Juno News - October 18, 2021


What's going to happen to Erin O'Toole？


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

210.29573

Word Count

896

Sentence Count

42


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I know I can usually be trusted to have a pretty strong opinion on the big issues of the day that
00:00:09.420 everyone's debating, but I have a confession to make that when it comes to one big issue that a
00:00:14.520 whole lot of people have had strong opinions on, I'm kind of agnostic on it. I find the discussion
00:00:19.860 actually a bit of a snore. And what is that question? It's the question of Aaron O'Toole's
00:00:25.180 leadership. Should he stay or should he go? What do you mean, Fury? How can you be neutral on that
00:00:30.800 question? How can you not care about it? It's such a big question. It's who's going to be next
00:00:34.580 conservative leader? Will O'Toole stay as leader? Who's going to unseat Justin Trudeau? Who can be
00:00:38.840 the next prime minister of this great G7 nation of ours? Yeah, of course, definitely. I get all of
00:00:43.820 that. But here's why I find the issue a bit of a snooze. It's because I believe it works itself out
00:00:52.360 on its own in the long run. What do I mean by that? Well, right now, or at least in the immediate
00:00:58.160 aftermath of the election, there's a lot of urgency to get him out, push him out, get him out. We got
00:01:02.260 to get a new leadership review in. But I think that when political parties really all across the
00:01:07.000 Western world, because the Canadian Conservative Party is not unique to it, put a mechanism in place
00:01:11.640 that by default means that when a leader loses an election, they must face a review. I think that's a
00:01:17.340 really good thing. I think that should happen every single time. So Aaron O'Toole is going to face a
00:01:21.920 review. Although I appreciate that some people are frustrated because that review may not come
00:01:25.560 around for quite some time, over 12 months from now, and they believe that's not a sufficient
00:01:30.420 time period. Okay, point taken. Then there is the Reform Act that was introduced that allows caucus
00:01:35.100 to go and trigger a leadership review. And I support that being in place. And I think that's a great
00:01:39.640 mechanism that they have. But then Aaron O'Toole, he is actually facing the challenge then of having to
00:01:45.840 prove to his own caucus right now as to why he should remain leader. And he's going to have to
00:01:52.660 do that every day. Everything he does, every interaction he has with staff, every interaction
00:01:57.920 that he has with caucus members, it is still basically re-auditioning for the post. Because
00:02:04.400 of course he knows that he did not win and that there are people out there who are now asking this
00:02:08.160 question. So already O'Toole, by everything he says and does, he is actually doing something of a
00:02:15.140 leadership review. And if more formal mechanisms are triggered, I think that's a good thing. Because
00:02:19.760 let's be honest, if he can't corral the trust of his own party, of the supporters, of the grassroots,
00:02:26.040 of the caucus, and so forth, well, then of course he cannot actually get the votes of the entire nation.
00:02:32.340 So he's got to get the trust of the party. But right now he has to reach out to people. So formal
00:02:37.680 mechanism or informal, I mean, that's what he's going to be doing. He has to be building that trust,
00:02:42.740 continuing to build the base. And we're going to see as the months go by whether or not he has
00:02:48.800 actually been successful in doing all of that. And I think the process, it does end up sorting
00:02:54.200 itself out. Now, I agree with all of those people who have pointed out that he was a little bit too
00:02:58.720 liberal light. And what you want is you want the contrast from Justin Trudeau. You don't want what's
00:03:03.360 similar about the guy. You want what's the added value offer of the other person. So I did find it
00:03:09.620 odd that the Conservatives felt the need to run towards a carbon tax rather than present an
00:03:13.940 alternative to a carbon tax and fight the good fight as to why, hey guys, maybe we don't actually
00:03:18.700 need a carbon tax in Canada, rather than just trying to trick people into thinking, oh, we have a sort of
00:03:23.820 better form of carbon pricing than Justin Trudeau. So there are a lot of examples of why I think Aaron
00:03:29.220 O'Toole could have done a better job. But at the same time, let's not forget that the Conservatives
00:03:33.380 once again won the popular vote. It's not like all is lost and the party did not suffer some massive
00:03:39.580 defeat as some people predicted it might have done. So as to the Aaron O'Toole leadership question,
00:03:45.420 could he turn around like Stephen Harper and have lost one election and then come back, win the next
00:03:50.180 one and being enduring prime minister for a full decade? Yes, I think Aaron O'Toole could do that.
00:03:55.160 Or could we find that he's not actually able to corral support even in the months ahead,
00:03:59.980 and he does not remain as the leader going into the next election? I think any of that
00:04:04.580 is possible moving forward, and I think it's going to sort itself out and work itself out
00:04:10.020 in the weeks and the months ahead, and that that too is going to be democracy in action.