2022 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election

[MaxQue]

Anyone want to take bets on which washed up politician from 15 years ago that the media will talk up before they inevitably don't run? AKA the Jean Charest option

What's Bernard Lord up to these days?

I’m sure Kim Campbell would do it if someone gave her $10 and a few minutes of screen time.

It would be funny seeing the reaction by Tory MPs if she won seeing as she is now a twitter liberal who actually retweeted Gully Foyle.

I mean, she twitted that she hoped an hurricane hit Mar-A-Lago.

[MaxQue]

Probably just bloviation, but this idea of Charest accomplishing the mythical feat of uniting Red Tories and Blue Grits has me excited. I've always been more PC than C anyway, and seeing that return could either go surprisingly well, or condemn us to 20 years of Generalissimo Freeland, but I'm willing to roll the dice.

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/analyse/2022-02-14/parti-conservateur-du-canada/un-realignement-politique-en-branle.php

It doesn't seem like there's much meat on the bone with this article, but this line stood out:

Pour contrer une victoire de Pierre Poilievre, des députés conservateurs du Québec courtisent avec ardeur l’ancien premier ministre du Québec Jean Charest.

I had imagined that the electoral appeal of Poilievre was that he's an Albertan with a French name. If he's an absolute non-starter in Quebec (which may or may not be true, but Quebec MPs clearly don't think that he'll help them keep their jobs), then it becomes a lot harder to envision a path to victory at a general election.

Despite their efforts to enlarge their base, the Conservative base in Québec is mostly affluent people in Quebec City suburbs who want lower taxes and are quite happy with the status quo on social questions.

[MaxQue]

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1863855/jean-charest-course-direction-parti-conservateur

Article from Radio-Canada saying that Charest and Tasha Kheiriddin have decided to run, but reserve themselves the right to pull out last minute later.

Also, it seems Leslyn Lewis is preparing another run and Patrick Brown is thinking about it, but the timing of the municipal elections (October 2022) is a problem for him.

[MaxQue]

Genuine question: How big is Brown’s ego?

Probably smaller than Tasha's?

[MaxQue]

Tasha is not running, endorses Charest.

https://nationalpost.com/news/tasha-kheiriddin-wont-be-running-for-cpc-leadership-will-support-jean-charest-instead

[MaxQue]

People on the Charest team deny a pact with Patrick Brown.

Hypothetically in a general election where would Charest run. Sherbrooke? a Quebec City area riding?

Not Sherbrooke, it is unwinnable for any Conservative at the moment. They got 13% last time and even star candidate André Bachand only got 16% in 2008.

[MaxQue]

According to wiki, a business person from Saskatchewan named Joseph Borgault, the President and Co-General Manager of Tilage Tools and the President of "Canadians for Truth" entered the Conservative leadership race on March 9.

https://www.josephbourgault.com/about

The 'truth' seems to be that if you believe in God enough and pray a lot, God will give you immunity against COVID. I really cannot see him being approved as a candidate by the party.

[MaxQue]

https://twitter.com/alexboutilier/status/1499467745733365769

He's now officially in.

[MaxQue]

Poilievre's pry back the PPC vote strategy only exacerbates the map problem.  The Conservatives need to be much more competitive in Liberal-dominated metropolitan Canada to form government. 

I don't think Poilievre or his inside circle are naive enough to genuinely believe that this is all they need to do.

I don't think Poilievre exhibited thinking at any in his House career, through.

[MaxQue]

Will be really bad for him if the simian pox gets worse.

[MaxQue]

IDK about that. 2 of Brown's 4 caucus supporters switched to Poilievre this morning. https://twitter.com/DanMuysMP/status/1534188180215410692

Liars and hypocrites. They could at least be honest and say they do it to have a shadow Cabinet position.

[MaxQue]

Pierre. You idiot. Why are you providing royalty-free imagery for the LPC's attack ads in 2025? He basically has the leadership wrapped up, he easily could have the next election wrapped up if he keeps at his social media game and avoids being associated with extremists. So why on earth do you need to be seen marching with James Topp and taking selfies with PPC candidates? The anti-mandate/pro-convoy vote is already all-in for him, it makes no sense to double down on this (especially now that most mandates have been lifted, I'm not even sure what the people in Ottawa are protesting right now). Keep your focus on inflation, you donkey.

They now want a ban on vaccine mandates, re-hiring of anyone fired due to non-vaccination and full financial compensation of the losses they suffered for being fired.

[MaxQue]

And now it seems one of the protestors tried to choke a cop to death.

