Conservative Party of Canada Leadership Race Finally Enters Final Stage
April 26, 2017 7:46 PM   Subscribe

Who says Canadian political campaigns are short? For over a year, candidates have been vying to replace Stephen Harper as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. There are 14 13 of them. The final official debate featured all 14 13 candidates earlier tonight in Toronto. Voting begins this Friday, with 259,010 party members registered. The new leader will be chosen on May 26-27, 2017 using a preferential ballot and per-riding points system.

With likely front-runners Peter MacKay and Jason Kenney deciding last summer not to run, the race was left wide open.

The most - or least - fun was had at the French language debate in Quebec. There are few things more Canadian than the sight of an Anglophone politician trying to win over Quebec votes with the language acumen of a kindergartner. Deepak Obhrai, the fun uncle (warning: autoplay) of the race, went briefly viral for his performance in French.

Not-so-fun Kellie Leitch, of barbaric cultural practises tipline infamy, got early attention with her calls to screen immigrants for Canadian values, somehow making Canadian values seem like a bad thing.

Brad Trost, Pierre Lemieux and Andrew Scheer are fighting for the social conservative vote, with Scheer - the only one of the three who has promised not to re-open the abortion debate - as the only social conservative who appears to be a front-runner.

Michael Chong is running as a Red Tory: "No more catering to anti-immigrant sentiment ... Or discussions on climate change that don't actually include any plans to address climate change. Or an obsession with screening immigrants for somebody's perception of what Canadian values are." He is also the face of sanitary washrooms in Guatemala.

Erin O'Toole and Lisa Raitt sit in the middle of the pack on conservative issues and in Conservative polling. O'Toole is hoping that Stephen Harper's example proves that you don't need razzmatazz (warning: autoplay) to win in Canadian politics. He is currently the favourite of other Conservative MPs.

Raitt had three eventful cabinet postings in Stephen Harper's government, and was seen as a possible front-runner after MacKay and Kenney declined to enter the race. She has come out swinging against the "irresponsible populism" of Leitch and O'Leary. With her husband's recent diagnosis of Alzheimer's, she has noted the differing caretaking expectations applied to male and female politicians.

Leading candidate Maxime Bernier, a libertarian - or, as he styles himself, an Albertan from Quebec - has played a solid ground game in an attempt to win the points system (see below). So far he has drawn the most fire from dairy farmers, though he may face more pushback in a general election over his plan to get the federal government out of healthcare. You may also recognize Maxime Bernier as Jay Bradley.

Reality star Kevin O'Leary - who likes to get attention by saying controversial things (warning: autoplay) - skipped the French and bilingual debates but leads in most polls. And he doesn't care if you marry a goat. dropped out of the race earlier today, hours before the final debate, citing his failure to gain enough support in Quebec to win a general election (and doubting that Stephen Harper's Quebec-free winning strategy could be repeated). He threw his support behind Maxime Bernier.

The Conservative Party has a complicated preferential ballot riding-by-riding points system which makes predicting the winner more difficult than polls would suggest. The CBC's Éric Grenier has attempted to tackle the complications; his March numbers (which didn't change much in April) suggest that the race is still wide open:
Maxime Bernier still tops the index with a score of 20.1 points (suggesting he would capture 20.1 per cent of the vote on the first ballot if that vote were held today), down slightly from where he stood on Mar. 9. O'Leary is next with 18.5 points, up 0.7 points, followed by Scheer at 13.3 points.

O'Toole, inching up to 9.9 points, has moved into fourth place. He displaced Leitch, who dropped 0.7 points to 9.5.

Lisa Raitt and Michael Chong round out the top seven with 6.4 and 5.6 points, respectively.
Some Conservatives have been disappointed by all the candidates.

Some of the previous debates, for your viewing pleasure:
Saskatoon
Moncton
Quebec City
Halifax
Edmonton (featuring wieners and beans)
posted by clawsoon (55 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
Fuck Kevin O'Leary. I'm so glad he dropped out of the race.
posted by Fizz at 7:50 PM on April 26, 2017 [15 favorites]


For interested American mefites: Kevin O'Leary is essentially the Canadian Trump, if Trump commmitted to his baldness and didn't agree he even necessarily had to live in the country he wanted to be president of. (O'Leary lives in Boston and was cagey on if or when he would return to Canada as potentially the prime minister.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:00 PM on April 26, 2017


I wish folks on the left could organize some kind of boycott of advertisers in Quebecor owned media.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:03 PM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Maxime? Get out of Federal Health Care? Sorry, you'll never Trump-sell Canadians on giving up our Healthcare.

