National Post (National Edition)
Tory hopefuls pillory O’Leary for French snub
‘Very bad signal to our members in Quebec’
QUEBEC CITY • As the Conservative caucus’s strategy meeting kicked off Thursday in Quebec City, candidates for the party’s leadership were at pains to emphasize the importance of the French language to any future leader, and to quiet talk of internal discord.
Andrew Scheer, the Saskatchewan MP who leads the field in endorsements from caucus colleagues, told reporters gathered to cover the meeting he thinks that Quebecers appreciate the fact that “regardless of the level of proficiency, every single one of those candidates were here in Quebec City trying to articulate their vision” at the Frenchlanguage leadership debate last week.
“Everyone except one,” he said, referring to the latest candidate to enter the race, businessman and reality television star Kevin O’Leary.
“Mr. O’Leary chose not to be here in Quebec. He launched his campaign just 12 hours later.
“I think that’s a very bad signal to our members in Quebec, and the voters of Quebec as well, and francophone voters across the country.”
Not being a member of caucus, O’Leary was not present Thursday, but his entry seems to have increased the tension among candidates, though many dismissed concerns that the race is causing fractures in the party.
“I’ve been certainly making it very public that I’m not going to personally attack people for entering this race,” Ontario MP Erin O’Toole said. “I think we need to keep the focus on Justin Trudeau.”
“In politics, people are defending their ideas with a lot of passion and so I’m doing the same,” said Maxime Bernier, one of two Quebec MPs running for leadership, arguing in French that people having different points of view doesn’t harm the overall unity of the party.
Steven Blaney, the other Quebec contender, said the candidates respect each other even if they disagree on ideas and it would be boring if everybody agreed.
But Blaney said to him, French is “critical.”
“I believe, in a respectful manner, that it is important when a Canadian citizen talks to his prime minister that he’s being answered in his mother tongue,” he said. It’s in Conservatives’ “best interest” to elect a leader who is bilingual, understands “different cultural backgrounds” within Canada and specifically “will understand Quebec.”
The Ontario-based leadership candidate Lisa Raitt said her focus in Quebec City is “to support the team,” and to support interim leader Rona Ambrose while she still leads the party.
Raitt, who has publicly decried the controversial candidacies of Kellie Leitch and O’Leary — even launching a website against the latter candidate — said she thinks it’s “completely appropriate” and “absolutely fair” to criticize other candidates. But, she said, “any leader’s going to unite us. If the membership votes for whatever leader, we will fall in and we will make sure that we appropriately support the leader.”
She admits her French “isn’t perfect,” and her goal for May 27, when the leadership vote will take place, is to be able to take questions from reporters in French.
Leitch, too, said she believes French is important, and said she’s been practicing one or two hours every day — though she seemed to have difficulty understanding a few of the questions posed to her in French during a scrum Thursday.
All of them repeated that it will be up to party members to decide what attributes the next leader should have.
Still, votes on May 27 will be weighted equally among federal ridings, so Quebec, with almost a quarter of those ridings, will be important to candidates.
Ambrose gave a press conference with Quebec caucus MPs Wednesday where she expressed — although struggling at times with her own French — that her party has always had strong links with Quebec.
“Today our Quebec Conservative MPs are fighting for Quebec’s interests against a Liberal government that does not see this region as a priority,” she said.
And in a speech opening the caucus session, Ambrose outlined the party’s priorities for combating the Liberal government — themed on the idea that “the fun is over” for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Tories will push hard on economic policies, cash-foraccess fundraising, China policies (“dangerously naive,” she said) and the carbon tax, which they believe will make Canada less competitive versus a Trump-led United States.
The House of Commons begins its next session Monday.