The final ballot
How a social conservative showdown could transform Tory leadership race
OTTAWA — Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan are frequently lumped together in the Conservative leadership race as the two social conservatives who’ve qualified for the final ballot. That oversimplification of their two campaigns risks overlooking significant distinctions that could affect the outcome of the party’s leadership vote, say party insiders.
Papering over the differences between their candidacies also obscures an important debate over how the party can keep social conservatives in the fold while still growing its appeal for the general electorate. The leadership race has sharply contrasted Sloan’s more pugnacious approach, throwing so-con bombs at Liberal targets, with Lewis’s more reserved message seemingly designed more to persuade than to attack. That has implications for who wins the race, which is expected to pivot on how Conservative party members prioritize their choices on the party’s ranked ballot, and therefore what kind of voters even the weaker candidates attract.
“Derek is making much more of a populist social conservative approach,” said Brad Trost, a former Conservative MP and leadership candidate who ran as a social conservative. “He’s the anti-establishment social conservative, Leslyn is more of a consensus social conservative. That’s the way I would look at it.”
Trost himself surprised the 2017 Conservative leadership race, when support from social conservatives boosted him to fourth out of 14 candidates on the final ballot. Similarly, social conservative candidate Pierre Lemieux had practically no profile but still finished seventh, ahead of much better known candidates Lisa Raitt, Steven Blaney and Chris Alexander.
The party’s constitution requires a ranked ballot for leadership races. When Trost and Lemieux were eliminated, their down-ballot support — their supporters’ next choices — flowed to Andrew Scheer and was a big factor in Scheer eking out a razor-thin win over the more libertarianminded Maxime Bernier.
This time around, a big benefit for social conservative groups was that the party significantly hiked the race’s entry requirements to try to keep the field small. Social conservatives have mastered the art of selling memberships and fundraising, and their preferred candidates now represent half of the final four on the ballot.
If the vote, currently planned for August, comes down to a tight neck-andneck race between Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole, as looks increasingly likely, the differences between the support bases of Lewis and Sloan could be crucial for the final result.
The public has usually only heard from social conservative leadership candidates during this race when they’ve caused controversy. Sloan, a Conservative MP, was most recently making news for appearing to question the loyalty of Canada’s chief public health officer, Theresa Tam. Richard Décarie provoked outrage in January when he went on TV and claimed being gay is a choice. (Décarie was later disqualified by the party for unstated reasons; most of his organizers subsequently went to Sloan’s campaign).
But Lewis, a Toronto lawyer who immigrated to Canada from Jamaica when she was five, and went on to start her own commercial law firm, has largely stayed out of the headlines.
Lewis, a black, evangelical Christian, has never held political office. She’s been up front about her pro-life stance and personal opposition to same-sex marriage, but has not sought out controversy. Instead she’s run a quietly effective campaign, raising more money than Sloan in the first quarter ($447,646 to Sloan’s $410,263.)
“In a lot of ways, she’s frankly one of the more interesting people to enter federal politics in some time,” said Sean Speer, a policy researcher and former Stephen Harper advisor who’s urged the party to keep social conservatives in the fold. “You know, it’s funny that she hasn’t gotten more attention than she has so far. Here’s the only woman in the race, a visible minority, and from what I understand, quite an inspiring story of a first generation immigrant.”
A big reason Lewis hasn’t received more attention is self-imposed: her campaign rejected almost all media interviews until early March. But it’s also likely due to the fact Lewis is just less sensational and more nuanced in her comments, especially compared to Sloan, even though both have attracted support from social conservative groups.