The Candice Malcolm Show - Will Erin O’Toole survive this week？

00:00:00.000 Will Erin O'Toole survive this week in Ottawa? Let's break down the various camps fighting for 1.00

00:00:04.120 the heart and soul of the Conservative Party of Canada. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The

00:00:07.460 Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the show. I hope you are

00:00:16.180 enjoying our new daily version of The Candice Malcolm Show. So if you've been watching the

00:00:20.940 show recently, you know that ever since the election on September 20th here at The Candice

00:00:24.800 Malcolm Show, we have been doing a deep dive, doing a post-mortem, trying to really understand

00:00:29.900 what went wrong for the Conservatives. How did they end up losing this election that really they

00:00:34.180 should have won? Justin Trudeau is so unpopular. Canadians are so sick of him and he's such a

00:00:39.480 divisive figure. He won with the lowest share of the vote in Canadian history. So many Canadians

00:00:44.820 are just absolutely done with him and so many were completely surprised, flabbergasted, to wake up on

00:00:50.680 the morning of September 21st and see the results, see that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is still the

00:00:55.900 Prime Minister because a lot of people who weren't really paying attention to politics,

00:00:59.280 but may have just, you know, paid extra attention to this election campaign because of the pandemic,

00:01:05.060 because of the lockdowns, because of the insane attacks on our rights and freedoms that have

00:01:09.220 happened in this country. Assume that Justin Trudeau was done because he's so unpopular among people

00:01:14.760 who are concerned about our liberties and our rights and freedoms in Canada. And so in order to

00:01:20.020 understand how Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, we have to, as Conservatives, hold up a mirror and

00:01:25.580 look in the mirror and see what went wrong. What did we do wrong? From my perspective, Aaron O'Toole,

00:01:31.320 the Conservative leader, did not run a strong campaign. He didn't put Conservative principles

00:01:36.260 first. He ran essentially as a Liberal and that wasn't very compelling to voters. If you're given

00:01:42.560 the option of two Liberal parties, you're going to go with the Liberal party that you know is Liberal as

00:01:47.180 opposed to the other Liberal party, which sometimes presents themselves as Conservatives, flip-flops on

00:01:52.680 the issues, you don't really know where they stand. And again, it was just not good on behalf

00:01:57.940 of the Conservatives. So the reason I say that all of this, this is a very big week for Aaron O'Toole,

00:02:03.160 a very big week for the Conservative party. I wrote my Toronto Sun column on this topic because there's

00:02:07.960 two really big events that are happening this week. I'm going to walk you through what's going on and

00:02:12.340 how we're really going to have a better understanding of what's happening in the party, whether Aaron

00:02:17.280 O'Toole is the person that's going to remain on as leader to take the Conservatives into potentially

00:02:22.040 four years in opposition and then another election, or whether they're going to say, okay, this is a

00:02:26.780 totally failed strategy. This is not the guy. Let's cut bait before we invest too much time in a

00:02:32.560 leader who's not going to win. So we're going to find that out this week and I'll tell you about

00:02:36.660 those two events. So the first thing that's going on is Tuesday at noon. So tomorrow at noon,

00:02:41.200 there is a post-election debrief meeting happening in Toronto at one of those fancy members-only

00:02:47.680 private clubs. They're hosting a luncheon event. It's being hosted by Greg Lyle, who is a well-known

00:02:54.100 pollster, and he is having a panel discussion with the Conservative campaign insiders. So the people who

00:03:01.760 ran the campaign, the person who crafted the policy and the person who was the head of the war room,

00:03:08.140 the leader of the campaign. So those individuals will be meeting at a private club, a club for

00:03:13.520 Conservatives. So really an insider event for Conservative members, Conservative politicians and

00:03:20.040 Conservative insiders, lobbyists, Conservative activists, that kind of thing in Toronto. So I think

00:03:26.140 this is incredibly important to see because here we have a campaign where, you know, the strategy was

00:03:32.140 clearly to try to mirror Justin Trudeau as closely as possible so that none of those wedge issues that

00:03:37.520 Justin Trudeau set up as traps that Conservatives tend to fall into and not really know how to

00:03:42.520 explain and articulate, you know, the whole campaign was designed so that those wouldn't exist.

00:03:47.880 But because the Conservative Party so closely followed the Liberal Party, there wasn't really a compelling

00:03:52.260 difference. There wasn't really a compelling reason to vote for Erin O'Toole. So the reason I say that

00:03:56.480 this is a very important event is because here we have, you know, the people who run the campaign,

00:04:01.000 people who, a lot of other insiders, especially people who are more on the true blue Conservative

00:04:06.100 side, the people who have Conservative values and want a real Conservative Party, they see these

00:04:11.400 individuals, not Greg Lyle, I'm not the pollster, he's just hosting the event, but the campaign insiders

00:04:15.720 who are speaking on the panel, they see these individuals as the reason why Erin O'Toole lost.

