Juno News - October 06, 2021O’Toole blames Trudeau’s divisive campaign for CPC loss
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Summary
Aaron O'Toole survives as leader of the Conservative Party, but he doubles down on a losing strategy and blames everyone but himself for the loss. Today's episode of The Candace Malan Show examines what went wrong with the Conservative leadership campaign, and why it's time for the party to move on.
Transcript
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Aaron O'Toole survives as leader of the Conservative Party, but he doubles down on a losing strategy
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and blames everyone but himself for the loss. I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
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Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. You probably saw the news that Aaron O'Toole
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survived the caucus meeting yesterday. It was the first caucus meeting since the election,
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since the disappointing election result for the Conservatives and the Conservative leader.
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There was some speculation that the party was going to dump Aaron O'Toole yesterday. They didn't do that.
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As I talk about on the show, there really isn't the appetite in the Conservative Party right now to
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have another leadership review, have another leadership race that could potentially divide
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the party even further. It isn't obvious that there's anyone else in the party that would be
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suitable for leader at this point. So a lot of MPs that I've been speaking to, a lot of Conservative
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insiders, are sort of just resigned to the fact that even though O'Toole didn't do a great job,
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even though there were a lot of problems with his campaign, better again to stick with the devil
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that you know than the devil that you don't know. And I think that there is so much uncertainty
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with a leadership race that it's probably a good strategy. If you're watching this video on YouTube
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right now, I'm going to ask you to please like this video. Go ahead and leave us a comment. Don't
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So do that if you're watching on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts. And don't forget to subscribe
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to The Candace Malcolm Show so that you never miss an episode. So I just want to quickly go back
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to talk about some of the predictions that we were seeing going into this meeting.
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David Akin, I talked about this on the show yesterday. He made this bizarre prediction
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talking to an insider. He said, here's a kicker about Tuesday's caucus meeting. Aaron O'Toole,
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an insider says, is looking to take a snap caucus vote on his leadership, a public vote. Stand up if
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you're with me. Stand up if you're against me, but behind closed doors. Interesting. So I brought this
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up yesterday because I said this isn't the case. It would have no validity. And if he were to do that,
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it would be quite the power move. But I couldn't, I couldn't imagine him doing that. Well, David Akin
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seems to have heard similarly because he quickly hedged his own prediction here. And he wrote this,
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other insiders say that such a vote would be procedurally impossible. So stay tuned,
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could have an exciting day of procedural back and forth. See, the idea that procedural back and
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forth is exciting. Only, only a journalist could, could say something like that. Well, of course,
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this just simply didn't happen. It was not, whoever was telling David Akin was, was mistaken. And this
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did not happen. There was no such vote. There was no such power move. Aaron O'Toole did not do this.
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So I just wanted to make note of that. But let's talk about what did happen. So yes, it was the first
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time that all of the conservative MPs got together in Ottawa. And it seemed like more or less, they had
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a united front around their guy, around Aaron O'Toole as leader. We heard a lot of MPs just voicing their
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support. But interestingly, there were a few sort of outliers. So we will get to those later in the
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show. But I want to first focus on Aaron O'Toole, focus on his understanding of what went wrong,
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the way that he is treating this loss. Because one of the things that he did emphasize, I think
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there's two important things that he emphasized. He has been talking about how they're going to do
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a really full postmortem of the campaign, look into what went wrong, really dissect the numbers,
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try to understand how the strategy failed, and where they can improve upon it. So that's a good
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sign. That's exactly what they should be doing after an election, after a disappointing election
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like this. But then he's also sort of doubling down on his rhetoric, on this idea that conservatives
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need to be more progressive, that the party needs to fundamentally change in order to win and appeal to
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a broader collection of Canadians. So first, I want to focus in on Aaron O'Toole, look at what he was
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saying yesterday, how he was communicating, and what lessons he's really taking away from this
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election. We've heard him say several times now that he's going to do a full review of the campaign,
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really dive into the numbers, try to understand the strategy, what went wrong, really hold the mirror
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up. And that's good. That's what we want to hear from a leader. We want him to acknowledge that the
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strategy that he took failed, that it didn't win over Canadians, that his calculation to move to the
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center, run as more of a liberal, try to hug Justin Trudeau on as many issues as possible, and really
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avoid any of the sort of pitfalls that the media and the liberals set up for conservatives. He did a
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decent job of not falling into those. But he ended up mirroring Justin Trudeau so closely that there just
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wasn't a compelling reason to vote for him because he didn't differentiate himself enough from the
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liberal party. So this is, I'm going to play first a clip of Aaron O'Toole walking into caucus meetings. So
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this is before he knew his fate as party leader. He probably had an idea that caucus supported him, but
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really anything could happen at a meeting like this. So this is what Aaron O'Toole looked like prior to
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caucus, and this is what he was saying. Let's play this clip.
