Conservative leaders just want to win

In the past few days, two of Canada’s most prominent and popular conservative politicians took steps that warrant discussion. First, let’s talk about Doug Ford’s decision to jettison social conservative Tania Granic Allen.

Here, in part, is what the Ford camp said Saturday: “We are a party comprised of people with diverse views that, if expressed responsibly, we would respect. However, the fact is her characterization of certain issues and people has been irresponsible.”

Let’s be clear — Granic Allen is a nasty piece of work. She makes fun of Muslim women who choose to wear traditional face coverings. She equates abortion with the Holocaust. In 2014, she condemned plans in Croatia to “push radical sexual education on the young or gay marriage,” adding “you know I almost vomit in disbelief. I’m like, are you kidding me?”

But her views are not new. Her beliefs were well known when she became a PC leadership candidate. Knocked out in the first round, she told her backers to support Ford, arguably ensuring his victory. The PCs didn’t hesitate to make her a candidate in Mississauga Centre. Observers say she was headed for a senior job in a Ford government. What changed?

Simple. Ford needed her social conservative delegates to win the leadership. Now that he’s running in a general election, he doesn’t. Granic Allen represented divisive, intolerant views that average Ontarians can’t relate to. She was warned once earlier when she bizarrely claimed students are being taught anal sex in Grade 2. But when the Liberals leaked this latest bit of hateful diatribe, Team Ford had heard enough, and she’s gone.

That’s not a bad thing, but it does make you wonder what would have happened had the Liberals not leaked the video that led to Granic Allen’s firing. Was it really her irresponsible views, or was it more her potentially damaging baggage Team Ford was worried about?

Then there’s Jason Kenney, leader of the Alberta’s United Conservative Party. Like Ford, he needed social conservative support to ensure he’d win control of the new party, which combines the Conservative party with the more militant right-wing Wild Rose Party. He courted that vote openly, and he won.

This weekend, at the party’s first policy convention, Kenney found out what can happen when those chickens come home to roost.

Delegates backed a policy that would “reinstate parental opt-in consent for any subjects of a religious or sexual nature, including enrolment in extracurricular activities/clubs or distribution of any instructional material related to these topics.” What this means is that parents would be alerted if their kids wanted to join gay-straight alliances (GSA), clubs that help gay kids feel supported. Ric McIver, a former interim party leader, literally begged: “This is about outing gay kids.”

Kenney, once himself a critic of such alliances, had to do a public about-face. He said: “A United Conservative government will not be changing law or policy to require notification of parents when kids join GSAs. We will not do that. You can take that to the bank.”

Kenney and Ford are both heavily favoured to become premiers. Both leaned on social conservatives to get their jobs, and both didn’t hesitate to kick them to the curb when it became expedient to do so.

There’s a message in there somewhere.