Juno News - October 04, 2021


Will Erin O’Toole survive this week?


Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

202.77603

Word count

3,326

Sentence count

142

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Will Erin O'Toole survive this week in Ottawa? Let's break down the various camps fighting for the heart and soul of the Conservative Party of Canada. This week on The Candace Malcolm Show:

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 Will Erin O'Toole survive this week in Ottawa? Let's break down the various camps fighting for 1.00
00:00:04.080 the heart and soul of the Conservative Party of Canada. I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The
00:00:07.420 Candace Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the show. I hope you are
00:00:16.140 enjoying our new daily version of The Candace Malcolm Show. So if you've been watching the
00:00:20.900 show recently, you know that ever since the election on September 20th, here at The Candace
00:00:24.760 Malcolm Show, we have been doing a deep dive, doing a post-mortem, trying to really understand
00:00:29.860 what went wrong for the Conservatives. How did they end up losing this election that really they
00:00:34.140 should have won? Justin Trudeau is so unpopular. Canadians are so sick of him and he's such a
00:00:39.440 divisive figure. He won with the lowest share of the vote in Canadian history. So many Canadians
00:00:44.780 are just absolutely done with him and so many were completely surprised, flabbergasted to wake up on
00:00:50.640 the morning of September 21st and see the results, see that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is still the
00:00:55.860 Prime Minister because a lot of people who weren't really paying attention to politics but may have
00:01:00.400 just, you know, paid extra attention to this election campaign because of the pandemic, because
00:01:05.180 of the lockdowns, because of the insane attacks on our rights and freedoms that have happened in this
00:01:09.820 country, assumed that Justin Trudeau was done because he's so unpopular among people who are
00:01:15.100 concerned about our liberties and our rights and freedoms in Canada. And so in order to understand
00:01:20.380 how Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, we have to, as Conservatives, hold up a mirror and look in
00:01:25.760 the mirror and see what went wrong, what did we do wrong. From my perspective, Aaron O'Toole, the
00:01:31.380 Conservative leader, did not run a strong campaign. He didn't put Conservative principles first. He ran
00:01:37.660 essentially as a Liberal and that wasn't very compelling to voters. If you're given the option
00:01:42.920 of two Liberal parties, you're going to go with the Liberal Party that you know is Liberal as opposed to the
00:01:47.800 other Liberal Party, which sometimes presents themselves as Conservatives, flip-flops on the
00:01:52.760 issues. You don't really know where they stand. And again, it was just not good on behalf of the
00:01:58.120 Conservatives. So the reason I say that all of this, this is a very big week for Aaron O'Toole, a very
00:02:03.400 big week for the Conservative Party. I wrote my Toronto Sun column on this topic because there's two really
00:02:08.400 big events that are happening this week. I'm going to walk you through what's going on and how we're
00:02:13.220 really going to have a better understanding of what's happening in the party, whether Aaron O'Toole
00:02:17.540 is the person that's going to remain on as leader to take the Conservatives into potentially four
00:02:22.320 years in opposition and then another election, or whether they're going to say, okay, this is a
00:02:26.720 totally failed strategy. This is not the guy. Let's cut bait before we invest too much time in a
00:02:32.520 leader who's not going to win. So we're going to find that out this week and I'll tell you about
00:02:36.620 those two events. So the first thing that's going on is Tuesday at noon. So tomorrow at noon,
00:02:41.160 there is a post-election debrief meeting happening in Toronto at one of those fancy members-only
00:02:47.640 private clubs. They're hosting a luncheon event. It's being hosted by Greg Lyle, who is a well-known
00:02:54.060 pollster, and he is having a panel discussion with the Conservative campaign insiders. So the people who
00:03:01.720 ran the campaign, the person who crafted the policy and the person who was the head of the war room,
00:03:08.100 the leader of the campaign. So those individuals will be meeting at a private club, a club for
00:03:13.480 Conservatives. So really an insider event for Conservative members, Conservative politicians and
00:03:20.000 Conservative insiders, lobbyists, Conservative activists, that kind of thing in Toronto. So I think
00:03:26.100 this is incredibly important to see because here we have a campaign where, you know, the strategy was
00:03:32.100 clearly to try to mirror Justin Trudeau as closely as possible so that none of those wedge issues that
00:03:37.480 Justin Trudeau set up as traps that Conservatives tend to fall into and not really know how to
00:03:42.480 explain and articulate, you know, the whole campaign was designed so that those wouldn't exist.
