Juno News - O’Toole blames Trudeau’s divisive campaign for CPC loss

00:00:00.040 Aaron O'Toole survives as leader of the Conservative Party, but he doubles down on a losing strategy

00:00:04.740 and blames everyone but himself for the loss. I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

00:00:14.060 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. You probably saw the news that Aaron O'Toole

00:00:17.860 survived the caucus meeting yesterday. It was the first caucus meeting since the election,

00:00:22.460 since the disappointing election result for the Conservatives and the Conservative leader.

00:00:26.240 There was some speculation that the party was going to dump Aaron O'Toole yesterday. They didn't do that.

00:00:32.140 As I talk about on the show, there really isn't the appetite in the Conservative Party right now to

00:00:36.920 have another leadership review, have another leadership race that could potentially divide

00:00:41.240 the party even further. It isn't obvious that there's anyone else in the party that would be

00:00:45.560 suitable for leader at this point. So a lot of MPs that I've been speaking to, a lot of Conservative

00:00:50.520 insiders, are sort of just resigned to the fact that even though O'Toole didn't do a great job,

00:00:55.740 even though there were a lot of problems with his campaign, better again to stick with the devil

00:00:59.860 that you know than the devil that you don't know. And I think that there is so much uncertainty

00:01:03.780 with a leadership race that it's probably a good strategy. If you're watching this video on YouTube

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00:01:23.400 drop us a comment. Again, let us know what you think about The Candace Malcolm Show, if you have

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00:01:38.300 So do that if you're watching on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts. And don't forget to subscribe

00:01:43.020 to The Candace Malcolm Show so that you never miss an episode. So I just want to quickly go back

00:01:48.100 to talk about some of the predictions that we were seeing going into this meeting.

00:01:51.760 David Akin, I talked about this on the show yesterday. He made this bizarre prediction

00:01:56.340 talking to an insider. He said, here's a kicker about Tuesday's caucus meeting. Aaron O'Toole,

00:02:01.320 an insider says, is looking to take a snap caucus vote on his leadership, a public vote. Stand up if

00:02:07.160 you're with me. Stand up if you're against me, but behind closed doors. Interesting. So I brought this

00:02:12.120 up yesterday because I said this isn't the case. It would have no validity. And if he were to do that,

00:02:18.940 it would be quite the power move. But I couldn't, I couldn't imagine him doing that. Well, David Akin

00:02:23.580 seems to have heard similarly because he quickly hedged his own prediction here. And he wrote this,

00:02:29.380 other insiders say that such a vote would be procedurally impossible. So stay tuned,

00:02:34.140 could have an exciting day of procedural back and forth. See, the idea that procedural back and

00:02:40.320 forth is exciting. Only, only a journalist could, could say something like that. Well, of course,

00:02:45.040 this just simply didn't happen. It was not, whoever was telling David Akin was, was mistaken. And this

00:02:50.620 did not happen. There was no such vote. There was no such power move. Aaron O'Toole did not do this.

00:02:55.920 So I just wanted to make note of that. But let's talk about what did happen. So yes, it was the first

00:03:01.060 time that all of the conservative MPs got together in Ottawa. And it seemed like more or less, they had

00:03:06.820 a united front around their guy, around Aaron O'Toole as leader. We heard a lot of MPs just voicing their

00:03:13.160 support. But interestingly, there were a few sort of outliers. So we will get to those later in the

00:03:18.840 show. But I want to first focus on Aaron O'Toole, focus on his understanding of what went wrong,

00:03:24.840 the way that he is treating this loss. Because one of the things that he did emphasize, I think

00:03:29.580 there's two important things that he emphasized. He has been talking about how they're going to do

00:03:33.240 a really full postmortem of the campaign, look into what went wrong, really dissect the numbers,

00:03:39.780 try to understand how the strategy failed, and where they can improve upon it. So that's a good

00:03:44.940 sign. That's exactly what they should be doing after an election, after a disappointing election

00:03:49.440 like this. But then he's also sort of doubling down on his rhetoric, on this idea that conservatives

00:03:56.500 need to be more progressive, that the party needs to fundamentally change in order to win and appeal to

