National Post (National Edition)
Who’s on team for Bernier’s new political party?
No big names, but grassroots may be strength
OTTAWA • As Maxime Bernier sets out to create a new right-wing political party, his first task is clear: find people who will help him do it.
In a caustic speech on Parliament Hill on Thursday, the Quebec MP announced he was leaving the “intellectually and morally corrupt” Conservative Party of Canada to form a new party that, in his words, will “fight for freedom, responsibility, fairness and respect.”
Step 1 will be to create a team to build it. A source close to Bernier, who would only speak on condition of anonymity while early plans are being formed, told National Post Bernier truly is starting out from scratch. He hopes to draw on key organizers from his failed leadership campaign, but otherwise Bernier will be looking to see who comes forward.
By his own account, Bernier decided to leave the Conservative party just nine days ago, following a conversation with leader Andrew Scheer.
“He couldn’t talk to many people before yesterday, just because it was too sensitive and we didn’t want the story to leak before he made his announcement,” the source said Thursday, but declined to give any names of people ready to come on board.
“I know he’s talked to a few influential supporters across the country from the leadership campaign, he’s talked to them in the past two days and they’re supportive. But really, we’re at the preliminary stage.”
Bernier’s leadership campaign finished a close second to Scheer on May 27, 2017, with 49 per cent support on the final ballot compared with 51 per cent for Scheer.
The source said Bernier does not have polling to suggest how well a breakaway conservative party would do but is sure that his policy ideas — dismantling supply management, ending corporate welfare and pushing a much more skeptical line on immigration and multiculturalism — will find substantial support among the party’s base.
It is already clear that Bernier will not get the full support of his previous leadership team. Kory Teneycke, a top adviser on the campaign who now works for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was quick to publish a Toronto Sun column on Thursday with the headline: “Canada Needs Prime Minister Andrew Scheer.” Conservative MP Tony Clement, one of Bernier’s few caucus supporters during the leadership, also took Scheer’s side.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper, along with some of his senior aides and cabinet ministers, also denounced Bernier’s plan. “It is clear that Max never accepted the result of the leadership vote and seeks only to divide Conservatives,” said a statement on Harper’s Twitter account.
Provincial conservative leaders were equally dismissive. “It looks a lot more to me like sour grapes over a leadership election defeat rather than any kind of principled stand,” Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party, told reporters in Halifax, where he was attending the national Conservative convention. Ontario Premier Ford and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also gave support to Scheer.
But there are indications Bernier will get grassroots support. The president of the Conservative riding association in Bernier’s Quebec riding of Beauce told CBC that “we’ve always been there more for Maxime than for the party,” and that all but one member was resigning in support.
There may also be disaffected conservative politicians who will lend support to Bernier — such as Stephen Fletcher, a former Harper cabinet minister recently rejected for the Conservative party nomination in Winnipeg, and Derek Fildebrandt, an Alberta MLA who was ejected from Kenney’s party. Reached by phone at the convention in Halifax, Fletcher said he supports Bernier’s policy ideas and thinks Scheer should have accommodated them, but hadn’t yet decided who to support. Fildebrandt did not respond to a request for comment.
With the next federal election scheduled for October 2019, there is little time to organize. Bernier’s aim is to announce the new party (including a name) before Parliament returns from its summer break on Sept. 17, but the formal process of registering with Elections Canada may take longer. Despite the lack of time, the hope is still to field a full slate of 338 candidates across the country for the election.
Bernier simply decided that he couldn’t wait any longer to push strongly for his ideas, the source working alongside him said.
“After he talked to Andrew Scheer, he was really fed up,” the source said. “He said, ‘I’m 55, I’m not going to waste another 10 years of my life on stupid politics, telling platitudes.’ That’s really the basis for all this.”
HE HAS DECIDED THAT HE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HIS CONSERVATIVE COLLEAGUES AND INDEED THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY. HE HAS TRADED AN OPPORTUNITY TO INFLUENCE POLICY IN GOVERNMENT FOR HIS OWN PERSONAL AMBITION. — CONSERVATIVE LEADER ANDREW SCHEER