It’s make or break for Erin O’Toole today in caucus today
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Summary
It's make or break for Erin O'Toole today in caucus! Plus, we'll deconstruct a Red Tory's defence of Erin Otoole. Today's episode of The Candace Malcolm Show is all about what's going on at the Conservative Party of Canada's first caucus meeting since the disappointing election.
Transcript
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It's make or break for Erin O'Toole today in caucus, plus we'll deconstruct a red Tory's defense of Erin O'Toole.
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I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
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Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into The Candace Malcolm Show.
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Today is a big day for Erin O'Toole and the Conservative Party of Canada,
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and we'll break that all down and explain what's going on and what is at stake.
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The Conservative Caucus is meeting for its first caucus meeting since the election on September 20th,
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There's nine MPs who lost, nine Conservative MPs who lost, plus I think 119 who got elected or re-elected.
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They really are fighting for the heart and soul of the party.
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I went through yesterday explaining sort of an insider's take after talking to a couple of MPs,
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So if you want to go back and get a better understanding of what happens at caucus and what's at stake,
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Today, I mean, right now we don't know what's happening because they're still in the room.
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We're going to have to wait until the meetings end to really get a better sense of what happened.
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But there is a lot of speculation, a lot of rumors being pushed out,
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a lot of journalists speaking to their sources, their sources telling them X, Y, or Z.
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And so we sort of have like a mixed understanding of what might be going on.
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So I want to highlight a couple of the interesting scoops that I did see on social media,
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Scooplet, today Conservative Party of Canada Senator Michael McDonald sent a letter to Conservative
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Caucus urging a vote for a leadership review of Erin O'Toole.
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Voting in favor of a review vote is not pleasant, but it is necessary.
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The status quo under the present circumstances is a mistake.
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So there is a longer story in the Globe and Mail about this.
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So McDonald sent out an email, a letter to all of Caucus, basically urging them to vote
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So as I explained in the show yesterday, there's two sort of separate things that happened.
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The first is what they call like an airing of the grievances.
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Everyone lines up with the microphones and just, you know, lets Erin O'Toole have a piece
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This is what I'm hearing from the Conservative base, et cetera, et cetera.
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And that's the part of the meeting that includes both incoming and outgoing MPs.
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So we also have to hear from the handful of people who lost, presumably because he abandoned
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Conservative principles and his strategy failed.
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So, you know, three seats were lost in Alberta, a handful of seats in British Columbia and in
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Then all the MPs who lost leave and the remaining Caucus stay and they vote on a bunch of procedural
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stuff, including the Reform Act, which is something that was introduced back in 2015 by Michael
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Just giving the, there's four aspects of it, but the one that McDonald is talking about
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is giving Caucus the power to call a leadership review.
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Um, so, so it would give Caucus the power to say, uh, you know, we, we, we want a new leader.
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So when Evan Solomon says urging a vote for a leadership review, um, it's not even necessarily
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He's talking about just giving them the power to do that.
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But then if you, uh, read this Globe and Mail story, uh, he does go into some detail about
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how he believes that Aaron O'Toole is not the right man for the job.
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It says, the only conclusion that can be drawn from these numbers is that the leader's conscious
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decision to move the conservative party to the left has been a strategic failure.
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As we not only failed to make breakthrough in the GTA as promised, we actually lost seats.
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This is interesting too, because he is a Senator from Nova Scotia, not exactly considered a, uh,
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So if this is what a conservative out East, out in the Maritimes, uh, thinks of Aaron
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So it will be interesting to watch out, uh, for that.
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Next scoop we saw came from David Aitken over at Global News.
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David Aitken is an incredibly plugged in reporter.
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And so I trust him and his sources, uh, usually.
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He said, MPs are being urged to vote yes to giving themselves power to dump a leader.
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But I'm told that should not be interpreted as intent to use that power to dump Aaron O'Toole,
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who seems to have enough caucus support to carry on.
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He says this, but here's the kicker about Tuesday's conservative caucus meeting.
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Aaron O'Toole, an insider says, is looking to take a snap caucus vote on his leadership.
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So, wow, that would be quite the power move if Aaron O'Toole just invited everyone in
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the room and said, guys, before we go any further, I want to know exactly where you stand.
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In fact, the MPs that I've spoken to says that he couldn't do that, that he wouldn't
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actually have any standing, that a vote like that wouldn't have any validity.
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But it would be like a power move just to show, basically, to shame the people who are
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And then he could probably punish them in some way.
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If Aaron O'Toole actually does that, then wow, he's got Gaul.