00:04:03.660 a broader collection of Canadians. So first, I want to focus in on Aaron O'Toole, look at what he was

00:04:10.240 saying yesterday, how he was communicating, and what lessons he's really taking away from this

00:04:14.440 election. We've heard him say several times now that he's going to do a full review of the campaign,

00:04:19.320 really dive into the numbers, try to understand the strategy, what went wrong, really hold the mirror

00:04:24.780 up. And that's good. That's what we want to hear from a leader. We want him to acknowledge that the

00:04:29.460 strategy that he took failed, that it didn't win over Canadians, that his calculation to move to the

00:04:35.560 center, run as more of a liberal, try to hug Justin Trudeau on as many issues as possible, and really

00:04:42.640 avoid any of the sort of pitfalls that the media and the liberals set up for conservatives. He did a

00:04:49.280 decent job of not falling into those. But he ended up mirroring Justin Trudeau so closely that there just

00:04:55.080 wasn't a compelling reason to vote for him because he didn't differentiate himself enough from the

00:05:00.060 liberal party. So this is, I'm going to play first a clip of Aaron O'Toole walking into caucus meetings. So

00:05:04.620 this is before he knew his fate as party leader. He probably had an idea that caucus supported him, but

00:05:10.200 really anything could happen at a meeting like this. So this is what Aaron O'Toole looked like prior to

00:05:14.580 caucus, and this is what he was saying. Let's play this clip.

00:05:17.080 If the leader is not the problem, then what is the problem? Why is the message of the conservative

00:05:23.240 party not resonating with Canadians? And what do you need to do moving forward to make sure that

00:05:29.260 happens? Well, in an election in a pandemic, I know how you all know how much the election costs,

00:05:35.020 so I won't get into that. But there were two parties that divided Canadians that misled Canadians

00:05:39.780 that had very deceptive and quite frankly, alarming campaigns, Mr. Trudeau's and Mr. Bernier.

00:05:46.360 We did not. We tried to respect people. We tried to encourage a vaccination level of 90% 1.00

00:05:51.980 by working together, not by dividing people. So I think Mr. Trudeau, who's already let Canadians

00:05:57.920 down again in his first 10 days, he has more lessons to learn than we do, but we're going to

00:06:02.360 talk about our lessons today. So there you go. Justin Trudeau has more lessons to learn than we do.

00:06:07.760 So Aaron O'Toole isn't really taking responsibility. He's saying that the reason that the conservatives

00:06:13.240 didn't do very well was because what? Because he thought that the liberals were divisive and

00:06:17.360 Maxim Bernier was divisive and they weren't. So again, blaming other people as opposed to himself

00:06:22.340 and doubling down saying that Trudeau has more to learn from this election than he does. Well,

00:06:26.320 I'm sorry, that's not true because Justin Trudeau is prime minister. So yes, we all wish that Justin

00:06:30.940 Trudeau was a little bit more self-aware, a little bit more humble, showed more humility in his day-to-day

00:06:36.040 life. But Justin Trudeau doesn't need to sit down and dissect what happened in the election because he

00:06:40.700 won. He has the power. He's prime minister. He will likely be prime minister for the next four years,

00:06:45.240 just given all the dynamics in Ottawa. So it is Aaron O'Toole who has to do the reflection,

00:06:51.340 who has to learn the lessons. So the idea, again, that he's just sort of blaming Trudeau,

00:06:55.580 walking into caucus there, that's a little disconcerting. And yes, we all like to see

00:07:01.340 an opposition leader dunk on the prime minister, and that's part of the job. But really, today is a

00:07:06.160 day, yesterday is a day, but as O'Toole was walking in, you know, it's a day that you reflect on

00:07:11.080 your own party. You talk about the reasons that you lost. And I get the fact that you don't want

00:07:15.680 to pour your heart out to the media. You don't really want to tell them the inner thinking of

00:07:20.100 your party and your own strategy, even if he acknowledges that he ran too far to the left,

00:07:26.160 that he made strategic mistakes in selling out conservative principles and values. I don't

00:07:30.720 really expect him to say this to the media. But I wanted to show you this video to contrast it

00:07:36.360 with the next video. So the first one was O'Toole walking into caucus before he had had

