00:02:16.840And he was successful in that leadership review.
00:02:19.480Andrew Scheer would have faced the same sort of leadership review after the 2019 election loss.
00:02:25.480But he had decided to step down as leader prior to that.
00:02:28.660So this is the normal course is around six months, not two years.
00:02:33.680So that's all I'm asking is that, especially because not only do we need to have the members heard on Mr. O'Toole's leadership
00:02:41.120and their confidence in that, but also election night, Aaron O'Toole said that our members needed to have the courage to change.
00:02:49.500And so if after all of those dramatic policy reversal we've already seen, including carbon tax and guns and conscience rights, things like that,
00:02:59.120if we're only just starting to go down the road of increased number of dramatic policy reversals,
00:03:05.520the members need to buy into that and have a say on what they think about that.
00:03:10.900I know that in 2019, after that loss for the Conservatives, you were very much, if I recall, wanting Andrew Scheer to have the benefit of a bit more time.
00:03:22.880Why is it different now with Aaron O'Toole?
00:04:16.020We lost some of those very hard fought seats in the GTA, which he had contended that his policy flip-flops would lead us to win more in the GTA.
00:04:25.520Instead, what we saw was losses there in Alberta, in Edmonton, in Calgary, in the Vancouver suburbs.
00:04:32.500So these urban and suburban seats that Mr. O'Toole was saying that these types of more centrist policies would help us win, we lost by all of those measures.
00:04:44.840Well, I think your petition touches on something very important here, which is that, you know, a lot of people will overlook a lot of things if you win.
00:04:53.240So the idea of the appeals to Quebec, the moderation of policy, if that had been a gamble that paid off, I think some people might be a lot more forgiving of it.
00:05:02.600But when you do that and it doesn't work, you're like, well, what was it all for?
00:05:09.500And also, I mean, I actually come from the PC side of the party, so I'm not adverse to centrist policies.
00:05:16.600But the key is that they have to be presented with integrity and consistency and the support and buy-in of your members.
00:05:24.840Because if you don't have that, then you have no way to present yourself with credibility to the voters of Canada, which is the main thing that we need to do here.
00:05:35.360And if the members had decided, okay, yes, we're going to moderate on this element or this element, that's fine.
00:05:42.440In fact, our last policy convention happened only in March.
00:05:46.560And at that time, we still had and we still do now have a policy platform in our Conservative Party platform that is anti-carbon tax.
00:05:56.140Yet, then the very next month in April, Mr. O'Toole did the 180-degree shift on carbon tax and without the buy-in of our members or caucus, what we had then was we ran an election campaign just this summer based on a carbon tax.
00:06:13.960And, you know, despite the fact that we ran on that, some people might say, well, you know, you should have tried some more centrist policies.
00:06:21.260Well, we had a carbon tax and that did not get us seats in the GTA or Vancouver suburbs.
00:06:26.660In fact, it actually, our election losses were magnified in those particular areas.
00:06:32.840I know in last year's leadership race, you were a supporter of Peter McKay.
00:06:38.300Is there a successor you have in mind for this, either Peter McKay or someone else, or is your imminent goal just Aaron O'Toole has to go?
00:06:47.000My imminent goal is giving the members a say in whether the members have continued confidence right now in Mr. O'Toole's leadership, but more importantly, in this future direction of the party.
00:06:58.860Because when he says courage to change, what else is coming? We need to know that.
00:07:03.220And the members who are the real bosses of the Conservative Party, they are the ones that need to have a say in that and indicate that they're fine with it.
00:07:10.640And I am someone who, I'm just one voice in this whole process.
00:07:15.900The members who were, there is potentially hundreds of thousands of them across the country, we've already seen extremely good support for people signing our petition.
00:07:23.720And of course, you need to be a member to sign it.
00:07:25.860If you've let your membership lapse in the recent past, you can renew it and then sign the petition if you just want to have a say.
00:07:34.580And perhaps the members will decide that, no, we're fine with this.
00:07:38.220We disagree with you, Senator Batters.
00:07:42.720Let's talk about who should have that say, because I think you've been very clear it is, in fact, the members, and that should be the cornerstone of a grassroots party.
00:07:50.360In her video responding to your petition, Michelle Ramble-Garner, a Conservative MP, has said that this should just be had out in caucus, not in this broader scale.
00:08:02.780Well, I think the members always need to have a say.
00:08:05.420And that's certainly what I'm hearing from many of my caucus colleagues, as well as former MPs and that sort of thing.
00:08:13.700And EDA presidents, EDA members and volunteers from across the country, they want to have a say.
00:08:21.660And I don't think that it's simply something.
