Juno News - October 23, 2019


Will Andrew Scheer resign as CPC Leader？


Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

189.41273

Word count

1,145

Sentence count

55


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Andrew Scheer announces he will not be stepping down as Conservative Party Leader. What does this mean for the future of the party and the country under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau? Why did the Tories win the election and what does that mean for Andrew Scheer?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I'm here at the Delta Regina, day after the election, the day after Justin Trudeau was
00:00:13.320 brought down to a minority and the Conservatives increased their vote share by about 20%.
00:00:18.060 One of the big questions that I've been asking people, that people have been asking me,
00:00:22.220 will Andrew Scheer resign as leader? He made it official the day after the election. He's
00:00:27.540 not going anywhere. He's remaining as the leader of the Conservatives and he says there's a lot of
00:00:31.720 work to do, not just to hold Justin Trudeau to account, but to make sure that the Conservative
00:00:35.920 Party is ready to take him on in the next election. And Andrew Scheer says he's planning to be the
00:00:40.940 leader when that happens. Now the interesting thing is that the Conservatives no doubt had
00:00:46.260 success in many parts of the country. They increased their vote share in the West, they increased their
00:00:51.540 vote share in all regions in fact, and Justin Trudeau decreased his in all regions. But still
00:00:57.120 the question that a lot of people on the right are asking is, did this campaign do the best job at
00:01:01.840 selling its message, and did it have the best message for Canadians? And this is the one thing
00:01:07.440 that I was asking people at the election night party for the Conservatives. Where does Andrew Scheer
00:01:12.520 go from here? Now obviously this is in his home turf, the party was held in his riding of Regina
00:01:18.180 Capel, but there was a lot of enthusiasm, not just for the Conservatives showing, but specifically
00:01:23.280 for Andrew Scheer's role in it. And I want to show you some of those responses that people gave when I
00:01:29.600 asked about whether Andrew Scheer should stay on. You know what, he won the, I think he won the popular
00:01:36.000 vote, right? So that speaks volumes. I think that, you know, everyone just has to take a look at the
00:01:44.000 data. You know, it's obviously his decision. I would support him if he wants to stay on, of course.
00:01:50.620 Andrew is absolutely the best leader that's ever been around for some time, and for sure he should
00:01:58.280 absolutely stay on, there's no doubt about it. I would really encourage Andrew to stay where he's at,
00:02:03.860 because I feel as a Canadian, us and our children and our grandchildren, we need to stand on people
00:02:10.660 that have moral compass. I think it's time for him to stay on as leader, but I sincerely think he
00:02:16.620 needs to have some, a new reinvigoration. He's, you know, always smiling, he's always so happy,
00:02:23.800 we know that, and that's one of the things I love about him. But on the grand scale of all things,
00:02:28.720 in the world stage, this man needs to be a little bit more forceful, I think, to be taken seriously.
00:02:35.860 And right now, Andrew Scheer's politics, his values, and his path forward is what's right for me,
00:02:41.320 my family, and personally, I think what's right for Canada. Now, obviously, these people were very
00:02:46.040 pleased, or will be, with what Andrew Scheer had to say himself when he was asked by reporters the
00:02:51.220 following morning. Here's what Andrew Scheer said.
00:02:53.320 Yes, I am staying as leader of the party. We obviously are very happy with the many aspects
00:02:59.280 of the campaign. We obviously wish we had better results, but we point to the fact that we won the
00:03:05.120 popular vote, a million more votes for our party last night than ever before, and we have the
00:03:11.040 strongest opposition in Canadian history. So this was the first step in a process to replace Justin
00:03:16.680 Trudeau's government with a Conservative government that will put people first, make life more affordable,
00:03:21.320 and help create economic prosperity for all of Canada. Now, obviously, the Regina enthusiasm is not
00:03:26.900 necessarily representative of the country, but we see the pitch that Andrew Scheer is making. More
00:03:31.560 people in Canada voted for the Conservatives than any other party, and while the national popular
00:03:36.340 vote doesn't really get you all that much in Canada, it does show that the Conservative movement
00:03:40.780 is, in Andrew Scheer's eyes anyway, alive and well, and the rebuilding begins. He made a pitch for national
00:03:47.060 unity. He said, you know what, the Conservatives have a mandate to hold Justin Trudeau to account.
00:03:52.900 That's what he's saying here, trumpeting this not as a victory, but certainly not as a loss either.
00:03:58.060 Now, not everyone I spoke to was on board that Scheer is the guy who should stay around
00:04:02.940 for the next mandate. There was one person I spoke to, and only one, who said he should
00:04:07.700 probably go. Here's what this gentleman told me.
00:04:10.360 I mean, I think the reality is that he probably will go. I think that the Conservatives felt that
00:04:17.960 this was an election where they could make a lot of gains, and I think there was a lot of
00:04:21.680 surprising results. I think their support in Ontario really didn't materialize anywhere near as they had
00:04:27.100 hoped. I think they had a net seat gain of two, which was, I think, a lot less than we had hoped
00:04:31.760 for. So I think there'll be a lot of pressure to find someone who can garner more support,
00:04:36.640 particularly in Ontario.
00:04:37.700 Now, as you can hear, he's not against Andrew Scheer. He's not ready to ditch Andrew Scheer.
00:04:42.100 He's more relenting to the fact that, you know what, probably with the showing, this is what's likely
00:04:48.160 to happen, specifically looking at some of the performance that the Conservatives had
00:04:51.940 in the Greater Toronto area. Now, this is an important region in Canada, the 905, areas in
00:04:57.520 the suburbs around Toronto that Stephen Harper carried in 2011, that Doug Ford carried in the
00:05:02.840 2018 election in Ontario, and ones where the Conservative Party of Canada really didn't have
00:05:08.120 any breakthroughs. And I asked Andrew Scheer about that. Why couldn't he and why couldn't his
00:05:12.580 Conservative campaign do what was needed to be done there? This is what Andrew Scheer told me.
00:05:18.340 Obviously, we were hoping that we would gain significantly in those areas that you mentioned.
00:05:25.340 But I will point out that we made incredible steps last night. A million more votes than ever
00:05:31.520 before for our party. More votes for our party. More Canadians supported my platform and our team
00:05:38.100 last night than any other party. So there's a lot of reasons to be encouraged. And we're going
00:05:42.740 to go through the results and analyze the campaign and address what didn't work and do more of what
00:05:48.140 did work. So as you can hear, really not accepting a loss, accepting disappointment, but saying the
00:05:53.180 Conservatives are well positioned for the next fight. That's the message we're getting from
00:05:57.540 Andrew Scheer and the Conservative Party of Canada. From Regina for True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.