00:07:41.820 an earful from all of the MPs. The whole purpose of caucus is to hear from the members,

00:07:49.080 listen to what they have to say. They tell you what their constituents think. What are you hearing

00:07:53.020 on the ground across the country? What are conservatives and voters saying to us? So going

00:07:58.640 into caucus, you would expect that he would have a different tune coming out of caucus because he would

00:08:03.160 be much wiser. He would have heard all this feedback from his MPs. He would understand what

00:08:08.620 people in different parts of the country were thinking. And perhaps he would have reflected on

00:08:12.700 that and had a different sort of answer. But instead, I'm going to show you a clip from his

00:08:17.580 press conference, which happened after caucus, after the meeting. So like I said, he didn't face any kind

00:08:21.940 of a leadership review. There was no revolt. There was nothing that we heard that said that it was

00:08:26.640 really bad. One MP that I spoke to said that this meeting was a lot calmer and a lot more united than

00:08:32.260 the 2019 caucus after the election, where I'm told it was really divisive. It was horrible.

00:08:40.140 There were knives coming out and people were just completely lashing out at Ben Leder.

00:08:45.860 Andrew Scheer, that didn't happen yesterday. It was calmer. The party is more united around

00:08:50.320 Aaron O'Toole at this moment. But still, presumably, he would have something different to say

00:08:55.100 after the press conference. This is a minute long clip where a reporter asks Aaron O'Toole

00:08:59.960 specifically, why did you lose the election? Why did you lose the election? And I want you

00:09:04.580 to pay close attention to what Aaron O'Toole says here.

00:09:07.080 You know, this morning, there were a number of MPs that we spoke to who said that they were upset

00:09:10.740 about how you manage the campaign and that the party actually lost seats. You're saying today

00:09:15.260 that you're taking responsibility and nobody is more disappointed than yourself. So in what way do

00:09:20.540 you think the party needs to change? What do you think went wrong in the last election? And what are you

00:09:25.720 going to be doing differently?

00:09:27.900 I am responsible. And I accept that responsibility. We fell short. When I had a plan for us to win the

00:09:34.460 confidence of more Canadians, we fell short. The simple reason for why that happened is Mr. Trudeau

00:09:39.400 used the pandemic to divide Canadians. We did not. Did we pay a price for it? Perhaps we did.

00:09:46.740 That's part of the review that Mr. Cummings will undertake to make sure that we can win the confidence

00:09:51.760 of Canadians, not by dividing them or scaring them, as Mr. Trudeau has, but by planning for the future of

00:09:57.660 this great country for all Canadians. And I invite Canadians that were close to voting for us a few

00:10:02.940 weeks ago. To stay tuned, the Conservative Party is going to fight for your interests in this

00:10:07.120 parliament.

00:10:07.880 So, so, so I really want to dissect what he says here. He says that he takes responsibility for the

00:10:13.280 loss, that he understands, and that at the end of the day, yes, he is responsible. So, so that's good.

00:10:17.620 He recognizes that. Then he transitioned. And he says that the simple, there's a simple reason,

00:10:23.260 everybody, there's a simple reason, a simple reason, one reason why the Conservatives lost the campaign.

00:10:29.160 And that is, what was it? Not that he ran a weak campaign. Not that he flip-flopped. Not that he,

00:10:34.920 we didn't really know what he stood for or who he was. Not that he tried to appeal too hard to left-wing

00:10:40.440 voters and ended up sacrificing Conservative voters. No, no, no. The simple reason, everybody,

00:10:45.860 the simple reason why Erin O'Toole lost the election was that the Liberal Party divided Canadians 0.99

00:10:52.800 and that he did not and that he paid a price for that. I'm just going to play this clip one more time,

00:10:57.020 this one part of it, because it's really, really remarkable. The simple reason for why that happened

00:11:01.680 is Mr. Trudeau used the pandemic to divide Canadians. We did not. Did we pay a price for it? Perhaps we

00:11:09.460 did. So what are we supposed to take away from this, that Erin O'Toole was too positive on the

00:11:14.800 campaign trail, that the Liberals went negative, that the Liberals were really being divisive,

