MacKay’s campaign denies deal with Alleslev

CPC LEADERSHIP

OTTAWA • Peter MacKay’s Conservative leadership campaign said Monday the party’s deputy leader wasn’t promised a similarly high-profile position in the House of Commons in exchange for supporting MacKay for the top job.

Leona Alleslev had been expected to remain neutral in the contest, but announced late Sunday she didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and resigned as deputy leader, a post she’d held since the last federal election.

Monday morning, she declared she is backing MacKay.

“Canada faces an uncertain future. Canada needs a leader who has the experience and a plan to tackle the priorities of our time,” Alleslev said on social media.

“That is why Peter MacKay has my support.”

Voting in the leadership race is underway. A new leader will be elected in August.

Should MacKay win, he’ll have to appoint someone to lead the party in the House of Commons in his stead, as he does not have a seat.

Given Alleslev’s past role within caucus, questions immediately surfaced whether she’d already been tapped for that job.

“Absolutely not,” MacKay campaign spokesman Chisholm Pothier said in an email.

“Those are decisions for once he’s leader.”

Alleslev declined a request for an interview on Monday, but in a statement said her only conversations with MacKay have been about his credentials for the leadership job.

“Service to country before my personal needs is who I am at my core,” she said.

“My loyalty can’t be bought, it must be earned.”

Alleslev has been part of a team helping current leader Andrew Scheer guide the Opposition’s operations in the House.

The task took on additional weight once Scheer announced in December he was stepping back pending the election of his replacement.

To try to keep the politics of the race off at least the front benches, and avoid any sense that Scheer’s office was meddling in the race, members of his “leadership team” were not to publicly endorse any candidates.

In her resignation letter, Alleslev said she felt compelled to break ranks.

“The selection of the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada is too important a decision for me to stand to the side,” she wrote to Scheer.

Alleslev was elected as a Liberal in 2015 and crossed the floor to the Tories in 2018, saying she no longer shared the Liberal vision on a number of policies.

She was appointed deputy leader after the 2019 election, having succeeded in winning her Toronto-area seat of Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill for the party when so many other Conservative candidates failed to do the same in nearby ridings.