[MaxQue]

Patrick Brown has been kicked out of the race, at the demand of Elections Canada, due to suspected severe breaches of electoral finance regulations.

[MaxQue]

Patrick Brown has been kicked out of the race, at the demand of Elections Canada, due to suspected severe breaches of electoral finance regulations.

Correction: the LEOC is referring the matter to Elections Canada for potential violations of the Elections Act. EC can't demand that a candidate drop out, especially in a private club's internal matter.

EC cannot demand it, but they recommended it to the LEOC (and the LEOC had really no choice but the comply, they don't want to be held responsible in any way for legal violations).

[MaxQue]

Patrick Brown has been kicked out of the race, at the demand of Elections Canada, due to suspected severe breaches of electoral finance regulations.

Correction: the LEOC is referring the matter to Elections Canada for potential violations of the Elections Act. EC can't demand that a candidate drop out, especially in a private club's internal matter.

EC cannot demand it, but they recommended it to the LEOC (and the LEOC had really no choice but the comply, they don't want to be held responsible in any way for legal violations).

Source? Haven't seen anything suggesting EC weighing in.

Also, PP's campaign has weighed in with the most predictable response imaginable, at 4:10:

Oh, that's Radio-Canada who confused the Chief Electral Officer of Canada and the Chief Electoral Officer of the party in its previous article. Sorry for that.

[MaxQue]

It was established in April of this year (maybe because the mayor was focused elsewhere?), there is a deputy for West Brampton and another one for East Brampton.

[MaxQue]

Stephen Harper has always been as sleazy as Pierre Polievre, it's just that Harper is more extreme in his rhetoric and policy proposals now that he is no longer Prime Minister.

Both of them are wholly owned by the fossil fuel sector.

People in the US tend to underestimate just how deeply captive to fossil fuel interests Canadian politics is. It's not as bad as, say, whaling in Japan where there's almost literally nobody in the country taking the position that the rest of the developed world thinks is the moral no-brainer, but you'd be surprised at what uncommon knowledge it is that the Tories are essentially a continuation of oil sands lobbying by other means and the Grits are only slightly if at all better.

And it's not even the industrial group with the strongest pull on government (that would be telecoms).

[MaxQue]

Pierre Poilievre and Leslyn Lewis have decided to skip the August 3rd debate. This is an official party debate not something organized by an outside group. I don't know if it's part of the libertarian trend, having a problem with authority.

I don't know what Alain Rayes will do after the leadership vote. He wrote an open letter. He speaks of the anger and hatred spread by Poilievre during the leadership campaign, his style of doing politics like in the US and his Trump like attitude. What is Rayes future? After a couple months say it's not as bad as what I expected because right now it looks like he doesn't want to be part of it.

Well, he is right. Poilievre style of politics will destroy the party in Quebec and Atlantic, there is no appetite for that kind of thing here.

[MaxQue]

Interesting article. I don't think that a party led by Poilievre would do particularly well in Quebec, but I have a hard time understanding why Quebec Conservative MPs hate him so much when he seems like a standard Conservative. Did they think that they were joining a different party?

I mean he's running against the former premier of Quebec...

Charest wasn't a particularly popular former premier though, especially by the end of his term. Anti-Charest sentiment mostly came from the left, but not exclusively - much of the CPC Quebec caucus are former ADQ/CAQistes, including Gerard Deltell who was actually leader of the ADQ and very opposed to Charest. And while Poilievre is a western conservative with his roots in the Canadian Alliance, and his policies are probably too right-wing for mainstream Quebecers, that makes Poilievre no different than Harper and Scheer - if anything, he's a continuation of Harper-era conservatism but speaks better French. My explanation is either Deltell, Rayes, Godin etc really don't like the guy, or they think Poilievre's "freedom" message will feel alien to the cultural sensibilities of Quebecers. Probably a combination of the two.

Quebec French has a great word for Poilievre "freedom" message. "Libârté", which is a very "white trash" pronounciation of "liberté" and often used to mock supporters of the convoy and so on.

[MaxQue]

First consequence of the CPC having lost touch with reality, Quebec MP Alain Rayes leaves the party, saying he believes in law and order, unlike Poilievre.

[MaxQue]

To me, Laurentian Elite just sounds like a repackaged "Western Alienation".

[MaxQue]

And now Poilievre is texting party members so they harass Rayes' staffers.

[MaxQue]

https://old.ipolitics.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Canada_Sept_2022.pdf

Mainstreet has Tories up 8 and leading big time with young voters

Same pollster that saw Bernier higher than 10. I just think they don't know how to sample young voters.