00:11:20.360 and that that's why they won, because Canadians like that kind of thing. And that if the Conservatives

00:11:25.100 had been divisive as well, then they would have won. That's the simple reason. That's the simple

00:11:29.980 reason why the Liberals won, because Erin O'Toole took the Michelle Obama route where they go low 1.00

00:11:36.420 and we go high, and Canadians just didn't like that. And so they were awarded Justin Trudeau for going

00:11:40.420 low. I don't know if Erin O'Toole misspoke here, but that was a brutal answer to me. The whole idea

00:11:45.280 that the simple reason that you lost was because the Liberals were negative and Canadians like that.

00:11:50.840 No, that's not the simple reason that you lost Erin O'Toole. I've got news for you. The simple

00:11:55.240 reason that you lost is because you didn't run a very good campaign. So like I said, the general

00:12:01.060 mood among caucus, I'm told I wasn't there. Obviously, it was just behind closed doors for

00:12:06.320 members only, for Conservative members of Parliament only. But from what I hear talking to people who

00:12:10.500 are in the room, overall, people support Erin O'Toole. They want to give him another shot. But I want to

00:12:15.720 play a couple of interesting clips. The media were really hounding MPs walking into the door,

00:12:20.300 and so it was interesting to hear what they had to say, to see what they had to say. I want to play

00:12:25.500 a clip of Pierre Polyev. Everyone's looking at Polyev because it's no secret. He is incredibly

00:12:30.260 popular among the base. He's very strong. He's very well-spoken. He's great on social media,

00:12:35.080 and people like him. People think that maybe this guy is a leader in waiting, and so everybody is

00:12:40.860 trying to find out what is Pierre Polyev saying and doing. Is he gearing towards launching his own kind

00:12:46.060 of a campaign? So let's play this clip of Pierre walking into caucus because it's pretty amusing.

00:12:52.220 Do you support Mr. O'Toole's leader?

00:12:54.220 Of course. Why?

00:12:55.740 Because he's the legitimate leader of the party?

00:12:58.700 I already answered that. I said yes.

00:13:02.460 What do you think are some of the things the party needs to do differently to win in the next election?

00:13:05.580 We need to be the single strongest voice against the inflation tax. The single biggest issue going

00:13:12.780 forward in this country is the way that this government is driving up inflation by flooding the

00:13:18.060 economy with cheap cash. What that is doing is pricing young people out of housing, 0.60

00:13:23.180 seniors out of groceries, and Canadians out of the basic goods they need to survive.

00:13:28.620 That is the single most important issue. We are the only party that can tackle inflation,

00:13:34.140 get government spending under control, and secure the financial future of Canadians.

00:13:39.340 So again, the journalists are hounding him asking, do you support Aaron O'Toole as leader? He says,

00:13:44.300 yeah, of course. And they go, why? He says, because he's a legitimate leader of the party. I mean, I

00:13:49.260 think he's kind of making fun of the reporters here because it's such a stupid question. Like, 1.00

00:13:52.860 do you support the leader of the party? Yes. Why? Because he's the leader of the party. Like,

00:13:57.580 that's how party politics works. You could take your own interpretation from that. But what I found

00:14:02.620 amusing was that he sort of, Pierre said twice, yes, obviously, I support Aaron O'Toole. I support Aaron O'Toole.

00:14:07.740 And then they say, what needs to be done differently? And he kind of turns around,

00:14:11.100 and he launches this whole campaign tirade about inflation and how that needs to be the major

00:14:17.340 issue, which is something that we barely heard from Aaron O'Toole on the campaign trail. You know,

00:14:21.260 this is Pierre's issue. This is something that he owns that he's very, very knowledgeable about.

00:14:25.420 I had him on our show a couple of days before the election, just to talk about this issue,

00:14:29.180 because he knows more about it than anyone. And he's really strong on it. So here he's saying,

00:14:34.220 yes, it's for Aaron O'Toole. But then he kind of launches his own,

00:14:38.140 almost like a campaign speech, as if he were the one who was running for leader. And he gives a

00:14:42.540 compelling, powerful speech, which again, is why so many conservatives like him and would like to see

00:14:47.660 him. And another interesting interview was with Lesley Lewis. Now, Kian Beckstein, an independent

00:14:53.260 reporter, was in Ottawa. And I'll just read his tweet because it's right on the nose. He says,

00:14:58.220 for some reason, I was the only reporter to speak to Dr. Lesley Lewis on her way into caucus.

