Juno News - December 13, 2019


The Candice Malcolm Show： Andrew Scheer resigns as Conservative leader


Episode Stats

Length

9 minutes

Words per Minute

170.65205

Word Count

1,620

Sentence Count

117


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 We're live, Candice Malcolm here with True North and we've got breaking news. Andrew Scheer,
00:00:10.680 leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, has resigned. He is no longer going to be leader once
00:00:17.640 they select a new leader. This is coming out of a meeting that Andrew Scheer had with the
00:00:22.560 Conservative Caucus this morning in Ottawa. So lots to break down, decided to go live. I just
00:00:29.080 finished actually recording my podcast for the day. So that's going to come out a little later.
00:00:33.840 It's going to be a little dated because of this huge bombshell news. And honestly, I'm surprised.
00:00:40.160 I'm surprised because it seemed like Andrew Scheer was just starting to fight back. He had a little
00:00:46.380 bit of sign of life, like he actually wanted to lead the Conservative Party. I guess not. I guess
00:00:52.680 he's had enough. He doesn't want to fight back. And so that's that. Let's go through what we know
00:01:00.380 so far. So Brian Lilly over at the Toronto Sun tweeted about half an hour, breaking from a top
00:01:08.900 Conservative source. Andrew Scheer will resign as leader once a new leader is selected by the party.
00:01:14.060 Details to come. That came at 11.37 Eastern time this morning. And then shortly thereafter,
00:01:19.940 the Globe and Mail, Robert Fyfe over at the Globe and Mail posted that Andrew Scheer resigns as
00:01:26.640 Conservative leader. The Globe and Mail says, Andrew Scheer has decided to resign as Conservative
00:01:30.900 leader after a disappointing election loss facing internal party divisions over his ability to lead
00:01:37.080 the party's sources say. Mr. Scheer called a special caucus meeting Thursday morning where he announced
00:01:42.140 he was stepping down. The decision comes after former Conservative Cabinet Minister John Baird tabled a
00:01:47.720 highly critical report of the party's election campaign to Mr. Scheer's office on Wednesday.
00:01:52.960 So Globe and Mail is saying that it is because of a disappointing election loss. John Baird, who was a
00:01:58.720 former foreign minister under Stephen Harper, tabled a report that was critical of Scheer. And so the
00:02:07.140 Globe and Mail is reporting that it is over Scheer's election results, which to be honest, I wouldn't say
00:02:14.020 that it was, you know, the desired outcome of most Conservatives in this country, but it wasn't that
00:02:19.500 bad. It wasn't that bad. So that's what the Globe and Mail is reporting. Now, Global News, Mercedes
00:02:24.540 Stevenson and Amanda Connolly over at Global News are pointing to something totally different,
00:02:31.540 something totally different, which is that Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer to resign imminently
00:02:37.340 over a scandal. His resignation comes as a direct result of new revelations that he was using
00:02:43.300 Conservative Party money to pay for his children's private schooling. Private school. So he was paying
00:02:50.240 for his children to go to private school using party funds, according to Global. Senior Conservatives
00:02:57.520 say the expenditures were made without knowledge or approval of the Conservative Fund board, including
00:03:03.620 the chair of the board. So that is a pretty serious allegation over there at Global, if true, that Andrew Scheer
00:03:11.960 was using party resources improperly. And if that is the case, wow, he absolutely needs to go. He probably needs to
00:03:19.840 step down as MP as well. So pretty, pretty huge news out of Ottawa today. Still putting pieces together. This is
00:03:30.060 breaking news. So we don't have anything confirmed. Just a bunch of news stories, Global News, Globe and Mail
00:03:37.400 and the Toronto Sun are all reporting that Andrew Scheer has stepped down. And so, you know, it's kind of
00:03:44.460 too bad. I've sort of been one of the people who's been defending Scheer lately, because I think that the
00:03:50.840 Conservatives are better united. I think he ran a decent campaign. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't as bad
00:03:56.220 as it could have been. And I think he had potential to grow. But there was really a seeming, it was
00:04:01.620 apparent that Andrew Scheer didn't really want the job. He was not really fighting back, you know,
00:04:07.620 throughout the campaign, there was a lot of media criticism against him. And he didn't really fight
00:04:13.780 back. He didn't really fight back. He didn't punch back in the way that a lot of Conservatives would
00:04:18.160 have wanted to. He didn't answer the questions as clearly, you know, the media were obsessed with the
00:04:22.600 issue of his personal, social, conservative Catholic values. And he didn't really stand up
00:04:28.360 and articulate those values and how they would differentiate, you know, from his personal life
00:04:33.100 to his role as a, you know, someone governing the country. And then when there appeared to be