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If the leader is not the problem, then what is the problem? Why is the message of the conservative
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party not resonating with Canadians? And what do you need to do moving forward to make sure that
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happens? Well, in an election in a pandemic, I know how you all know how much the election costs,
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so I won't get into that. But there were two parties that divided Canadians that misled Canadians
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that had very deceptive and quite frankly, alarming campaigns, Mr. Trudeau's and Mr. Bernier.
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We did not. We tried to respect people. We tried to encourage a vaccination level of 90%
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by working together, not by dividing people. So I think Mr. Trudeau, who's already let Canadians
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down again in his first 10 days, he has more lessons to learn than we do, but we're going to
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talk about our lessons today. So there you go. Justin Trudeau has more lessons to learn than we do.
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So Aaron O'Toole isn't really taking responsibility. He's saying that the reason that the conservatives
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didn't do very well was because what? Because he thought that the liberals were divisive and
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Maxim Bernier was divisive and they weren't. So again, blaming other people as opposed to himself
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and doubling down saying that Trudeau has more to learn from this election than he does. Well,
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I'm sorry, that's not true because Justin Trudeau is prime minister. So yes, we all wish that Justin
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Trudeau was a little bit more self-aware, a little bit more humble, showed more humility in his day-to-day
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life. But Justin Trudeau doesn't need to sit down and dissect what happened in the election because he
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won. He has the power. He's prime minister. He will likely be prime minister for the next four years,
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just given all the dynamics in Ottawa. So it is Aaron O'Toole who has to do the reflection,
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who has to learn the lessons. So the idea, again, that he's just sort of blaming Trudeau,
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walking into caucus there, that's a little disconcerting. And yes, we all like to see
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an opposition leader dunk on the prime minister, and that's part of the job. But really, today is a
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day, yesterday is a day, but as O'Toole was walking in, you know, it's a day that you reflect on
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your own party. You talk about the reasons that you lost. And I get the fact that you don't want
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to pour your heart out to the media. You don't really want to tell them the inner thinking of
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your party and your own strategy, even if he acknowledges that he ran too far to the left,
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that he made strategic mistakes in selling out conservative principles and values. I don't
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really expect him to say this to the media. But I wanted to show you this video to contrast it
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with the next video. So the first one was O'Toole walking into caucus before he had had
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an earful from all of the MPs. The whole purpose of caucus is to hear from the members,
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listen to what they have to say. They tell you what their constituents think. What are you hearing
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on the ground across the country? What are conservatives and voters saying to us? So going
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into caucus, you would expect that he would have a different tune coming out of caucus because he would
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be much wiser. He would have heard all this feedback from his MPs. He would understand what
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people in different parts of the country were thinking. And perhaps he would have reflected on
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that and had a different sort of answer. But instead, I'm going to show you a clip from his
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press conference, which happened after caucus, after the meeting. So like I said, he didn't face any kind
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of a leadership review. There was no revolt. There was nothing that we heard that said that it was
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really bad. One MP that I spoke to said that this meeting was a lot calmer and a lot more united than
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the 2019 caucus after the election, where I'm told it was really divisive. It was horrible.
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There were knives coming out and people were just completely lashing out at Ben Leder.
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Andrew Scheer, that didn't happen yesterday. It was calmer. The party is more united around
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Aaron O'Toole at this moment. But still, presumably, he would have something different to say
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after the press conference. This is a minute long clip where a reporter asks Aaron O'Toole
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specifically, why did you lose the election? Why did you lose the election? And I want you
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to pay close attention to what Aaron O'Toole says here.
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You know, this morning, there were a number of MPs that we spoke to who said that they were upset
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about how you manage the campaign and that the party actually lost seats. You're saying today
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that you're taking responsibility and nobody is more disappointed than yourself. So in what way do
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you think the party needs to change? What do you think went wrong in the last election? And what are you
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I am responsible. And I accept that responsibility. We fell short. When I had a plan for us to win the
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confidence of more Canadians, we fell short. The simple reason for why that happened is Mr. Trudeau
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used the pandemic to divide Canadians. We did not. Did we pay a price for it? Perhaps we did.
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That's part of the review that Mr. Cummings will undertake to make sure that we can win the confidence
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of Canadians, not by dividing them or scaring them, as Mr. Trudeau has, but by planning for the future of
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this great country for all Canadians. And I invite Canadians that were close to voting for us a few
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weeks ago. To stay tuned, the Conservative Party is going to fight for your interests in this
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So, so, so I really want to dissect what he says here. He says that he takes responsibility for the
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loss, that he understands, and that at the end of the day, yes, he is responsible. So, so that's good.
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He recognizes that. Then he transitioned. And he says that the simple, there's a simple reason,
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everybody, there's a simple reason, a simple reason, one reason why the Conservatives lost the campaign.
