THERE WERE SOME MISGIVINGS WHEN RONA AMBROSE WAS ELECTED INTERIM TORY LEADER. BUT AS SHE EXITS THE FEDERAL POLITICAL SCENE, JOHN IVISON REPORTS ON HER MARVELLOUS PERFORMANCE.
Rona Ambrose was the right person to lead the Conservative Party, at the right time.
The words are those of Larry Miller, the veteran Ontario MP known to his colleagues as The Keeper of the Flame, the straight-shooting voice of principle in caucus.
But he says the feeling inside the party is unanimous. “There is zero dissent or negativity. We needed a makeover and she did it in spades. She brought a new face to our party,” said Miller.
Ambrose announced Tuesday she will leave politics this summer, having helped lift the Conservatives from their post-election defeat doldrums as interim leader.
When she was elected to the position ahead of a number of other candidates, she inherited a party that was down if not out. The caucus had been reduced to 99 MPs, turfed from the big cities and all of Atlantic Canada.
Ambrose’s ascent was not hailed in all quarters.
There were concerns she’d had a relatively undistinguished parliamentary career as a Harper government minister. In her first portfolio, Environment, where she was at the time the country’s youngest female cabinet minister, she was hampered by a government that had no intention of crimping economic performance to cut emissions.
She was set up to fail and, after being shuffled through smaller departments — Western Economic Diversification, then Labour — she learned success in that government was defined as doing nothing until word came from the Prime Minister’s Office. Ministers were required to not rock the boat.
She had more profitable stints with other portfolios: what was then called Public Works, Status of Women and Health. But in hindsight, her entire career in politics was merely a warm-up for the role of her parliamentary life.
The crucial task of any interim leader is to do no harm. Ambrose has done much better than that. The party was still a going concern in November 2015 but it wasn’t clear in which direction it was going.
A voter-preference poll taken as Ambrose assumed her role had the Conservatives bouncing around their low-water mark of 25 per cent, with just 11 per cent of Canadians choosing her as their preferred prime minister. The Conservatives have since risen as high as 32 per cent support and Ambrose has nearly doubled her personal numbers.
In terms of fundraising, in the first three months of this year the Conservatives raised double the amount brought in by the Liberals. But the bald facts don’t reflect the extent of the job done by Ambrose in renewing a party whose base and sympathies had become too narrow.
She and a small, experienced team, led by chief of staff Garry Keller and communications director Mike Storeshaw, arrived to an office bereft of computers and people.
“We had to build an institution from scratch,” said one senior staffer.
Ambrose was also short the carrots and sticks that parties in power use to maintain discipline. Faced with a Conservative Party in danger of splintering into a dozen leadership factions, she managed to maintain unity by winning the trust of her colleagues in the House of Commons.
“The role was made for her. She could be compassionate but when she needed to kick Trudeau in the balls, she did it,” said Miller.
The caucus fell in behind her, in part, because of her light touch when it came to discipline.
“We realized we had to let the pressure off some of those guys,” said the senior staffer. “A number of them have blossomed.”
Admittedly, this was easier to do in opposition than in government but it helped the Tories strike a fresh, more empathetic tone in the House.
Ambrose’s ability to bring together the various strands of the Conservative movement led a number of MPs to launch a “Draft Rona” campaign, aimed at persuading the interim leader to run for the job full-time.
The attempt fell at the first hurdle — Ambrose and her partner J.P. Veitch were determined that they would get on with their life together once a permanent leader was chosen.
Scott Reid, the Ontario MP behind the Draft Rona campaign, has now set up a website called thankyourona.ca, where tributes have been left by Conservative luminaries like Stephen Harper, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell and Jason Kenney. There is also a tribute from Malala Yousafzai, the girls’ education advocate, in recognition of Ambrose’s work on behalf of women and girls.
“She is the best prime minister that Canada never had,” said Reid.
Ambrose will stay on to help manage the transition into the summer but will then take up work in the private sector, including a position as a visiting fellow at the Canada Institute of the Wilson Center, a Washington-based think-tank.
But her departure will not come without misgivings. “I think a whole bunch of people will be lamenting the fact that she won’t be staying as permanent leader,” said Yaroslav Baran, a partner at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and a former senior Conservative staffer, who pointed out that the party’s “non-asshole tone” under her stewardship and her able performance in the House have denied the government a free ride.
Tom Flanagan, the veteran Conservative strategist and academic, would never be mistaken for a ray of sunshine and has not always had nice things to say about the party’s leaders. But even his analysis echoed the praise coming from all corners of the Conservative movement.
“Rona did well. Party support has stayed stable; fratricide didn’t erupt; now, she’s leaving gracefully. A performance to be proud of,” he said.