00:08:24.220I mean, the caucus avenue, as caucus voted to give itself the right to review Mr. O'Toole's leadership, if caucus chose to do that, that's one avenue.
00:08:33.720However, to sideline the membership of the party is not a good thing to happen.
00:08:39.720We need to let them have a voice in this whole process, and then they can decide whether this is acceptable to them or not.
00:08:47.560I don't want to get into a big debate about the ins and outs of the Conservative Party of Canada constitution, because I think you and I will both be asleep, as will most of our viewers here.
00:08:56.680But I will say just for a moment that Conservative President Robert Bathurston has said that this is not a valid or constitutional mechanism for reviewing the leadership that you're putting forward.
00:09:07.380And I think that, as I said earlier on the show, a plain text reading of the Constitution suggests you can have a referendum on anything.
00:09:13.940And if Aaron O'Toole looked at those results and didn't feel he had a mandate, he would have to step down.
00:09:19.120And it doesn't need to be binding for it to be effective.
00:09:21.500But if the Conservative Party doesn't have that referendum, if the Conservative Party does what it sounds like Robert Bathurston is doing here and saying that this is not a legitimate petition, how far are you prepared to go?
00:09:35.540Already, as of when I checked earlier today, 1,800 people had already signed the petition.
00:09:42.240So if we have a situation where we have thousands of Conservative Party members signing this, wanting this voice, and the party brass rules it out of order, that will not be acceptable to the members.
00:10:02.880He refers to particular parts of the Constitution that deal just with leadership selection process and says that this is not my referendum request is not allowed because it doesn't comply with the requirements for that.
00:10:15.900But I'm not asking that this be a leadership selection process initiated.
00:10:20.340I'm simply asking that the members, that the party conduct a referendum of the members in order to be able to, for them to be able to decide whether there should be a confidence vote in Aaron O'Toole's continued leadership.
00:10:32.040That's all I'm asking for is a question being put to the members.
00:10:36.240And as you rightly point out, Andrew, there is no indication in the Constitution anywhere that these types of referendums are limited by any particular matter.
00:11:25.200But I really think that, you know, the members need to have the say right now.
00:11:29.140And I know that there will be a number of people, both, I'm sure, current caucus colleagues, although, you know, there definitely are those who have fears about repercussions from leadership.
00:11:41.660And so that's why perhaps I'm the one who's making, you know, has launched this petition right now.
00:11:47.820But I know that there are already, yesterday, we saw many people coming out in support of this.
00:11:53.140I know there will be more people, both current and former caucus members, who agree with this.
00:11:58.280But also, very importantly, across the country, members from across the country have been hearing from people from all across the country.
00:12:05.420And this just echoes what I heard when I doorknocked in all three Regina writings in the last campaign and what my caucus colleagues were also hearing from their constituents in many other parts of the country.
00:12:18.120It's not just a Western Canadian thing.
00:12:20.280People have these concerns, as I'm sure you've been hearing as well, that we want to make sure also that if we're part of this type of a conservative party, I mean, power without principles is meaningless.
00:12:33.840And power without principles is the current Trudeau government, and no conservative wants that.
00:12:39.500So we want to make sure that we actually have a party that is adhering to our principles, that the members have agreed to, and that very delicate balance that was crafted when the conservative party was merged stays intact.
00:12:52.440Just one final question, if I may, Senator.
00:12:57.020You were, as you mentioned earlier, from the PC tradition and the PC lineage of the party.
00:13:02.200A lot of other critics of Aaron O'Toole right now that I'm seeing are from the blue Tory side of things, a lot of pro-life and social conservative members.
00:13:10.820Do you think there's going to be a clash in what needs to come next if Aaron O'Toole's leadership is being challenged from really both sides of the party?
00:13:18.680Well, what I've been hearing is people who are signing this petition and who want this review to take place in this referendum to occur from all people who supported all of the candidates in the last leadership race.
00:13:33.120So it's not simply one part of the party, as you point out, or another, and, you know, including people who supported Mr. O'Toole.
00:13:40.580And I think that that well could be because they may feel especially betrayed because they supported him as a true blue conservative.
00:13:49.260And yet then only, you know, one year later, after he ran in that leadership race, he was campaigning in an election in a way that, from my point of view, was much too similar to what the Liberals were campaigning on.
00:14:04.760So we need to make sure that what we have in place here with the very core conservative principles that we have, that needs to be respected.
00:14:15.220And the member's voice needs to be respected.
00:14:18.880Senator Denise Batters, the petition is at membersvote.ca.
00:14:23.080Senator, thanks very much for your time today.
00:14:25.180Thank you, Andrew. Really appreciate it.
00:14:26.980And look forward to seeing how many more people sign up.
00:14:30.460Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:14:32.640Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.