Conservatives set Course for future without Bernier

TORY CONVENTION AN OPPORTUNITY TO BAND TOGETHER FOLLOWING MP’S DEPARTURE

However much Maxime Bernier’s announcement he was quitting the Conservative Party may have disrupted the first day of the party’s policy convention, by Saturday evening, as the convention wrapped up, his departure had begun to seem a blessing for Andrew Scheer.

Instead of sending the gathering of thousands party members into chaos, by quitting Bernier gave the Conservative caucus, the party’s rankand-file and Scheer, his former rival for the Conservative leadership, an immediate opportunity to band together without him.

And, like a voice booming from overhead, former prime minister Stephen Harper — who didn’t attend the convention in Halifax — tweeted in the wake of Bernier’s defection, pronouncing his support for Scheer and calling him, for the first time, “our Leader.”

The result: 15 months after his narrow victory over Bernier in a long, hard race to replace Harper as leader, Scheer was finally out from the shadows of his former rival and his predecessor. Whatever lies ahead, this is now unquestionably Scheer’s party.

Former Harper cabinet minister Peter Mackay likened the Bernier episode to a storm. “It’s kind of like a maritime weather system. It’s come, it’s blown over, and it’s gone,” he told the National Post on Friday. “There is optimism. And in many ways, I think, as difficult as moments like this can be, it’s galvanized support for Andrew. People feel genuinely loyal to him.”

It remains an open question whether, as Harper did, Scheer can hold together the many different types of conservatives. Keeping libertarians, red Tories and social conservatives happy under one “big blue tent” would be a delicate exercise even without the lurking spectre of Bernier’s still-hypothetical new party. Still, the vast majority who spoke to the Post in Halifax said unity was most important to them — because without it, they can’t win elections.

The environment for Conservatives to do so is “ripe,” Mackay said. Though the impact of Bernier’s party remains uncertain, there are reasons to believe so. Conservatives have almost doubled Liberal fundraising this year, $12.1 million in the first six months to $6.4 million, the NDP trailing badly with just $2.2 million over the same period. The party’s victory two months ago in a byelection in Chicoutimi, Que. was still being buzzed about here, with new MP Richard Martel invited to address the convention Friday evening. So with the 2019 federal election top of mind, Scheer used the weekend as an opportunity to flesh out the “positive Conservative vision” he has promised to offer voters.

In his keynote address Friday before an estimated 3,000 delegates, he tried to strike a rhetorical balance between crowd-pleasing lines contrasting Liberal ills with Conservative values like “freedom,” and more-practical talk about coming up with policies to make a difference that “everyday Canadians” could see in their pocketbooks.

At one point in Scheer’s speech Friday, he asked, “What if we had a government that believed there was enough space in our public debate for values and viewpoints it didn’t agree with?” It was intended to lambaste the governing Liberals, but also alluded to one of his own biggest challenges: figuring out how to keep his base happy without closing the door to mainstream voters.

As is the case at political conventions of every stripe, it was the grassroots policy debates where whatever tension exists within the party was on display.

A small protest erupted Friday when there wasn’t enough time to debate a resolution to phase out supply management, which enforces a quota system for dairy, egg and poultry products, and uses high tariffs to limit imports. There were a few heated moments on Saturday, too, when controversial policies that had passed with 80 per cent in smaller breakout sessions were rejected by slim majorities by the wider plenary.

A resolution defeated by 53 per cent of the larger room sought to delete from the Conservative policy book a commitment that “a Conservative Government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion.” Another resolution rejected by the same percentage of delegates called pornography a “public health risk” and asked the party to “prevent pornography exposure and addiction” and “develop recovery programs.” One delegate called porn a “public health crisis.” Another said, “the state has no business in our browsing history.”

Most policies that the party did endorse — including supporting pipeline expansion to Atlantic Canada, meeting the NATO target on defence spending, condemning “compelled speech” and renegotiating the Safe Third Country agreement with the United States — passed with broad support and without much controversy.

Still, a few could make life more difficult for Scheer. The resolution opposing a federal carbon tax, an idea widely supported by Conservatives and keenly advocated by Ontario Premier Doug Ford in his opening speech Thursday, also included a blanket ban on “federal interference,” relegating climate policy to the provinces. Another new policy with potential political implications would explicitly prevent any of Canada’s foreign aid budget going toward abortions in developing countries. A third advocates ending the birthright citizenship program in Canada, which automatically provides Canadian citizenship to babies of noncitizens born on Canadian soil. As soon as the resolution passed, Liberals were sharing the news on social media. Scheer had not been willing to endorse or reject it ahead of the debate.

He is not bound to any of those outcomes, and can propose different policies in next year’s election campaign. But ignoring majority positions from this last major convention before the election could open Scheer up to accusations he is ignoring the democratic processes within his own party.

His solution, he told the Post Saturday, is simply to emphasize the things on which most Conservatives agree. “My pitch to members has always been, let’s focus on that 80 to 90 per cent of all the things we do agree on, not the 10 to 20 per cent that maybe we have a difference of opinion on.”

The base, at least the core that was in Halifax, seems to be on board with Scheer’s approach — at least for now. The bigger challenge will come next year.