The 2020 Conservative Party leadership convention has been scheduled for June 27, limiting the campaign period to a blessedly short (relatively speaking) nigh-seven months. Entrants are required to raise $300K, up from $100K in the 2017 race, and gather three thousand signatures of support, up from 300. Of the possible contenders who have been mentioned since Andrew Scheer announced his resignation, Durham MP Erin O'Toole has signaled the strongest willingness to enter, hoping to improve upon his third-place finish in the last contest.
If a survey that may or may not be scientific from meme repository Canada Proud can be believed, O'Toole has his work cut out for him. Support for his leadership came in at 2 percent four points behind his closest competitor, Michelle Rempel, but over 30 points behind the winners, Pierre Poilievre and Rona Ambrose, who are separated by a single point.
In my last column, which offered capsule reviews of each possible contender, I reserved my most positive commentary for Ambrose and my most negative commentary for Poilievre. Yet party insiders, including strategist Jason Lietaer and former campaign manager Jenni Byrne, believe the man I insist on calling Grimey is the likeliest winner, praising his organizational talents and his parliamentary work ethic. Both of these are essential to a successful leadership bid. So should be the ability to defeat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Unless the party plans to stick with the hope-they-hate-him-more strategy of the 2019 general election, Grimey is possibly the worst person to trust with this task.
The first reason for this is that the next leader should be different enough from Scheer to look like a breath of fresh air. Scheer's biggest deficiencies included his inexperience in anything but politics, his failure to articulate a coherent philosophy of government, and his lack of charisma. Grimey has just a little more non-political experience, limited to an internship at auto parts giant Magna International and a column in a now-defunct conservative magazine. As late as August 2019, he was attacking Trudeau for cancelling four boutique tax credits the bread and butter of the vision-free Tories. He rarely discusses anything but how much money the other party taxes and spends. He thinks the deficit can be made into Christmassy comedy.
Charisma, of course, is subjective. I've never met the man, so I can only speak to what I've seen of him on camera. Here's the view of a former Conservative Party staffer who has met him:
Whereas Scheer was bland and completely lacking in charisma, trying to make up for it with a sort of dull, inoffensive affability, Poilievre's demeanour is so petulant and repellent as to cross the line into anti-charisma. His dislikability is so reliable as to actually constitute a talent of its own, if one could monetize irritation.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was going to say. Other insiders who know him better report that Angry Grimey is simply a shtick, and he can be quite charming and funny in private. That shtick might work for CPC Twitter warriors, but after nine years of Stephen Harper's constant simmering anger, nobody outside of that group wants a Conservative leader who boils over at the slightest provocation.
As for the most obvious way he could be different from Scheer: I have found no evidence that he has attended a Pride parade, nor have I found any evidence that he is afraid of the gays. His fiscal hawkishness overshadows his attitude toward any other issue, to the point that LGBTQ matters simply may not occur to him at all. If Trudeau ever spends five figures of taxpayer money on his personal Pride float, we may find out how Grimey really feels but not before.
The next Tory leader cannot hope to match Trudeau for shallow do-gooder sentimentality. No Tory would want a leader who could. But they should insist on a leader who projects steadiness, thoughtfulness, and greater loyalty to Canadians at large than Canadians who happen to be Tories. Poilievre is too partisan and too prickly to do any of this. There will always be room for a budget-minded attack dog; he should stick to this role. The role of the party's public face should go to someone Canadians want to see.
Photo Credit: CBC News
Written by Jess Morgan