00:04:20.860 Because if you remember, when Erin O'Toole was running as leader of the party, he had a different,

00:04:24.860 he had a different team, and he was presenting himself more as a true blue Tory. He was going

00:04:30.840 to fight against the radical left. He was not going to water the party down. He was not going

00:04:34.240 to be a Liberalite. He was not going to go back to the mushy middle. And then, of course,

00:04:38.440 that's exactly what he did when he was running the campaign. So a lot of people see the fault

00:04:42.820 of the individuals running the campaign. I see it even deeper, because at the end of the day,

00:04:47.340 you know, it's Erin O'Toole who did that. It's him that didn't present himself in a consistent way,

00:04:52.100 who flip-flopped on all these core issues, including carbon taxes and repealing Trudeau's

00:04:58.040 arbitrary gun ban. But still, it's going to be really important to just see the tone that's

00:05:04.020 struck at this meeting. Will these campaign leaders show some remorse, show contrition,

00:05:11.000 admit that the strategy didn't work, right? The whole strategy of going to the mushy middle and

00:05:16.100 running as a Liberal was to win in places like Toronto, places like Vancouver and in Quebec.

00:05:22.060 And we know that the Conservatives didn't pick up any seats in those areas. In fact,

00:05:25.420 they lost seats in Vancouver. They lost two seats in the GTA, and they did not win any new seats in

00:05:31.140 Quebec. The only place in Canada they did pick up seats was in Atlantic Canada. And there was sort of

00:05:35.700 a trend towards that anyway. We saw how the Nova Scotia election went to the Progressive Conservatives.

00:05:41.040 So you could say that there was already an appetite to get rid of the Liberals, or at least in some

00:05:45.920 places, change from Liberal to Conservative, as is typically the history in Atlantic Canada. And that

00:05:51.900 wasn't necessarily because of Aaron O'Toole's. So the idea that they sold out the heart and soul of

00:05:57.080 the Conservative Party in order to pick up seats in these places, and they didn't do that, they failed.

00:06:03.020 Will they show contrition? Or alternatively, will they strike up the same tone that Aaron O'Toole did on

00:06:09.000 election night? And in his post-election scrum with his media appearance, his press conference,

00:06:13.940 the day after the election, both times, his tone was sort of victorious. He was speaking as though

00:06:20.300 he had won. He didn't seem to acknowledge in any way, shape, or form that he had run a poor campaign,

00:06:25.940 that his strategy had failed, that he was inconsistent to voters. None of that was really

00:06:30.140 acknowledged. And a lot of people picked up on that and were critical of O'Toole for not showing

00:06:34.880 more self-awareness and recognizing that no, he did lose the election, and he lost it worse than

00:06:40.980 Andrew Scheer lost in 2019. So a lot of Tory insiders will be looking at that to see how that

00:06:46.860 goes. So at the same time as this event is taking place in Toronto, this private swanky club with the

00:06:52.900 insiders and the guys behind the scenes running the campaign, over in Ottawa, we're going to have

00:06:57.520 a much more public brawl for the heart and soul of the Conservative Party. Not public because it's not

00:07:03.640 televised, but public just in terms of that's where Erin O'Toole is going to be. And that is where 0.99

00:07:08.440 every MP, every Conservative MP, both the outgoing ones, the ones who lost in the election, there was

00:07:13.460 nine MPs who lost, as well as the incoming ones, so the individuals who won new seats, they're all

00:07:19.060 going to be in Ottawa, they're all at a caucus meeting. And so for my Toronto Sun column, I spoke

00:07:22.960 to a couple of Conservative MPs to really get a read and an understanding of what this caucus event

00:07:28.220 is going to look like. And so there's a couple big takeaways that are going to happen at this

00:07:33.020 caucus event. First, it's worth noting that the dean of caucus, an MP named Cheryl Gallant, she called

00:07:39.160 this meeting, she called this caucus meeting. This is the first time that caucus, so all of the Conservative

00:07:43.760 MPs, first time at their meeting since the election. And this is the first time in history that the dean of

00:07:48.540 the caucus has actually called a meeting like this. That's not how the precedent usually works, but

00:07:52.900 presumably she saw the need to do this post-bordem to get everyone together into a room to discuss what went

00:07:58.940 wrong and to figure out the path forward. So all the caucus is going to be there. And from what was described

