Conservative Party leadership race is a hot mess

TORONTO—Leadership hopeful Deepak Obhrai thinks rival Kellie Leitch is engaging in un-Canadian fear mongering for suggesting that immigrants and refugees be screened for “anti-Canadian values.” Candidate Brad Trost questions Chris Warkentin’s “fitness for office” as his party’s deputy House leader over his support for a rival in the race, Andrew Scheer. Speaking of Trost, what do fellow Conservative leadership hopefuls, including libertarian Maxime Bernier and stand-up guy Michael Chong, make of him? Whatever people may think of Stephen Harper, it’s probably tough to find anyone who would quarrel with Harper’s call to keep Trost, first elected in 2004, away from the cabinet table all those years. Of course, we’re all still waiting to find out about Chris Alexander’s plans. He’ll probably have to jump into the race to save the party from itself. The current batch of candidates, he says, is “uninspiring.” That’s right. Alexander—who gained notoriety along with Leitch during last year’s federal election campaign for promising to create a government snitch line to report cultural barbaric practices—calls the race uninspiring. A hot mess may be more like it. The Conservative Party, out of power after a decade in government, is now trying to map out a route back to power. Do they go for the cerebral moderate with a telegenic family? Not, I’m not talking about Tony Clement. But if not Chong, then what about the dog-whistle candidate engaging in wedge politics? If not Leitch, what about Bernier, the guy who’s mused about switching Canada back to the gold standard? If that’s too looney an idea, maybe the other guy from Quebec is a safer bet—the guy who quit his critic post to lay the groundwork for a run. Can’t remember his name. Or maybe Trost? The young guy from Saskatchewan, who toiled away in obscurity in Ottawa all those years, is suddenly making lots of headlines as the social conservative candidate. In the last few weeks, the self-described “100 per cent Conservative” candidate has launched an online ad blitz to strip gays and lesbians of their constitutionally protected right to marry. He’s complained social conservatives feel discriminated against because they oppose gay marriage. And he’s compared Ontario’s revamped sex-education curriculum (to include same-sex relationships and the dangers of online bullying and sexting) to residential schools. Of course, the violation of parental rights isn’t on the same level of residential schools, Trost allowed, but the “underlying principle is the same.” Coincidentally, the issue of modernizing Ontario’s sex-ed curriculum to reflect Canadian law and the realities of children living in a digital age has landed Patrick Brown into trouble. The Ontario PC leader was a backbench buddy of Trost’s during the Harper years, and the two MPs earned their social-conservative stripes. When Brown jumped to provincial politics, he worked to rebrand himself as a moderate, marching in gay pride parades to show his evolution. But like Trost, the sex-ed curriculum has tripped him up. In a recent by-election, the PC campaign circulated a letter in English and Chinese signed by Brown, promising to scrap the new sex-ed curriculum if the PCs form government in Ontario in 2018. Sensing the potential long-term damage to his rebranding efforts, Brown quickly clarified that the letter was a mistake and he would not be scrapping the curriculum. “We’re building a modern, inclusive PC party,” said Brown. Sure, Brown has bungled things on his march to moderation. But Trost doesn’t even appear to want to try this path (although he did say recently, in response to a column in the Regina Leader-Post—which took issue with his position on gay marriage, and his comments about the sex-ed curriculum and residential schools—that “diversity is what makes us strong and it is far from pathetic.”) Meanwhile, an unapologetic Leitch seems to be going all-in on Trump-style dog-whistle politics. And they’re the only two garnering much attention or generating any buzz. Is this really the road the Conservative Party wants to go down? Sarah Schmidt is director of communications with the Broadbent Institute in Toronto. The Hill Times