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But again, pretty divisive way to run a party, if you ask me.
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The next leak we saw came from Kian Bexley, the independent reporter out in Alberta.
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Conservative Party insiders say that the Alberta caucus is furious with O'Toole's performance
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Alberta meets the 28% threshold to call a leadership premium.
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If every single Alberta MP were to vote against Aaron O'Toole, it would meet the numbers that
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We know this because we can look at the public support that Aaron O'Toole has received.
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Right after the election, a whole bunch of MPs came out and led their support to Aaron
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O'Toole, including a handful of folks in Alberta.
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People like Garnet Janis, Michelle Rempel, and I believe Blake Richardson.
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So this whole idea that every single MP in Alberta is against Aaron O'Toole is just not
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And my friend Lee Humphrey made that point as well.
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He says, I'm not really much of an insider anymore, but I've spoken to several folks
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who still are, and I've not heard anything like this.
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In fact, I'm hearing O'Toole is safer by the day.
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That yes, there's a handful of people that are really mad, really disappointed, want Aaron
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O'Toole to receive the same kind of treatment that Andrew Scheer received and want him out.
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They recognize that Aaron O'Toole has only been in office as leader for about a year
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when the campaign started, a little over a year, and that he hasn't really had the opportunity
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That's definitely not my opinion, but that's what I'm hearing will happen in caucus today.
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Now, I want to step back and show you something interesting that appeared in the Toronto Star
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Now, as you know, the Toronto Star is the worst, most left-wing newspaper in the country.
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They follow something called the Atkins Principle.
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So they are an activist journalism outlet whose goal and all of their journalism is guided
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to make Canada a more left-wing, progressive, woke country.
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And so for some reason, conservatives still leak stories to the Star.
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They still somehow want to win over the Star's audience, which is a huge, huge mistake.
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On Saturday, they had two really interesting op-eds that appeared side-by-side, and it
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The Saturday debate, should the Conservative Party keep Erin O'Toole as leader?
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And as you would expect, the people who would read and submit things to the Toronto Star.
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So we have two ultra-connected Conservative insiders, two former senior-senior staff members
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for the Harper Conservative government, who are now both consultants.
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So on the yes side, we have Andrew McDougal, who is a director at Trafalgar Strategy, who
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was previously director of communication to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
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And on the no side, on the side saying, get rid of Erin O'Toole, is Jenny Byrne, who's
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the CEO of Jenny Byrne Associates, a former deputy chief of staff and national campaign
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So like I said, senior insiders for the Conservative Party, very well-known people within the Conservative
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So I want to go through the yes side, because I think it explains exactly the mindset of
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Red Tories and why they think that O'Toole should stay.
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And I'll go through a bit of Jenny Byrne's, because it's pretty good.
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So Andrew McDougal starts by saying, losing to the hated Justin Trudeau is a firing offense
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But what should happen to a Conservative leader who fights Trudeau to a draw with the deck stacked
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against him and with one hand tied behind his back?
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So he goes on to say how the deck was stacked against Aaron O'Toole, mostly because Justin
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Trudeau spent hundreds of billions of dollars during the pandemic kind of bribing Canadians
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with their own money right up until the election when he actually sent $500 out to seniors during
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So yeah, most Canadians were just grateful for the help and they didn't recognize that
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And then, but then he goes into the policy and he says, this is for the one hand tied behind
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O'Toole faces a scenario in which 75 to 80% of Canadians support vaccine mandates with
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most of the holdouts either supporting his party or Maxine Bernier's party to the right.
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Lest we forget, Trudeau's government also did a solid job procuring vaccines.
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The reality left precious little room for O'Toole to maneuver on the biggest issue of the
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Despite these pressures, O'Toole didn't take the bait and indulge the anti-vaccination crowd.
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Even if it might have pulled some of that support back, that showed good judgment.
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So right off the bat, the position is not to lead the country, not to be a politician
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who has convictions, who believes in their own principles, who carves their own path and
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It all comes down to the strategy behind the percentage and which wedge issues you can
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It's like everything is based on the strategy, the polling, the micro-targeting, and you don't
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You're not putting out a position that you believe in because you think it's right for
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You're basing it all on what pollsters tell you to say.
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So I guess this is Andrew McDougall trying to say that Aaron O'Toole was smart and strong.
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But to me, when I read this, it just shows weakness and a lack of authenticity because you're
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just basing your policies on what the polls are telling you.
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So he says how Aaron O'Toole started the campaign strong.
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And then he kind of fell back and went flat around the time of the first debate.
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And this, he says, is largely on account of his inability to explain why his platform
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included a repeal of gun regulations put in by the liberals.