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And that is, what was it? Not that he ran a weak campaign. Not that he flip-flopped. Not that he,
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we didn't really know what he stood for or who he was. Not that he tried to appeal too hard to left-wing
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voters and ended up sacrificing Conservative voters. No, no, no. The simple reason, everybody,
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the simple reason why Erin O'Toole lost the election was that the Liberal Party divided Canadians
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and that he did not and that he paid a price for that. I'm just going to play this clip one more time,
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this one part of it, because it's really, really remarkable. The simple reason for why that happened
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is Mr. Trudeau used the pandemic to divide Canadians. We did not. Did we pay a price for it? Perhaps we
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did. So what are we supposed to take away from this, that Erin O'Toole was too positive on the
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campaign trail, that the Liberals went negative, that the Liberals were really being divisive,
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and that that's why they won, because Canadians like that kind of thing. And that if the Conservatives
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had been divisive as well, then they would have won. That's the simple reason. That's the simple
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reason why the Liberals won, because Erin O'Toole took the Michelle Obama route where they go low
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and we go high, and Canadians just didn't like that. And so they were awarded Justin Trudeau for going
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low. I don't know if Erin O'Toole misspoke here, but that was a brutal answer to me. The whole idea
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that the simple reason that you lost was because the Liberals were negative and Canadians like that.
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No, that's not the simple reason that you lost Erin O'Toole. I've got news for you. The simple
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reason that you lost is because you didn't run a very good campaign. So like I said, the general
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mood among caucus, I'm told I wasn't there. Obviously, it was just behind closed doors for
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members only, for Conservative members of Parliament only. But from what I hear talking to people who
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are in the room, overall, people support Erin O'Toole. They want to give him another shot. But I want to
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play a couple of interesting clips. The media were really hounding MPs walking into the door,
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and so it was interesting to hear what they had to say, to see what they had to say. I want to play
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a clip of Pierre Polyev. Everyone's looking at Polyev because it's no secret. He is incredibly
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popular among the base. He's very strong. He's very well-spoken. He's great on social media,
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and people like him. People think that maybe this guy is a leader in waiting, and so everybody is
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trying to find out what is Pierre Polyev saying and doing. Is he gearing towards launching his own kind
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of a campaign? So let's play this clip of Pierre walking into caucus because it's pretty amusing.
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Because he's the legitimate leader of the party?
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What do you think are some of the things the party needs to do differently to win in the next election?
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We need to be the single strongest voice against the inflation tax. The single biggest issue going
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forward in this country is the way that this government is driving up inflation by flooding the
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economy with cheap cash. What that is doing is pricing young people out of housing,
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seniors out of groceries, and Canadians out of the basic goods they need to survive.
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That is the single most important issue. We are the only party that can tackle inflation,
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get government spending under control, and secure the financial future of Canadians.
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So again, the journalists are hounding him asking, do you support Aaron O'Toole as leader? He says,
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yeah, of course. And they go, why? He says, because he's a legitimate leader of the party. I mean, I
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think he's kind of making fun of the reporters here because it's such a stupid question. Like,
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do you support the leader of the party? Yes. Why? Because he's the leader of the party. Like,
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that's how party politics works. You could take your own interpretation from that. But what I found
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amusing was that he sort of, Pierre said twice, yes, obviously, I support Aaron O'Toole. I support Aaron O'Toole.
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And then they say, what needs to be done differently? And he kind of turns around,
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and he launches this whole campaign tirade about inflation and how that needs to be the major
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issue, which is something that we barely heard from Aaron O'Toole on the campaign trail. You know,
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this is Pierre's issue. This is something that he owns that he's very, very knowledgeable about.
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I had him on our show a couple of days before the election, just to talk about this issue,
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because he knows more about it than anyone. And he's really strong on it. So here he's saying,
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yes, it's for Aaron O'Toole. But then he kind of launches his own,
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almost like a campaign speech, as if he were the one who was running for leader. And he gives a
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compelling, powerful speech, which again, is why so many conservatives like him and would like to see
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him. And another interesting interview was with Lesley Lewis. Now, Kian Beckstein, an independent
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reporter, was in Ottawa. And I'll just read his tweet because it's right on the nose. He says,
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for some reason, I was the only reporter to speak to Dr. Lesley Lewis on her way into caucus.
