Tory leadership
Re: Inside story of Scheer’s trials with Bernier, MarieDanielle Smith, Aug. 25 Before anyone counts out federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, let me remind them of several factors. Mr. Scheer became the youngest Speaker of the federal House of Commons in Canadian history. He, like John Diefenbaker (another great federal Tory leader), is an Ontario-born transplant to Saskatchewan. Dief the Chief, the MP for Prince Albert for many years, overcame a 20 point voter poll deficit in defeating Liberal PM Louis St.-Laurent — and he wasn’t expected to.
Diefenbaker, like Scheer, was a Tory leader who many believed unable to succeed and yet he did so exponentially. A much younger man than Dief, Scheer has proven to be a most able parliamentarian.
Despite Maxime Bernier’s actions, Scheer, now that he is free of Maxime’s distractions inside caucus, has every chance of gaining power from Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, or at least reducing them to a minority status government. Rory J., Koopmans, Edmonton There should be room for a man like Maxime Bernier in the Conservative Party. I liken him to a fellow libertarian politician in the American system, Kentucky Republican Senator, Rand Paul. I’m not a libertarian but libertarianism is one legitimate train of conservative thought. Watching the debates on the U.S. budget, it was maddening to see Paul hog the microphone and express negative views of the Republican-initiated budget. He probably drove Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to distraction. He certainly did me. But Paul is still at his post, representing a minority faction in conservative thinking, but cooperating and supporting party leadership in other respects.
However, if Bernier was unwilling to support the party and its leader and its main principles once a decision to go in a certain direction was made, as I suspect he was, then the party becomes his own vanity project and it comes time for separation.
However, the Conservative party should not become like the Liberals, who won’t allow anyone who doesn’t goose step to the leader’s particular views on abortion or a number of other similar issues of conscience, for example, even run for a Liberal nomination. Hermina Dykxhoorn, Calgary