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The slide could be down to O'Toole's fluffed comms on the issues, or it could be drawn from
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the fact that people in vote-rich urban suburban areas don't understand why anyone needs
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Either way, an election is a hell of a time to try to explain the nuance of Canadian gun
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The entire idea is that during the campaign, you don't try to defend your ideas.
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You don't try to defend principles like the idea that there's nothing wrong with owning
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And those people aren't the ones that commit crimes by and large.
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But no, it's just that Trudeau picked up this wedge issue and he was correct to do
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Aaron O'Toole lost because he was listening to comms people like Andrew McDougal giving
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Because the whole idea that Aaron O'Toole should lose on an issue like crime, crime is
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Aaron O'Toole is supposed to be a law and order guy.
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As soon as Justin Trudeau starts talking about guns, you say, you want to start talking about
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Let's talk about your decision to lessen sentences for dangerous criminals, violent criminals
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Let's talk about Canada's revolving door prison system.
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And so this whole idea coming back that, oh, he shouldn't have never have had this gun
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They don't want anything conservative in the platform.
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And instead of blaming Aaron O'Toole for really just handling that so poorly, he goes
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back and says, oh, it never should have been in the platform.
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And then he concludes it all by just saying, besides running another leadership race in
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a pandemic would be an invitation to a civil war and switching horses when Trudeau is trending
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It would be better for conservatives to improve the leader they've got.
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So basically the reasons to keep the guy are that we don't really want to have to do this
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again, which is not a very compelling, not a very exciting answer.
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And even the people that they get to defend Aaron O'Toole have to do it half-heartedly
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and do it based on blaming everyone around Aaron O'Toole and not him and kind of doubling
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down on this idea that we need to have more liberal policies in the conservative platform.
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Jenny Byrne is, sure, she's a conservative insider, but I think she's still very much a member
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of the base and she understands conservatism and the principles behind it.
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So her piece is much, much, much more critical.
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So she starts off by saying, from a political perspective, the conservative campaign was
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CBC ran on a platform of political expediency, hoping for a win at all costs and ending up
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The party has fewer seats and a lower share of the popular vote than it did in 2019.
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It is less urban and less ethnically diverse than at any point in modern history.
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And so she says, for that reason, O'Toole's strategy to run as a liberal failed.
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She says he did run a tactically good campaign.
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He made the decision to run as a liberal, not to the center, as some commenters have said.
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There was little contrast between the conservatives and the liberals.
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People had no distinct reason to cast their vote for the conservatives.
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And I suspect many people who voted for us in the past simply didn't vote at all.
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The argument to keep O'Toole as leader of the party, therefore, is purely an emotional
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Many people speaking for O'Toole in the months leading up to the campaign said the conservatives
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needed to sacrifice votes in Alberta to win in Ontario.
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And if they are, they're more like monopoly than risk.
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You can't simply move votes from one area of the country to another.
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You must build support on what you already have.
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O'Toole's carbon tax promised to amend rather than repeal Bill C-69, the anti-pipeline
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bill, and constant flipping on gun control and free votes cost him the election.
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The most effective attack the liberals had against O'Toole was that he would say anything
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I'm just going to keep reading from this because it's so good.
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Okay, she goes on to say, if the conservative party truly intends to provide Canadians a meaningful
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government in waiting, they must now have the fight that no one wants to have.
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The decisions on what happens next must be based on fact.
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The argument to stay the course can't be on the sense that we don't have the stomach
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That's bad for the party, bad for democracy, and ultimately bad for the country.
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The conservatives are a diverse coalition of Canadians from across the country, physical
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conservatives, Western and democratic reformers, social conservatives, red Tories, and libertarians
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There is the head and the heart of the movement.
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The head wants to win and chooses leaders who appeal to Canadians.
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The heart wants to make sure core conservative values are adhered to and followed at the same
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Our coalition is right now being held together by the thinnest of strings, dislike for Justin
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Parts of the coalition no longer feel like they have a political home.
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O'Toole won the CBC leadership race by stating that he was a true blue conservative.
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He said he was the only person who could win the next election and keep the coalition
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Not only was that never true, O'Toole has fractured the party for the first time since
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My fear is that with O'Toole at the helm, the coalition will continue to unravel.
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For the good of the conservative movement and the health of the conservative party, we
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need our leader to be able to proudly take principled stance, keep our coalition together,
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conservative members need to take a hard look as to whether Aaron O'Toole is the person
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We'll be back again tomorrow and we will break down exactly what happens inside the conservative
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I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.