00:08:05.080 to me, this is an opportunity to do basically like an airing of the grievances. This is an opportunity for all the MPs to

00:08:12.720 get in a room, they line up at the microphone, and they just, you know, speak their piece, give their two cents about what

00:08:19.160 went wrong in the campaign, what the flaws were, what the faults were, maybe make the case for a new leader or make the case why

00:08:25.940 Aaron O'Toole should stay. And from what I'm told, caucus is pretty split. So the way that it's been

00:08:30.740 described to me is that there are basically three factions in the party right now, three different

00:08:34.720 groups of MPs who fall into different camps. So I'm going to go through the three right now. So the

00:08:40.340 first group are the people who are the staunch Aaron O'Toole supporters. These are the people who

00:08:45.860 believe in the direction that he's taking the party, perhaps are Red Tories, perhaps they just really like 0.53

00:08:51.400 Aaron as a person, I think he's a good guy, a good leader. And, you know, they weren't, obviously they

00:08:56.420 were disappointed in the outcome, but they think that the party is heading on the right path. And

00:09:00.920 they just stand behind their guy, they stand behind Aaron O'Toole, no matter what, it's people who sort

00:09:05.700 of ideologically align with him, but also people who are just in positions of power, people who have,

00:09:11.040 you know, lots of responsibilities in the party or good titles. And, you know, they've formed good

00:09:16.200 relationships, they're no tool. And they don't want to jeopardize that they're loyal to their guy.

00:09:19.460 And they don't want a party review where they could lose their position power, or they could

00:09:24.280 find themselves on the outside. So a small group of MPs fit into that category. The polar opposite

00:09:30.760 of that are the people who are absolutely angry, they're enraged, they think that Aaron O'Toole needs

00:09:36.920 to go, that he should have resigned on election night, not happy with the positions that he took,

00:09:42.960 not happy about the carbon taxes, resentful about the way that Andrew Scheer, the conservative

00:09:48.760 leader who ran in 2019, and then was quickly axed. As soon as he lost the campaign, he said he wasn't

00:09:55.080 going to step down. And all of a sudden, you know, all these bad stories came tumbling into the media,

00:09:59.400 leak, leak, leak. Andrew Scheer was basically, his name was dragged through the mud to the point where

00:10:04.100 he just chose that he was going to resign, that he didn't have a future in the conservative party.

00:10:08.540 So people who are loyal to Andrew Scheer were still bitter and resentful about the way that he was

00:10:13.400 treated, the way that he basically had a knife in his back after the campaign. And they see it only fair

00:10:18.780 that Aaron O'Toole be subject to the same treatment, given that he didn't even do as well

00:10:23.440 actorally as Andrew Scheer. So again, sort of a combination of MPs who ideologically really deeply

00:10:30.220 oppose what Aaron O'Toole is doing in the direction he's taking the party in, as well as those who are just

00:10:35.980 sort of more loyal to Andrew Scheer and feel like there's a double standard here that Aaron O'Toole is

00:10:41.260 avoiding the scrutiny and the criticism that Andrew got, and they don't think that's fair.

00:10:47.200 And finally, the third group of MPs are, this is where I'm told, most of caucuses. So the majority

00:10:54.040 of MPs who are just sort of in the middle, they haven't really made up their mind, they don't know

00:10:58.560 yet what they're going to do, they don't really want to rock the boat, they don't really like the idea

00:11:02.140 of a leadership race that could again divide the party even further. They're not really happy with

00:11:07.700 Aaron O'Toole and how he ran the campaign, but they're not angry enough to make him go. So obviously

00:11:13.280 these are the most important people in caucus because how this meeting goes on Tuesday will

00:11:18.920 determine whether they join camp A, the Aaron O'Toole supporters camp, or camp B, the Aaron O'Toole

00:11:25.460 must go camp. So these are, you know, these are the people who they're fighting over. These are the

00:11:29.180 people who will determine the future of the party. So I'm told that in 2019, when they had their first

00:11:35.300 caucus meeting after the election, it was a total brawl. It was a seven-hour debate. One MP told me

00:11:42.660 that it was horrible, that people were just lashing out every frustration, every bit of anger. They were

00:11:48.820 letting Andrew Scheer hear it. It was really uncomfortable. And again, it just showed how fractious

00:11:54.060 the conservative coalition is. And as we all know, the Conservative Party of Canada is a big tent party,

00:11:59.140 meaning it's a coalition of a lot of different types of conservatives. And we all have a lot in

00:12:02.880 common. But really, there are fundamental differences in the worldviews between, say,

00:12:08.120 red Tories or downtown Toronto Tories who just sort of want to get along with the modern progressive

00:12:12.820 social values of the popular culture compared to staunch social conservatives who want to uphold

00:12:19.760 tradition and, you know, guard the family. And the distinctions between ardent libertarians who

00:12:26.180 want a very, very minimal government role versus other kinds of conservatives who see a bigger role

00:12:31.940 for government. So there's obviously disagreements. There's some core agreements as well. And so

00:12:36.460 obviously, it's the job of any Conservative leader to keep these people together. And whether or not

00:12:40.400 Aaron O'Toole did a good job is sort of yet to be seen. Many people adamantly say he didn't. Others did.