Congrats on the loss.

It also sickens me to see Canadian Conservatives resorting to Trump-tactics just for the win, and I hope we're smarter for it. Maxime with is gross Alt-right tweets and Leitch, with her gross and clumsy attempt at Trumpolotics.

Vote with your brains, fellow Canadians. If you vote Conservative (and there's nothing wrong with that) don't vote for a campaign of ignorance, mistrust and trumpist-alt-right-opportunism.
posted by Snuffman at 8:10 PM on April 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


Fuck Kevin O'Leary. I'm so glad he dropped out of the race.

Oh god yes. O'Leary is a coward and a one-hit wonder. I've never forgotten him asking a guest on Canada's Business News Network many many years ago (I saw it myself), "How can I make money off poor people?". People like this need to fuck off and disappear from anything resembling public life.
posted by sylvanshine at 8:14 PM on April 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


Ok, so it sounds like Michael Chong is the sort of person I could respect as the person running against the person I vote for. Honourable opposition?

Also for Americans watching: There tends to be a lot of backroom politics in Canadian leadership races, and surprise wins out of nowhere. This sometimes works out poorly for the party involved, like when they all forgot that no one in English Canada had heard of Stephan Dion, and he lacked the personal charisma to win people over quickly.

On the other hand, this is the only leadership race I've heard of going on this long, or being this weird.
posted by Canageek at 8:19 PM on April 26, 2017


And O'Leary pretty much left because he can't speak French -- as if that was some surprising new job requirement for a national party leader.

But what to make of the remaining field? Has-been juniors to Steve, mostly. Professor Leitch is unmarketable, Bernier will never live down leaving top secret documents at his girlfriend's house, and -- who knows who any of the others even are?

Personally, I like Chong (insofar as I am able to like a Tory), in that he seems enough of a break from the Harper years, and reflects a modern Canada while going back to the proud and honourable tradition of Red Tories. That said, I don't expect the party to back him.

Is there even a trophy to be won, though? How many years will pass before enough resentment builds towards the Grits that Conservatives will have another shot? Right now, that day looks far away, indeed...
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:19 PM on April 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


"Exit the Dragon"
posted by My Dad at 8:22 PM on April 26, 2017 [7 favorites]


Bernier will never live down leaving top secret documents at his girlfriend's house

Not to mention Julie Couillard was said to have connections with the Hell's Angels. Bernier is a chump.
posted by My Dad at 8:24 PM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Exit the Dragon"

I think of it more like flushing the toilet.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:24 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Great post, thanks.

I dunno if an unelectable Neanderthal or an I-could-live-with-it, electable, red tory is preferable. I hope they spend years in the wilderness, but all the same Trudeau is going to have to up his game a little.
posted by Rumple at 8:24 PM on April 26, 2017


It's interesting to see what Conservatives think of as the most controversial ideas in their debates:

- Maxime Bernier gets attacked by all the other candidates for his plan to end supply management. The other candidates say how much they love farmers. The audiences don't seem to care.

- Kelly Leitch gets attacked by most of the other candidates for her values test. She doesn't get booed by the audiences, but strong opposition to her idea gets strong cheers, at least in Toronto.

- Michael Chong gets attacked by all the other candidates and booed by audiences for his carbon tax plan.
posted by clawsoon at 8:25 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Bernier is a chump.

Personally, I think that's all there was to the story. Couillard was never accused of anything herself, and I doubt the Hell's Angels would have had much use for NATO summaries. It was all on Bernier being a forgetful oaf, and not much more.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:29 PM on April 26, 2017


Rumple: I dunno if an unelectable Neanderthal or an I-could-live-with-it, electable, red tory is preferable.

Remember that the other major party helps set the far end of the Overton window. Why cheer for a bully pulpit for someone with horrid ideas?
posted by clawsoon at 8:34 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Michael Chong is a class act. He's reasonable, thoughtful, principled, a good parliamentarian. He'd be a great leader for the Conservatives. As a result I don't think he will even come close to the leadership. Erin O'Toole and Lisa Raitt might sneak in but I doubt it. Libertarian glad-hander legacy candidate Bernier would be a terrible leader but not nearly as bad as Leitch, Trost, shithead Chris Alexander, or Blaney.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:36 PM on April 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


Bernier is an utter nincompoop. Dumber than Peter MacKay. It will be funny if Bernier snags the leadership.

