MacKay denies gunning for Scheer after election flop
OTTAWA – Peter MacKay, once a potential contender to head up the Conservative Party, is denying he wanted to oust leader Andrew Scheer despite savaging him for a poor election performance last week.
Some Conservatives are grumbling about Scheer’s inability to beat Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who started his campaign under the cloud of an ethics scandal and then again stumbled after pictures of him in blackface emerged.
Trudeau nonetheless won enough seats to form a minority government.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Peter MacKay, a party heavyweight, on has compared Scheer’s performance to missing an easy shot in an ice hockey game and called his socially conservative views on abortion and gay rights “a stinking albatross.”
MacKay said his comments were meant to address campaign shortcomings.
“I’ve repeatedly said I support Andrew Scheer and I worked very hard to help him in the campaign. Reports of me organizing are false,” he tweeted this week.
MacKay variously served as minister of foreign affairs and defence from 20062015.
The Conservatives will hold a convention next April and decide whether to review the leadership of Scheer, 40, who was leading his first campaign.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Josee Verner is among those pressing for Scheer to quit.
Scheer — who says he plans to stay — won the leadership in 2017 after heavyweights such as MacKay decided not to run.
MacKay’s criticism prompted Conservative legislator Chris Warkentin to remark sarcastically: “Big words for someone who didn’t even suit up and get on the ice.”
During the campaign Scheer was repeatedly pressed on his pro-life views and a 2005 speech he made opposing gay marriage. Later on during his campaign it was revealed that Scheer had dual Canadian/American citizenship.
Scheer insisted he would not revisit the issue of pro-choice or gay marriage if he won.
“I think the problem with Andrew Scheer is that people don’t trust him, because they don’t trust him not to let the issue to come up again,” former Conservative Prime Minister Kim Campbell said last Saturday in remarks reported by the iPolitics website.
“I’ve repeatedly said I support Andrew Scheer and I worked very hard to help him in the campaign. Reports of me organizing are false.” Peter MacKay