00:12:46.120 Now, another important thing that will happen at this caucus meeting on Tuesday is that Conservative

00:12:50.500 MPs will vote on something called the Reform Act. The Reform Act was introduced by MP Michael

00:12:55.440 Chong. He introduced it a couple of years ago. They voted on it before. It didn't all get through.

00:12:59.860 They're going to vote on it again. There are sort of four components of it. And one of the key things

00:13:03.940 that this Reform Act will do is enable members of parliament to call a leadership review. So within the

00:13:10.580 caucus, the MPs will be able to determine whether or not there will be a leadership review. So

00:13:15.920 this could potentially pave the path down the road for a leadership review, for caucus to determine

00:13:21.440 whether or not they want to oust Aaron O'Toole in a legal way. And so from one of the MPs that I

00:13:26.920 spoke to, he told me that at this point, there is no will to oust Aaron O'Toole, that basically there

00:13:33.000 are three reasons why. So the first reason is that the election was essentially a draw. The map going

00:13:38.760 into the election looks eerily similar to the map coming out. There was only really a small handful

00:13:43.780 of places where it changed. There was no big winner. There's no big loser. The biggest loser, of course,

00:13:49.260 were the taxpayers who had to pay $610 million for the campaign. Of course, Justin Trudeau lost as well

00:13:54.420 because he was after his majority government. But he's still prime minister. So in some ways, he still

00:13:59.620 won. So the first one, again, that there's no clear winner and that basically it was a draw. The second reason is

00:14:06.460 that the Conservative Party has been switching leaders so frequently. So, you know, you had Stephen Harper

00:14:10.620 going into the election in 2015. Then he resigned. You had interim leader Ronna Ambrose. Andrew Scheer

00:14:16.740 was elected leader in 2017. 2019, he stepped down. And then Aaron O'Toole was named leader. So we've

00:14:22.060 had four leaders in the last couple of years. And that's not a good way to build up your brand as a

00:14:26.480 party. You need some kind of name recognition. Aaron O'Toole has been leader for just a year now.

00:14:32.260 So he hasn't had a lot of time. And that year was a pandemic year. So it wasn't a regular time where

00:14:36.700 he could have been out campaigning, out making a name for himself. He was really in a tough position

00:14:40.640 and a lot of MPs recognize that. And because of that, they want to give him another opportunity

00:14:45.060 to go. And the third one is, I think the probably the most important one is that Aaron O'Toole,

00:14:50.140 I'm told, is a very nice guy. He's very personable. He has really good connections. He works really hard

00:14:56.160 on his connections with members of parliament, with senators, with people who run local constituencies,

00:15:02.360 people who run the electoral districts. He's just the kind of guy that when he sees you,

00:15:08.760 he remembers your name, or he'll ask about your kids. Or if something happens, he'll write a

00:15:13.660 personal note. He's really big, I'm told, on writing handwritten letters. He's sort of an old

00:15:19.320 school kind of guy in that way. He's very personable, very nice, very sweet, and that he's likable.

00:15:24.060 And so that's what I'm told. Of course, we don't know what will happen. Tuesday will be a big day for

00:15:28.720 the Conservative Party and for Aaron O'Toole, and how he presents himself, how he handles things,

00:15:33.720 and really how the MPs organize themselves, and really what happens at that caucus event on Tuesday

00:15:39.940 will be very telling. So we at the Candace Malcolm Show and at True North will watch that event very

00:15:44.620 closely and carefully, and we will keep you updated. So even if Aaron O'Toole survives this week, even if

00:15:49.780 he survives his private meeting in Toronto with his top advisors, as well as the caucus meeting with all

00:15:55.260 Conservative members of Parliament, that doesn't mean he's out of the clear. Aaron O'Toole still has a

00:15:59.780 long way to go to prove it to Canadians, as well as to Conservatives and the Conservative base, who he

00:16:05.660 is, what he believes in, why he abandoned Conservative principles in the last campaign, and whether or not

00:16:11.220 he's going to do that again. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is the Candace Malcolm Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - October 04, 2021

Will Erin O’Toole survive this week？

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