00:03:47.860 But because the Conservative Party so closely followed the Liberal Party, there wasn't really a
00:03:51.940 compelling difference. There wasn't really a compelling reason to vote for Erin O'Toole. So the reason I say
00:03:56.340 that this is a very important event is because here we have, you know, the people around the campaign,
00:04:00.840 people who, a lot of other insiders, especially people who are more on the true blue Conservative
00:04:06.060 side, the people who have Conservative values and want a real Conservative Party, they see these
00:04:11.360 individuals, not Craig Lyon, not the pollster, he's just hosting an event, but the campaign insiders who
00:04:15.860 are speaking on the panel, they see these individuals as the reason why Erin O'Toole lost. Because if you
00:04:21.200 remember, when Erin O'Toole was running as leader of the party, he had a different team and he was
00:04:27.120 presenting himself more as a true blue Tory. He was going to fight against the radical left. He was
00:04:32.540 not going to water the party down. He was not going to be a Liberalite. He was not going to go back to
00:04:36.160 the mushy middle. And then, and then, of course, that's exactly what he did when he was running
00:04:40.600 the campaign. So a lot of people see the fault of the individuals running the campaign. I see it even
00:04:45.740 deeper because at the end of the day, you know, it's Erin O'Toole who did that. It's him that didn't
00:04:49.420 present himself in a consistent way, who flip-flopped on all these core issues, including carbon taxes
00:04:55.320 and repealing Trudeau's arbitrary gun ban. But still, it's going to be really important to just
00:05:02.780 see the tone that's struck at this meeting. Will these campaign leaders show some remorse,
00:05:09.680 show contrition, admit that the strategy didn't work, right? The whole strategy of going to the
00:05:15.360 mushy middle and running as a Liberal was to win in places like Toronto, places like Vancouver and
00:05:21.220 in Quebec. And we know that the Conservatives didn't pick up any seats in those areas. In fact,
00:05:25.380 they lost seats in Vancouver. They lost two seats in the GTA and they did not win any new seats in
00:05:31.100 Quebec. The only place in Canada they did pick up seats was in Atlantic Canada. And there was sort of
00:05:35.660 a trend towards that anyway. We saw how the Nova Scotia election went to the Progressive Conservatives.
00:05:41.000 So you could say that there was already an appetite to get rid of the Liberals, or at
00:05:45.280 least in some places, change from Liberal to Conservative, as is typically the history in
00:05:51.200 Atlantic Canada. And that wasn't necessarily because of Aaron O'Toole's. So the idea that
00:05:55.460 they sold out the heart and soul of the Conservative Party in order to pick up seats in these places,
00:06:00.820 and they didn't do that, they failed. Will they show contrition? Or alternatively, will they strike
00:06:06.320 up the same tone that Aaron O'Toole did on election night and in his post-election scrum with his media
00:06:12.580 appearance, his press conference, the day after the election, both times, his tone was sort of
00:06:17.580 victorious. He was speaking as though he had won. He didn't seem to acknowledge in any way, shape,
00:06:23.400 or form that he had run a poor campaign, that his strategy had failed, that he was inconsistent to
00:06:29.040 voters. None of that was really acknowledged. And a lot of people picked up on that and were
00:06:33.040 critical of O'Toole for not showing more self-awareness and recognizing that, no, he did lose the election,
00:06:39.300 and he lost it worse than Andrew Scheer lost in 2019. So a lot of Tory insiders will be looking
00:06:44.720 at that to see how that goes. So at the same time as this event is taking place in Toronto,
00:06:50.240 this private swanky club with the insiders and the guys behind the scenes running the campaign,
00:06:55.880 over in Ottawa, we're going to have a much more public brawl for the heart and soul of the Conservative
00:07:02.020 Party. Not public because it's not televised, but public just in terms of that's where Aaron O'Toole is
00:07:06.960 going to be. And that is where every MP, every Conservative MP, both the outgoing ones, the ones
00:07:12.160 who lost in the election, there was nine MPs who lost, as well as the incoming ones, so the individuals
00:07:17.000 who won new seats, they're all going to be in Ottawa, they're all at a caucus meeting. And so for my
00:07:21.960 Toronto Sun column, I spoke to a couple of Conservative MPs to really get a read and an understanding of what
00:07:27.120 this caucus event is going to look like. And so there's a couple big takeaways that are going to happen
00:07:32.540 at this caucus event. First, it's worth noting that the Dean of Caucus, an MP named Cheryl Gallant,
00:07:38.280 she called this meeting, she called this caucus meeting. This is the first time that caucus, so all
00:07:43.200 of the Conservative MPs, first time that they're meeting since the election. And this is the first
00:07:47.060 time in history that the Dean of the caucus has actually called a meeting like this. That's not
00:07:50.740 how the precedent usually works, but presumably she saw the need to do this post-bordem, to get everyone 0.86
