The most compelling question in and out of the Conservative Party of Canada involves: should leader Andrew Scheer resign?
Scheer spent the last week touring Canada supposedly to answer that question for himself and to shore up his support in a party with a history of eating its leaders if they fail to perform to expectations.
By most measures, Scheer should have the party’s confidence. He won the highest percentage of votes, took the party up three points from 2015 and gained 21 seats. Not exactly a shoddy performance.
Detractors will point out seven of those 21 new seats came from the Prairies where the mere mention of the name Trudeau elicits voter snarls comparable to an attacking pit bull.
Those detractors will also point out that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, beset by the Jody Wilson-Raybould scandal and the blackface episodes, among others, was at his most vulnerable.
The missing an empty net on a breakaway comment by veteran Conservative Peter MacKay aptly underscores this sentiment.
As one of the young Quebec Conservatives put it: Andrew Scheer was an unknown and had an opportunity to make himself known to Canadians, but they decided they didn’t want him as a leader.
Any attempt to re-package himself will be seen as disingenuous, asserted the Scheer opponent.
Scheer came across during the campaign as bland and boring with an immature “gotcha” school boy grin when scoring points.
His flip-flop responses to questions on abortion left voters wondering when he offered the real answer the next day, who did his thinking for him?
Remember, he wasn’t the top choice in the party leadership race. He narrowly won the race in a last-minute anybody-but-Maxime Bernier movement.
The Conservative Party bears just as much blame for the inability to win as Scheer does.
In an era where climate change issues are top of mind for two-thirds of voters the party’s policy barely acknowledged climate change.
The federal Conservative Party has changed substantially since the amalgamation with the western-based Reform Party.
What was once a party with a large proportion of “red Tories” holding centrist views has become dominated by right wingers with a large proportion of social conservatives.
Historically, one-third of Canadian voters are solid small “c” conservatives. About one-quarter are left wingers espousing more government control and regulation.
The remaining 32 per cent are centrist, somewhat neutral to the left or the right. To win an election the Conservative Party, any party, needs to win a nice slice of those centrist voters.
The lack of a decent climate change policy, fear of spending cuts, fear of social conservative policies alienated those voters from Scheer.
Nor did Scheer and company offer urban voters the kind of policies they would like.
Unless Scheer and his party can convince urban voters it will adequately represent their interests, the Conservative Party is doomed to remain a largely rural-based party.
In choosing their next leader Conservatives should ask: is this somebody voters would like to take out for a beer?
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
