for election cycles to come.

But that's a backhanded compliment.  If the best fronthanded compliment Scheer could offer was for a minor, now-defunct tax credit, she won't be missed.  Bye, Feleitcha.

Photo Credit: Macleans

Written by Jess Morgan