00:07:55.960 together into a room to discuss what went wrong and to figure out the path forward. So all of caucus
00:08:02.740 is going to be there. And from what was described to me, this is an opportunity to do basically like
00:08:08.500 an airing of the grievances. This is an opportunity for all the MPs to get in a room, they line up at
00:08:13.980 the microphone, and they just, you know, speak their piece, give their two cents about what went wrong in
00:08:19.620 the campaign, what the flaws were, what the faults were, maybe make the case for a new leader or make
00:08:25.380 the case why Aaron O'Toole should stay. And from what I'm told, caucus is pretty split. So the way
00:08:30.280 that it's been described to me is that there are basically three factions in the party right now,
00:08:33.920 three different groups of MPs who fall into different camps. So I'm going to go through
00:08:38.800 the three right now. So the first group are the people who are the staunch Aaron O'Toole supporters.
00:08:44.740 These are the people who believe in the direction that he's taking the party, perhaps are Red Tories,
00:08:50.200 perhaps they just really like Aaron as a person, I think he's a good guy, a good leader,
00:08:54.300 and, you know, they weren't, obviously they were disappointed in the outcome, but they think
00:08:58.380 that the party is heading on the right path, and they just stand behind their guy, they stand behind
00:09:02.840 Aaron O'Toole no matter what. It's people who sort of ideologically align with him, but also people
00:09:08.220 who are just in positions of power, people who have, you know, lots of responsibilities in the
00:09:13.380 party or good titles, and, you know, they've formed good relationships with Aaron O'Toole, and they don't
00:09:17.800 want to jeopardize that. They're loyal to their guy, and they don't want a party review where they could lose
00:09:22.020 their position power, or they could find themselves on the outside. So a small group of MPs fit into that
00:09:28.800 category. The polar opposite of that are the people who are absolutely angry, they're enraged, they think
00:09:35.940 that Aaron O'Toole needs to go, that he should have resigned on election night, not happy with the positions
00:09:42.040 that he took, not happy about the carbon taxes, resentful about the way that Andrew Scheer, the conservative
00:09:48.720 leader who ran in 2019, and then was quickly axed. As soon as he lost the campaign, he said he wasn't
00:09:55.020 going to step down, and all of a sudden, you know, all these bad stories came tumbling into the media,
00:09:59.340 leak, leak, leak. Andrew Scheer was basically, his name was dragged through the mud to the point where
00:10:04.060 he just chose that he was going to resign, that he didn't have a future in the conservative party.
00:10:08.500 So people who are loyal to Andrew Scheer were still bitter and resentful about the way that he was
00:10:13.360 treated, the way that he basically had a knife in his back after the campaign. And they see it only
00:10:18.340 fair that Aaron O'Toole be subject to the same treatment, given that he didn't even do as well
00:10:23.380 actorally as Andrew Scheer. So again, sort of a combination of MPs who ideologically really
00:10:29.360 deeply oppose what Aaron O'Toole is doing in the direction he's taking the party in, as well as those
00:10:35.320 who are just sort of more loyal to Andrew Scheer and feel like there's a double standard here that
00:10:40.020 that Aaron O'Toole is avoiding the scrutiny and the criticism that Andrew got, and they don't think
00:10:45.700 that's fair. And finally, the third group of MPs are, this is where I'm told, most of caucuses. So
00:10:53.400 the majority of MPs who are just sort of in the middle, they haven't really made up their mind,
00:10:57.980 they don't know yet what they're going to do, they don't really want to rock the boat,
00:11:01.000 they don't really like the idea of a leadership race that could again divide the party even further,
00:11:06.040 they're not really happy with Aaron O'Toole and how he ran the campaign, but they're not angry enough
00:11:11.380 to make him go. So obviously, these are the most important people in caucus, because how this meeting
00:11:17.080 goes on Tuesday will determine whether they join camp A, the Aaron O'Toole supporters camp, or camp B,
00:11:24.420 the Aaron O'Toole must go camp. So these are, you know, these are the people who they're fighting
00:11:28.500 over. These are the people who will determine the future of the party. So I'm told that in 2019,
00:11:33.920 when they had their first caucus meeting, after the election, it was a total brawl. It was a seven
00:11:39.400 hour debate. One MP told me that it was horrible, that people were just lashing out every frustration,
00:11:47.760 every bit of anger, they were letting Andrew Scheer hear it, it was really uncomfortable. And again,
00:11:52.440 it just showed how fractious the Conservative coalition is. And as we all know, the Conservative
00:11:57.560 Party of Canada is a big tent party, meaning it's a coalition of a lot of different types of
00:12:01.420 Conservatives. And we all have a lot in common. But really, there are fundamental differences in
