Over the last seven years, I have had to take a long look in the mirror. As an Indigenous person, I ask myself, “What do I aspire to be? What do I want for my family? What do I want for my children and my grandchildren?” The troubling policies brought forth by Canada’s Liberal government have infuriated me. I am now genuinely worried for my children’s future.
I dunno, that guy with the pronouns in his Twitter bio has pretty much soured me on voting CPC – ever again.
Centre Ice Conservatives are warming the bench for now
Speaking to a gathering of self-described “Centre Ice Conservatives” in Edmonton on Thursday, former British Columbia premier Christy Clark offered a tidy explanation for why the people in the room had come together.
“When you look across the country, what we see are political leaders rushing to the fringes. Political leaders of all political stripes – they’re all trying to get right to the edge,” she said. “And you are trying to do the exact opposite. You are trying to preserve that middle political path that has saved Canada so many times and that has preserved our country.”
The only question now is how Centre Ice Conservatives — or any other group of dissatisfied centre-right conservatives — might go about doing that.
Jack Mintz: Poilievre’s spirit hung over Centre Ice Conservatives like Banquo’s ghost
In William Shakespeare’s famous play, Macbeth is distressed by the appearance of Banquo’s ghost at a banquet for Scottish Thanes. This image played in my mind as a non-partisan panelist during the Centre Ice Conservatives conference held Thursday. It is not that anyone was a Macbeth murdering his rival, Banquo, to gain power. It is simply that the attendees are disturbed that their favourite candidate for the Conservative leadership, Jean Charest, is unlikely to win the Conservative leadership. Pierre Poilievre’s name was hardly mentioned but his spirit hung over the conference like Banquo’s ghost.
The paradox of the current Conservative Party of Canada leadership race is that the front-runner in the contest to replace Erin O’Toole is seeking to move the party in the opposite direction of where most available voters seem to be heading.
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau scales new heights of unpopularity, with more than half of Canadians now holding a negative opinion of the Liberal leader, Conservatives have a rare opening before them to capture the centre. With the ranks of disaffected Liberals swelling by the day, countless Canadians are scanning the horizon for a credible alternative to the Grits.
Another of the Globe’s recent Poilievre Panic Pieces.
Poilievre is not an extremist, he will not govern as an extremist. He will turn out to be much the same as the previous two Conservative party leaders. Say one thing to get elected then do another if not the exact opposite once in power.
I like Poilievre, he’s fun. He is not the savior you are looking for because the Conservative party is not conservative any more.
Where would Poilievre take the Conservatives? Not to the far right, but the far out
People keep trying to get a read on where Pierre Poilievre would take the Conservative Party. Would he, as some fear and others hope, position it on the far right – fiscally severe, socially intolerant and so on?
Or is he, as others argue, more of a mainstream conservative than his hard-line rhetoric would suggest – witness his refusal to legislate on abortion, or his proposals to make it easier for new immigrants to have their credentials recognized in Canada.
Andrew Coyne needs to step back from the pipe. His screen must be soaked from frothing at the mouth producing this bit of Laurentian hysteria.
Conservative politics are resonating with young Canadians, according to recent polls. Pierre Poilievre is getting much of the credit for this growth in support.
Political observers are trying to figure out what’s going on. And I might have some helpful insights to explain.
Former British Columbia premier Christy Clark made a passionate plea for more moderate Conservatives to end the cycle of “clickbait politicians” which are tearing the country apart — and hinted that Jean Charest could be the man for the job.
LPC 2.0 Here we come.
Lou Kuiack, a mother of two living in Alberta, filled out her voting ballot for the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership race but originally waited before sending it in the mail.
Why? The fact that the return envelope is addressed to Deloitte, which identifies as “long-standing strategic partner” of the World Economic Forum (WEF), made her “uneasy” and she was still searching for “answers” at the time of her interview with the National Post.
OTTAWA — No matter how many clicks a candidate has on social media or dollars they have in the bank, what it’s going to take to win the Conservative leadership race is votes.
But both the likes and the bucks are part of getting that vote out.
Get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of all five campaigns are shifting into high gear with just a month remaining in the contest, and even less time to get ballots back to party headquarters to be counted.
OTTAWA — Ontario MP Pierre Poilievre remains the heavy favourite to be the next Conservative party leader but he trails opponent Jean Charest for support among Canadians as a whole.
A new Leger poll conducted in collaboration with the Association for Canadian Studies suggests 44 per cent of Conservative voters believe Poilievre would make the best party leader. His chief rival, former Quebec premier Jean Charest, is backed by 17 per cent.
These Poilievre hit pieces are getting a little more subtle.
Leader of the People’s Party of Canada Maxime Bernier said the Conservative Party of Canada is “infiltrated” by the “woke far left,” after blasting the party’s President for using so-called “trans-inclusive” pronouns in his Twitter bio.
“This woke guy with pronouns in his bio is the president of the Conservative Party of Canada. Still wondering why I left this morally and intellectually corrupt party?,” tweeted Bernier yesterday.
The president of the CPC Rob Batherson’s Twitter bio reads, “Business person, community volunteer, husband, father, son (he/him).”
Well that’s settles it not voting the CPC next election.
Conservative leadership candidate Jean Charest has pledged to implement a “low carbon fuel standard” – a policy that would tax the excess carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
In Charest’s environmental plan, Charest opposes the Trudeau government’s consumer carbon tax but pledges to “replace it with an industrial carbon price to slash emissions while giving provinces the flexibility to choose their path to emission reductions.”
It doesn’t matter. All costs will be paid by consumers. They think we’re stupid.
Stephen Harper’s endorsement of Pierre Poilievre for the Conservative Party leadership may have soured some voters on the Ottawa MP, a new poll suggests.
The former Conservative prime minister recently said Mr. Poilievre is his preferred choice, from a field of five candidates, for the party’s leadership.
Jean Charest will not commit to supporting the Conservative Party of Canada in the next federal election unless he wins the party’s leadership next month. That makes his campaign nothing more than a vanity project.
When three Conservative leadership hopefuls met this past week for a debate, the same word kept getting repeated.
Unity. Or more precisely, the need for it.
In a contest largely seen as a battle for the party’s soul, which has put decades-old fissures on display between groups that make up its very coalition, what might it take to achieve unity after results are revealed Sept. 10?