What the party needs is Rona Ambrose (a fellow UVic alumnus), and she ain't running. Of course, I would never, ever vote for the Conservatives unless they managed to persuade some "Red Tories" to rejoin the fold. I can't vote Liberal, because the Victoria riding association is a complete disaster. Luckily the NDP MP Murray Rankin is an effective parliamentarian.
posted by My Dad at 8:37 PM on April 26, 2017


Michael Chong is a class act.

I agree. It's too bad there aren't more people in the current Conservative Party like him. I find the Trudeau Liberals totally unfocused about everything and the federal NDP in its current incarnation incoherent (are they socialists? are they neoliberals? are they populists?)
posted by My Dad at 8:40 PM on April 26, 2017


"Exit the Dragon"
I think of it more like flushing the toilet.


Isn't that what you're supposed to say every time you flush? (Whisper it if you're in a public washroom, of course.)
posted by clawsoon at 8:42 PM on April 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


I've really hoped with the end of the Harper era we'd see the party split between the Red Tories and the Reformers. But it hasn't happened. I'd love to see the Reformers put out to pasture.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:43 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Even though I'm not likely to ever vote Conservative in any election ever, I still watched a majority of the French-language debate in order to feel better about my level of French. Because I'm petty like that. I have to admit that Deepak Obhrai was kind of adorable in how he owned his non-existent French, showed a lot more gumption than that has-been O'Leary.
posted by invokeuse at 8:57 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Makes an older fella think back to good ol' Stockwell Day.

When he won the leadership of the Canadian Alliance party (this was the previous iteration of a right-wing unity party in Canada) he rolled up to his first news conference on a jet-ski.

He was the very picture of a hale, hearty, cottage irritant.
posted by Sauce Trough at 9:12 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


I dunno if an unelectable Neanderthal or an I-could-live-with-it, electable, red tory is preferable.

I feel personally attacked! My kin are a peace-love species, and probably very electable!
All joking aside, its nice to have proof that this sort of right-wing nonsense isn't purely American. I don't know why that fills me with hope, maybe it's because if it's just America, then its a sickness inherent of the American dream, that we're all broken and due for disaster no matter what. But if it's just a facet of human nature, it's something we can beat by more education and direct action and by shining a spotlight on the worst of us. That's probably the opposite of what most people would derive from this.
Super glad O'Leary dropped out though. THAT could have been bad.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:55 PM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


clawsoon: "a preferential ballot and per-riding points system."

I find it high-larious that the Conservatives think a preferential ballot is bad for national elections but just the thing for electing the party leader.
posted by Mitheral at 10:01 PM on April 26, 2017 [7 favorites]


Mitheral: I find it high-larious that the Conservatives think a preferential ballot is bad for national elections but just the thing for electing the party leader.

I think the preferential ballot is a holdover from the days of Preston Manning and Reform. If you listen too closely to an old Reform hand, you might hear them mumble "Triple-E Senate" now and again, too, and perk up at the idea of reducing the power of the PMO and allowing more free votes. Harper truly molded a new party out of two old ones.
posted by clawsoon at 10:26 PM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


are they socialists? are they neoliberals? are they populists?

They're New, they're Democratic and they like to Party!
posted by klanawa at 12:02 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


In depth post, Clawsoon. You are a true Canadian. Kudos.
posted by hoodrich at 1:33 AM on April 27, 2017


It always makes me laugh when people call Chong a class act. He was my MP for over a decade and he is NOT a nice person. He is a politician through and through, didn't care to help constituents, and was, of course, much better than any of us. He also was not very effective in his role. His resigning his cabinet position backfired on him and he was relegated to the back benches where he focused on getting in front of the cameras instead of doing actual parliamentary work. His focus on getting his private member bill passed ended up with a weak, toothless document that had a nice name he could be in front of the cameras with. Chong doesn't have the ability to build concensus in his party, dispite his years in parliament.
posted by saucysault at 3:04 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]




resigning his cabinet position backfired on him and he was relegated to the back benches

I'm not entirely sure you can blame him for being sent to the back benches or having his bill watered down. Especially under Harper. I can't speak to his care of his constituents but he's won the last 5 elections in his riding. As for getting in front of cameras, are you familiar with politicians? Even the ones I like do that. He supported the anti discrimination Motion 103 (the only Tory leadership candidate to do so) and is in favour of a carbon tax. Look how he dealt with being the face of sanitary washrooms in Guatemala or that utterly bizarre breast feeding story. In anycase in a party of assholes, Chong is what passes for a class act. I'd sooner him any of the rest. Still not going to vote for him or his party.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:23 AM on April 27, 2017 [10 favorites]


Michael Chong is a class act.