00:15:02.460 I asked her what she would do differently than O'Toole. She was leader, which, you know,

00:15:05.580 you saw the mob of people going after Pierre Polyev and all the journalists trying to ask him

00:15:10.940 questions. I'll show you in a minute what they all do with Shannon's subs. Again, you can see just a

00:15:15.820 huge crowd of reporters talking to Shannon because she's been outspoken in her criticism about Aaron

00:15:22.060 O'Toole. But here we have Lesley Lewis, who ran in a leadership race against Aaron O'Toole,

00:15:26.460 and she has just been elected as a new MP. So why was it that Kian Beckstein was the only reporter

00:15:31.580 who wanted to talk to her? It does seem pretty odd that there weren't more mainstream media

00:15:35.980 journalists who were interested in her because she's obviously another person who could potentially 0.74

00:15:41.100 be seen as waiting in the wings as leader of this party if Erin O'Toole were to step down or get 1.00

00:15:46.060 removed from caucus. So let's go to this clip of Kian Beckstein asking Dr. Lesley Lewis what she would

00:15:51.740 do differently than Erin O'Toole if she had been leader. I mean, federally, if you were leader,

00:15:56.140 would you have done anything different than Erin? Well, we're two different people. So our approaches

00:16:03.580 on certain issues are different. And I stand with the leader and his approach. And we have a lot to

00:16:10.780 learn and we'll move forward from there. But thank you for your time. Thank you. So while she does say

00:16:15.340 that she supports the leader, she also just makes that little tiny distinction saying that we are two

00:16:20.460 different people and our approaches on certain issues are different. So kind of, again, just

00:16:25.340 alluding that perhaps she would not have run as such a red Tory. You know, everyone knows that she

00:16:31.020 was much more of a populist, social conservative in the leadership race. So, so obviously she would 1.00

00:16:35.980 have taken the party in a different direction. So next, I want to go to this clip of Shannon Stubbs.

00:16:40.380 Shannon is a Alberta MP from rural Alberta, and she has been outspoken in her criticism of Erin O'Toole.

00:16:45.820 Like I said in the show a couple of days ago, there's three camps in the party.

00:16:48.940 Camp one are the people who just really support Erin O'Toole and want him on as leader.

00:16:52.700 Camp two are the people who are really mad, really angry that he sold out on conservative principles

00:16:57.260 and want him to have the same kind of treatment that Andrew Scheer was subject to.

00:17:00.860 And then the third camp is everyone else, most of caucus, who just want to not rock the boat.

00:17:06.860 They don't, they're not really sure whether they're going to support him or go against him

00:17:10.380 ultimately, but they don't really have a strong position. Shannon falls in that second category.

00:17:15.260 She's very outspoken and you can see how the media just flocked to her because she was speaking to

00:17:19.900 the media prior. They knew that she had this dissenting opinion and the media love conflict.

00:17:24.300 They love sort of stirring the pot. And so you can see how they just really want to amplify

00:17:28.700 what Shannon is saying. And so let's watch this clip.

00:17:31.820 Do you think that every MP that came in here today has said how happy they are that they gained votes in

00:17:36.940 St. John's and they gained votes in Ontario, but that came at the expense of 400,000 conservative voters

00:17:42.140 staying home in Alberta. Do you attribute that more to the leader or to the policy that the leader took?

00:17:46.860 So I'm a first generation Albertan. My mother was a Newfoundlander. My father was a Nova Scotian and

00:17:51.900 you know, not a, not a very uncommon story for Albertans. I don't think conservative members

00:17:57.340 should accept losing anywhere. So I am certainly glad I did a lot of work out in those regions

00:18:01.980 over the time that I've been elected. And I'm certainly glad that we have those new colleagues.