00:04:39.240 fractions within the party, you know, there was a couple of different movements from Conservative
00:04:42.680 factions saying, you know, Scheer's got to resign. It's time for Scheer to go. We didn't really see him
00:04:47.040 stand up and punch back. And I think that really showed that, to me, it showed that Andrew Scheer just
00:04:52.460 didn't want the job. He didn't want the job. He wasn't willing to, you know, make those speeches
00:04:58.620 to unite Conservatives together under one tent. He wasn't, you know, willing to take a stand and stand
00:05:07.200 up to people who were criticizing him. And I spoke to an MP. We, you know, off the record, but I spoke
00:05:15.380 to an MP who told me that Andrew Scheer hadn't even made phone calls to all of caucus. So typically,
00:05:21.380 you know, after something like big, like an election, the leader of the party will pick up
00:05:25.020 the phone and call every MP that got elected and, you know, have a call to bring them all together.
00:05:30.540 Apparently, Andrew Scheer hadn't even done that. He hadn't even phoned his entire caucus after the
00:05:34.520 election, you know, to welcome new MPs and to talk to existing MPs about what his strategy was. So
00:05:39.700 again, it kind of seemed like he didn't really want the job. And if these spending allegations are
00:05:44.560 true, that is a big, big scandal. And, you know, that's totally unacceptable, totally unacceptable to
00:05:52.680 be using party funds, obviously, to pay for a personal expenditure like your children's private
00:05:57.740 school. So don't have much more, you know, information at the time. I'm not exactly sure
00:06:04.200 what will happen. It seems like Scheer will stay on until a new leader is selected. Conservatives will
00:06:10.220 have to, again, basically start from scratch with a leadership selection. It puts them in a pretty
00:06:15.640 vulnerable situation, given that there is a minority parliament. If I were the Liberals,
00:06:21.400 now wouldn't be a terrible time to call another snap election because the Conservative Party is in
00:06:27.400 disarray. Voters are going to see that. And they're going to, you know, wonder how could you
00:06:35.680 possibly put your vote behind a Conservative. So it could potentially give the Liberals an
00:06:40.800 opportunity to get a majority, you know, starting a leadership race. It's a, it's a, it's a, you know,
00:06:48.920 a big undertaking. And it's not like there's really a leader in waiting. It's not like there is a person
00:06:56.700 who, you know, is obvious to people in conservative circles, you know, that person should be the leader.
00:07:01.180 That was part of my concern as well with all the criticism of Scheer and people calling for Scheer
00:07:05.720 to step down. It's hard to imagine who, who would really step in. Someone on Periscope is saying
00:07:12.080 only Maxime. Well, Maxime Bernier is a very polarizing individual within the Conservative
00:07:17.520 Party. I mean, his electoral outcome, you know, wasn't exactly strong. And I think that was because
00:07:25.120 a lot of Conservatives just didn't want the party to be split. They didn't want to lend their vote to
00:07:29.880 another party. And so yeah, Maxime Bernier did the strongest after the last leadership, especially
00:07:37.160 on the first ballot. But, you know, I can't imagine him, him coming, being welcomed back into the party
00:07:43.340 and taking it over. And, you know, I don't, I have no idea. I don't know if it's going to be the same
00:07:49.140 crop of individuals who ran last time against Sanders Scheer are going to run again. Someone else
00:07:54.460 on Periscope is saying, how about Ronna Ambrose? I like Ronna. She's a strong Alberta voice.
00:08:02.020 Although I will say on election night, it was kind of painful to watch her basically apologizing
00:08:08.220 for being a Conservative and bashing other Conservatives. Oops, looks like we lost our feed
00:08:14.620 over on Facebook. But I'll continue for Periscope. Again, yeah, I can't, I can't imagine. I don't know
00:08:22.180 who it's going to be. And I, and I worry that whoever it is will be polarizing in a different
00:08:26.580 way. You know, if it's someone from, you know, people talk about perhaps Peter McKay. Peter McKay
00:08:33.300 is not exactly well liked in the Western part of the country. And I worry about, again, the party
00:08:40.020 splitting up. So again, to recap, Andrew Scheer has resigned. The Globe and Mail is reporting that it's
00:08:46.140 over his election loss and a report that John Baird tabled to his office on Wednesday that talked
00:08:52.060 about how bad the election was. The Global News is reporting that it's over a scandal involving
00:08:58.060 Andrew Scheer using party funds to pay for his children's private school. You know, my own reporting
00:09:05.180 shows that Andrew Scheer just really didn't want the job. He wasn't willing to fight back. He hadn't even
00:09:10.140 bothered to phone all of caucus after he was elected. And yeah, he just wasn't, didn't, didn't have the
00:09:17.020 fire, didn't have what it takes to fight and win. So I'm going to leave it at that. We will continue
00:09:22.540 to update you with more as it comes. Check on, check out tnc.news for the latest.