I know nothing of him - except that he supported Motion 103.

All the rest fell into line with the hate-mongers.

That's enough for me to wish he's leader. (not enough to join the Conservative party - my CCF ancestors would haunt me.)
posted by jb at 6:11 AM on April 27, 2017


After the marry-a-goat headlines, bonehead, I just assumed that all of your headlines were real, too.
posted by clawsoon at 6:28 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


This is funny, not real of course:

O’Leary will continue marketing campaign by launching NDP leadership bid.

Though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that he previously also intimated that he wanted to run for the Liberals.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:00 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Maxime Bernier gets attacked by all the other candidates for his plan to end supply management. The other candidates say how much they love farmers. The audiences don't seem to care.

The farmers definitely care. They mostly don't show up to debates because, well, they're busy farming (get up at 4 am, work until 7 pm with food breaks, crash on the couch to watch a little TV or the hockey game, repeat literally until your dying day). But they care.

My dairy farmer inlaws are rock-ribbed conservatives and they hate Maxime Bernier with the passion of a thousand suns; they're literally all enrolling in the federal party so they can vote against him (mostly for Michael Chong). Yes, supply chain management means that our egg, poultry and dairy prices are a bit higher than they otherwise would be. It also means that the quality of those items is much higher than they otherwise would be, and the farmers take pride in that. They literally sneer at the American stuff when they go to farmers' conferences in the USA and see how it gets produced. They complain about those adverts A&W currently run about how all A&W burgers is "antibiotic-free" when that's just the basic regulatory standard in Canada (and A&W is using New Zealand beef for their burgers to boot).

I still think Bernier is the favorite to get elected leader, but if he's the leader, he risks losing a key constituency for the Tories that's kept them competitive in elections for the past three or four decades.
posted by mightygodking at 7:13 AM on April 27, 2017 [9 favorites]


If anyone is paying attention at all to supply management in Canada, I think the issue is thought of in terms of marketing boards, rather than individual dairy farmers.

All I know is that a four-litre jug of milk costs $5 in Victoria. We go through four of them a week (I don't drink milk, but my two sons do).

I appreciate that the quality of milk is better, but I really wish the quality of cheese was better in Canada. It tastes terrible.
posted by My Dad at 8:26 AM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm all for Bernier being against the supply management system -- if it will push a lot of traditional conservative voters to vote for the non-racist.

Now that O'leary is out, I'm mostly "anybody but Leitch", but Chong does seem like the best person running (to this leftist pinko concerned about growing xenophobia and fascism).

and actually: milk is the same price in Toronto as I paid in the states. But what we really need is some British cheese. Even the cheapest cheddar there is great.
posted by jb at 8:32 AM on April 27, 2017


There are basically three choices for farming: Boom and bust cycles, giant agricultural corporations, or supply management. Giant corporations and supply management are both solutions to the problem of boom and bust. Unfortunately, there's no magic that gets you small family farms+free market+steady production. It's a classic pick-two.
posted by clawsoon at 8:55 AM on April 27, 2017 [4 favorites]


I'm fine with our milk AND our cheese, what I want is higher fat butter.
posted by jeather at 9:06 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


I appreciate that the quality of milk is better, but I really wish the quality of cheese was better in Canada. It tastes terrible.

SURPRISE: most mass-market cheese in Canada is made with American milk solids. That's why it's bad. Canadian milk production is mostly used for drinking milk, butter, and your higher-end cheeses (like Balderson).
posted by mightygodking at 9:11 AM on April 27, 2017 [9 favorites]


I have two things to say:

1. Fantastic post, Clawson!

and

2. Kellie Leitch is a horrible, insincere, small-minded, lazy bigot and the Liberals of Simcoe-Grey need to target her hard in 2019. She's mainstreamed a poison into our federal politics and can't be shamed enough.
posted by The Notorious SRD at 9:11 AM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


I really wish the quality of cheese was better in Canada. It tastes terrible.

Ditto'ing mightygodking's comments regarding milk soilds. Also I noticed you don't get as much of the good smaller cheese manufacturers from Quebec and Ontario in BC. I was surprised at first by how often my friends out there would go over the border for American cheese but then I checked out the grocery stores... you have my sympathies.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:28 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


To be fair, I missed Tillamook cheddar when living out in Wisconsin. It wasn't that there was a lack of even better cheese out there, just none that I could afford to put in a sandwich every day.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:43 AM on April 27, 2017


A few years ago we were trying to make cheese at home (feta I think) and made the mistake of trying to use 3.25% homo milk. It gave a pathetic amount, less than 100g per 2L carton. Then we were fortunate enough to get some raw milk right from my BIL's dairy operation. The difference was astounding, 3 or more times the product for the same amount of milk. And it tasted fantastic. His milk was a little higher in fat content, around 4.25% he figured, but the real difference was in the milk solids, the proteins and such in the natural milk, but which had been removed from the "whole" milk from the store. Commercial cheese, which can start with natural milk, we concluded would always be better than homemade, using retail source milk.