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I asked her what she would do differently than O'Toole. She was leader, which, you know,
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you saw the mob of people going after Pierre Polyev and all the journalists trying to ask him
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questions. I'll show you in a minute what they all do with Shannon's subs. Again, you can see just a
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huge crowd of reporters talking to Shannon because she's been outspoken in her criticism about Aaron
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O'Toole. But here we have Lesley Lewis, who ran in a leadership race against Aaron O'Toole,
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and she has just been elected as a new MP. So why was it that Kian Beckstein was the only reporter
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who wanted to talk to her? It does seem pretty odd that there weren't more mainstream media
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journalists who were interested in her because she's obviously another person who could potentially
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be seen as waiting in the wings as leader of this party if Erin O'Toole were to step down or get
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removed from caucus. So let's go to this clip of Kian Beckstein asking Dr. Lesley Lewis what she would
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do differently than Erin O'Toole if she had been leader. I mean, federally, if you were leader,
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would you have done anything different than Erin? Well, we're two different people. So our approaches
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on certain issues are different. And I stand with the leader and his approach. And we have a lot to
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learn and we'll move forward from there. But thank you for your time. Thank you. So while she does say
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that she supports the leader, she also just makes that little tiny distinction saying that we are two
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different people and our approaches on certain issues are different. So kind of, again, just
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alluding that perhaps she would not have run as such a red Tory. You know, everyone knows that she
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was much more of a populist, social conservative in the leadership race. So, so obviously she would
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have taken the party in a different direction. So next, I want to go to this clip of Shannon Stubbs.
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Shannon is a Alberta MP from rural Alberta, and she has been outspoken in her criticism of Erin O'Toole.
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Like I said in the show a couple of days ago, there's three camps in the party.
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Camp one are the people who just really support Erin O'Toole and want him on as leader.
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Camp two are the people who are really mad, really angry that he sold out on conservative principles
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and want him to have the same kind of treatment that Andrew Scheer was subject to.
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And then the third camp is everyone else, most of caucus, who just want to not rock the boat.
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They don't, they're not really sure whether they're going to support him or go against him
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ultimately, but they don't really have a strong position. Shannon falls in that second category.
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She's very outspoken and you can see how the media just flocked to her because she was speaking to
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the media prior. They knew that she had this dissenting opinion and the media love conflict.
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They love sort of stirring the pot. And so you can see how they just really want to amplify
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what Shannon is saying. And so let's watch this clip.
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Do you think that every MP that came in here today has said how happy they are that they gained votes in
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St. John's and they gained votes in Ontario, but that came at the expense of 400,000 conservative voters
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staying home in Alberta. Do you attribute that more to the leader or to the policy that the leader took?
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So I'm a first generation Albertan. My mother was a Newfoundlander. My father was a Nova Scotian and
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you know, not a, not a very uncommon story for Albertans. I don't think conservative members
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should accept losing anywhere. So I am certainly glad I did a lot of work out in those regions
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over the time that I've been elected. And I'm certainly glad that we have those new colleagues.
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But yes, exactly. To your point, we lost, we still, we lost seats in the GTA. We lost seats in the metro
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Vancouver area. We lost seats in both of the cities in Alberta. This shouldn't have to be an either
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or a proposition. There's some conversation going on about this, the courage to change. That's one of
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the things I'll be looking forward to hear more from the leader about. He said that on election night,
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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.
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I, I would say, um, we better hear about that today or real soon, because, um, if now what we're
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talking about is changes of our policies, our values, our principles, then for me, that means it's even
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more important for the members to be able to have a journey. And Shannon picked up on something really
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important that Aaron tool has been saying. So good on Shannon for, for picking up on this and
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questioning about it publicly, because he kept, he kept saying that the party needs to have the
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courage to change. Uh, we don't know what that means. What, what do you mean the courage to change
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the courage to change our convictions, the courage to change our ideas, the courage to become more like
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liberals. I don't think that that is a very compelling thing to say to conservatives. I don't
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think that that's what conservatives want. We don't want to change. We want to have someone who
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reflects our principles and our values, uh, being elected and, and articulating, you know,
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the, the, the, the vision for Canada, uh, that so many conservatives have. So ultimately yesterday,
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most MPs, most of the conservative caucus supports Aaron O'Toole that the few clips I showed here,
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the little bit of dissent, the little bit of contrarian thinking, um, is not the norm in the
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party. These are the few people that stick out, but really most of caucus stands behind Aaron
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O'Toole want to give him another chance. Uh, here are a few of his supporters saying just that.
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How do you feel about his leadership? I know you support him. I also know that the people
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that we represent want to see stability and unity, um, particularly during a time of economic and
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health crisis in this country. And I know that our caucus is ready to work together, uh, for Canadians.
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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
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Ottawa most of the time during the pandemic doing the, the fun job of questions for your coordinators.
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I was lucky and got to work with them. And one thing I've said, and I think the campaign showed
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as well, a lot of Canadians didn't know who he was at the beginning of the campaign. And I think he
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proved himself very well during it. Okay. But how was the discussion though? Oh, absolutely fantastic.
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We were a caucus. We were one big family. You know, you're not going to hear too much because
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that's what we do in caucus. We stick together and we are a good family. We're coming out of here
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ready to get back to court. So there you have it. There really wasn't a lot of news out of yesterday.
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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.