00:18:06.140 But yes, exactly. To your point, we lost, we still, we lost seats in the GTA. We lost seats in the metro

00:18:11.820 Vancouver area. We lost seats in both of the cities in Alberta. This shouldn't have to be an either

00:18:18.780 or a proposition. There's some conversation going on about this, the courage to change. That's one of

00:18:25.820 the things I'll be looking forward to hear more from the leader about. He said that on election night,

00:18:30.300 I don't quite know what that means. Um, and so I would say, I'm kind of getting to what I heard you ask.

00:18:36.700 I, I would say, um, we better hear about that today or real soon, because, um, if now what we're

00:18:45.420 talking about is changes of our policies, our values, our principles, then for me, that means it's even

00:18:52.220 more important for the members to be able to have a journey. And Shannon picked up on something really

00:18:57.180 important that Aaron tool has been saying. So good on Shannon for, for picking up on this and

00:19:01.660 questioning about it publicly, because he kept, he kept saying that the party needs to have the

00:19:05.340 courage to change. Uh, we don't know what that means. What, what do you mean the courage to change

00:19:09.180 the courage to change our convictions, the courage to change our ideas, the courage to become more like

00:19:14.140 liberals. I don't think that that is a very compelling thing to say to conservatives. I don't

00:19:18.220 think that that's what conservatives want. We don't want to change. We want to have someone who

00:19:22.700 reflects our principles and our values, uh, being elected and, and articulating, you know,

00:19:28.220 the, the, the, the vision for Canada, uh, that so many conservatives have. So ultimately yesterday,

00:19:33.420 most MPs, most of the conservative caucus supports Aaron O'Toole that the few clips I showed here,

00:19:38.140 the little bit of dissent, the little bit of contrarian thinking, um, is not the norm in the

00:19:42.140 party. These are the few people that stick out, but really most of caucus stands behind Aaron

00:19:47.180 O'Toole want to give him another chance. Uh, here are a few of his supporters saying just that.

00:19:52.060 How do you feel about his leadership? I know you support him. I also know that the people

00:19:57.580 that we represent want to see stability and unity, um, particularly during a time of economic and

00:20:03.260 health crisis in this country. And I know that our caucus is ready to work together, uh, for Canadians.

00:20:11.820 I've been a fan, a friend and a fan of Aaron for, for a while. And I, I've been lucky. I was in

00:20:16.300 Ottawa most of the time during the pandemic doing the, the fun job of questions for your coordinators.

00:20:20.220 I was lucky and got to work with them. And one thing I've said, and I think the campaign showed

00:20:24.140 as well, a lot of Canadians didn't know who he was at the beginning of the campaign. And I think he

00:20:28.540 proved himself very well during it. Okay. But how was the discussion though? Oh, absolutely fantastic.

00:20:32.780 We were a caucus. We were one big family. You know, you're not going to hear too much because

00:20:36.060 that's what we do in caucus. We stick together and we are a good family. We're coming out of here

00:20:39.740 ready to get back to court. So there you have it. There really wasn't a lot of news out of yesterday.

00:20:43.420 I know that the conservative MPs did vote in favor of the reform act, which could potentially

00:20:48.220 give them the power to oust Aaron O'Toole at a later date. But this is just a procedural

00:20:53.260 thing. It really didn't have anything to do with Aaron O'Toole. In fact, Aaron O'Toole

00:20:56.300 voted in favor of it. So it wasn't some people in the media are trying to sort of twist it to say

00:21:00.540 that this means that they want to get rid of Aaron O'Toole. No, it doesn't. It's something that the MPs

00:21:05.260 have been pushing for, for a long time to have more accountability and more democracy within

00:21:09.820 the party. So, so, so that was, that was sort of the takeaway, but I hope he does do some

00:21:13.740 reflection, perhaps not in front of the media, but behind closed doors. I hope that he reflects

00:21:17.500 and understands on the idea that Canadians do not want another liberal leader. They already have a

00:21:21.900 liberal leader. What they want is something different, a contrast. They want someone who can

00:21:25.740 stand up and defend conservative ideas and principles. And perhaps Aaron O'Toole can try to

00:21:31.100 be more like that in the future. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

Juno News - October 06, 2021

O’Toole blames Trudeau’s divisive campaign for CPC loss

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