Retail milk now is frankenmilk: disassembled into components in the dairy then reassembled to meet the legal minimum requirements. It's a natural product, as the industry calls it, but truthfully it bears about as much similarity to milk from a cow at that point as does Cool Whip.

In part this is regulatory, but for the most part it's about producing industrial milk. And that's all Canada does now. And it's alienated us from many traditional foodways.
posted by bonehead at 9:44 AM on April 27, 2017


Good news for all you other Canadians bemoaning the state of our cheese. CETA kicks in soon, and cheap(er) cheese from Europe is honestly the thing that has me the most excited about it.

My otherwise-left-leaning brother joined the Conservatives this year primarily to keep out O'Leary, but he's quite solidly behind Chong now. I think that it's always important in a functioning Democracy that the opposition is someone you could live with: no party is immune to scandals and you need to be able to 'kick the bums out' when their time comes.
posted by Arandia at 9:49 AM on April 27, 2017 [6 favorites]


This image is amazing!

And about this....

Maxime? Get out of Federal Health Care? Sorry, you'll never Trump-sell Canadians on giving up our Healthcare.

I'm not sure exactly what that idiot jarret noir means, I didn't really look at this program since because I sure as hell ain't voting for him or his party. But in Canada health care is administered and managed by the provinces. The federal government transfers money to the provinces for health care and sets some rules/standard, but for the most of it its managed by the provinces. He can screw with it by pulling the federal money, but I can't find the win for him in doing this (this won't be popular).
posted by coust at 9:54 AM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


Ditto'ing mightygodking's comments regarding milk soilds. Also I noticed you don't get as much of the good smaller cheese manufacturers from Quebec and Ontario in BC. I was surprised at first by how often my friends out there would go over the border for American cheese but then I checked out the grocery stores... you have my sympathies.

Yeah, I think the conversation about "supply management" (such as there is such a conversation at all in Canada) is different in different parts of Canada, where the retail experience is different.

As mentioned up-thread, I'm looking forward to CETA kicking in and getting access to cheaper, high-quality cheese here in British Columbia. Will my dreams come true? I doubt it... Such is the life of a consumer in Canada.
posted by My Dad at 10:36 AM on April 27, 2017


Or wine and beer from other parts of Canada.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:33 AM on April 27, 2017


Does anyone in Winnipeg drink Russell? It's my beer of choice at the moment... there's a brewery in Surrey, I think. I love their ESB.
posted by My Dad at 12:14 PM on April 27, 2017


My otherwise-left-leaning brother joined the Conservatives this year primarily to keep out O'Leary, but he's quite solidly behind Chong now.

Yeah, I was going to join partly for shits and giggles and partly to support Chong, but I got held up at the oath to support Conservative principles which start out nicely vague enough (Who amongst us doesn't like "fiscal accountability, progressive social policy and individual rights and responsibilities"?) and then gets kinda militaristic & uncomfortably vague, eg. "... all Canadians should have reasonable access to quality health care regardless of their ability to pay." (Scary italics mine.)
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:44 PM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Rex Murphy had fun with O'Leary's exit. "It was worse than the sinking of the Mariposa Belle with Anne of Green Gables on board - a true national trauma."
posted by clawsoon at 10:48 AM on April 28, 2017


I joined the PC party just to vote against Leitch. That sh*t is the thin end of a nightmare. Three of my friends did the same. It cost $15 to sign up. Cheap, if you consider the stakes.
posted by storybored at 8:23 PM on April 28, 2017


For those who joined the Conservatives - or contemplated it - in order to vote for Chong: Who, if anybody, would you mark second and third on your ballot?
posted by clawsoon at 12:02 PM on April 29, 2017


This poll posted on Twitter regarding how our parties align with the French election is particularly telling with our Tories.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:32 PM on May 6, 2017


Ashwagandha: Your link is all weird. Could you repost it?
posted by clawsoon at 5:56 PM on May 6, 2017


Appears to be this, clawsoon.
posted by Rumple at 6:38 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oops sorry about that.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:05 AM on May 7, 2017


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