TORY RIVALS VIE FOR SUPPORT
MACKAY, O’TOOLE MAKE HIGH-STAKES PITCH TO DELEGATES AT ONTARIO PC CONVENTION
Conservative leadership candidates spent the weekend hustling for support at one of the most important events during the five-month race: the Ontario PC convention in Niagara Falls, where more than 1,000 delegates were registered to attend.
For the leadership front-runners, which for now are Peter Mackay and Erin O’toole, it was a chance to shape the narrative around their candidacies and sign up influential organizers and volunteers.
That was primarily done on Friday night, where O’toole and Mackay held duelling hospitality suites — boozy events where delegates mingle in a hotel meeting room — across the hallway from each other at the Marriott on the Falls. O’toole, unlike Mackay, also stuck around for much of Saturday and worked the convention centre hallways and side-rooms.
The stakes were also high for candidates still sprinting to make the entry cut-off on Feb. 27, which requires a $25,000 entrance fee and 1,000 signatures of party members. Rick Peterson, Rudy Husny and Richard Décarie were all at the convention trying to gather enough support to get over the line.
It’s the signatures that are proving the most difficult task. In reality, candidates need to collect hundreds more signatures than required because each signature must be verified as being from a paid-up party member. Multiple campaigns told the National Post that up to 20 per cent of their submitted signatures have been found ineligible.
Marilyn Gladu and Leslyn Lewis have both passed the first entry requirement, but they were at the convention to rustle up enough support to make the next one, which requires a further 1,000 signatures and a $125,000 payment to get access to the party’s membership list.
Gladu, who held her own hospitality suite on Saturday night, said the convention was a key opportunity for raising her profile. “People are looking for an alternative to Peter Mackay,” she told the Post. Lewis didn’t host a suite, but her campaign manager John Mykytyshyn said they’ve now submitted a second batch of 1,000 signatures to the party.
The race could very well swing on how many other candidates make it onto the final ballot, which requires a total of $300,000 and 3,000 signatures. O’toole’s campaign is aiming for the same strategy as Andrew Scheer’s in 2017, where Scheer gathered enough down-ballot support to eventually overtake the race’s front-runner, Maxime Bernier. That race, however, had 14 candidates on the final ballot; this race may well have fewer than five.
Mackay’s clearest path to victory is to pull too far ahead to be caught, and his hospitality suite on Friday was set up to reinforce the impression of a star candidate set to dominate the race.
He held court for three hours in front of a brightly-lit backdrop as people lined up to speak with him and get a photo. Caroline Mulroney, a cabinet minister in Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government, worked her way around the room to help drum up support before heading back to her own suite.
There was much talk at the convention about Mackay’s communications blunders. Campaign sources have told the Post it is Mackay himself who changes his mind after some of the messaging has gone out, deciding it’s not quite what he wants to say. In the case of the rail blockades, Mackay personally tweeted out the revised message, a source said.
Even so, his supporters saw the packed room on Friday night as a sign that the blunders are overblown, and Mackay is still head and shoulders above the competition.
Across the hall, O’toole was more casually circulating around his own hospitality suite, greeting supporters and undecided delegates. O’toole is still seen as an underdog, but many convention delegates told the Post they’ve been impressed by his campaign so far, which has seen him pushing an aggressively right-wing, “true blue” message.
O’toole’s supporters were working hard to chip away at the idea Mackay is going to run away with the race. Helping him work the hallways was Alberta MP Garnett Genuis, a formidable organizer who has influence among social conservatives.
Genuis told the Post he doesn’t think convention delegates see this race as a sure thing for Mackay. “There has been some narrative along those lines earlier on,” he said, but then alluded to Mackay’s stumbles. “I think it’s fairly obvious that there’s been a decline of momentum from the front-runner.”
He said his strong impression is that many convention delegates are still undecided in the race. “I think there’s a lot of people looking and listening and seeing,” he said.
After the convention, the next big item on the candidates’ calendars is the Manning Networking Conference, scheduled for the end March in Ottawa.