00:12:06.340 the worldviews between, say, Red Tories or downtown Toronto Tories, who just sort of want to get along
00:12:11.100 with the modern progressive social values of the popular culture, compared to staunch social
00:12:18.060 Conservatives who want to uphold tradition, and, you know, guard the family. And the distinctions
00:12:24.300 between ardent Libertarians who want a very, very minimal government role, versus other kinds of
00:12:30.440 Conservatives who see a bigger role for government. So there's obviously disagreements, there's some
00:12:33.920 core agreements as well. And so obviously, it's the job of any Conservative leader to keep these
00:12:38.840 people together. And whether or not Aaron O'Toole did a good job is sort of yet to be seen. Many
00:12:43.740 people adamantly say he didn't, others did. Now, another important thing that will happen at this
00:12:47.900 caucus meeting on Tuesday, is that Conservative MPs will vote on something called the Reform Act.
00:12:52.820 The Reform Act was introduced by MP Michael Chong, he introduced it a couple of years ago,
00:12:57.580 they voted on it before it didn't all get through, they're going to vote on it again,
00:13:00.700 there are sort of four components of it. And one of the key things that this Reform Act will do
00:13:05.580 is enable members of Parliament to call a leadership review. So within the caucus, the MPs will be able
00:13:11.980 to determine whether or not there will be a leadership review. So this could potentially pave the
00:13:17.420 path down the road for a leadership review for caucus to determine whether or not they want to oust
00:13:23.500 Aaron O'Toole in a legal way. And so from one of the MPs that I spoke to, he told me that at this
00:13:28.780 point, there is no will to oust Aaron O'Toole that basically there are three reasons why. So the first
00:13:35.500 reason is that the election was essentially a draw. The map going into the election looks eerily similar
00:13:41.200 to the map coming out, there was only really a small handful of places where it changed. There was
00:13:46.120 no big winner, there's no big loser. The biggest loser, of course, were the taxpayers who had to pay
00:13:51.100 $610 million for the campaign. Of course, Justin Trudeau lost as well because he was after his
00:13:55.500 majority government, but he's still prime minister. So in some ways he still won. So the first one,
00:14:01.420 again, that there's no clear winner and that basically it was a draw. The second reason is
00:14:06.300 that the Conservative Party has been switching leaders so frequently. So, you know, you had Stephen
00:14:10.300 Harper going into the election in 2015, then he resigned. You had interim leader Ronna Ambrose.
00:14:16.060 Andrew Scheer was elected leader in 2017. 2019, he stepped down. And then Aaron O'Toole
00:14:21.020 was named leader. So we've had four leaders in the last couple of years, and that's not a good way
00:14:25.340 to build up your brand as a party. You need some kind of name recognition. Aaron O'Toole has been
00:14:30.380 leader for just a year now, so he hasn't had a lot of time. And that year was a pandemic year,
00:14:35.180 so it wasn't a regular time where he could have been out campaigning, out making a name for himself.
00:14:39.020 He was really in a tough position and a lot of MPs recognize that. And because of that,
00:14:43.100 they want to give him another opportunity to go. And the third one is, I think,
00:14:47.260 probably the most important one, is that Aaron O'Toole, I'm told, is a very nice guy. He's very
00:14:52.620 personable. He has really good connections. He works really hard on his connections with members
00:14:57.980 of parliament, with senators, with people who run local constituencies, people who run the electoral
00:15:04.060 districts. He's just the kind of guy that when he sees you, he remembers your name, or he'll ask about
00:15:10.700 your kids, or if something happens, he'll write a personal note. He's really big, I'm told, on
00:15:16.860 writing handwritten letters. He's sort of an old-school kind of guy in that way. He's very
00:15:20.540 personable, very nice, very sweet, and that he's likable. And so that's what I'm told. Of course,
00:15:25.820 we don't know what will happen. Tuesday will be a big day for the Conservative Party and for Aaron O'Toole,
00:15:30.860 and how he presents himself, how he handles things, and really how the MPs organize themselves, and really
00:15:37.340 what happens at that caucus event on Tuesday will be very telling. So we at the Candace Malcolm Show
00:15:42.540 and at True North will watch that event very closely and carefully, and we will keep you updated. So
00:15:47.740 even if Aaron O'Toole survives this week, even if he survives his private meeting in Toronto with his
00:15:51.740 top advisors, as well as the caucus meeting with all Conservative members of parliament, that doesn't
00:15:57.180 mean he's out of the clear. Aaron O'Toole still has a long way to go to prove it to Canadians, as well
00:16:02.940 as to Conservatives and the Conservative base, who he is, what he believes in, why he abandoned
00:16:08.220 Conservative principles in the last campaign, and whether or not he's going to do that again.
00:16:12.700 I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.