Erin O’toole’s reach exceeds his grasp in the current Pandemic Parliament

Hon. Erin O’toole

Leader the Opposition Parliament Buildings Ottawa

Dear Mr. O’toole,

Forgive me, please, if I seem impertinent, but I am wondering if you are experiencing buyer’s remorse. Are you asking yourself why on earth you wanted to be leader of the Conservative Party of Canada?

The leadership race had barely begun when it was reduced to a crawl, knocked out of the news by COVID-19. You emerged as unknown as when you went in and the party gained no traction. In terms of momentum, matters are no better in the virtual unreality of the Pandemic Parliament where a handful of the 338 members are present and the rest are at home, fiddling with their mute buttons in the basement.

As leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, you know it is your role to challenge the government on the big issues, to expose flaws, reveal incompetence, pick lint, whatever it takes, to make the ministry look like a bunch of bumbling nincompoops who would do the nation a favour by leaping off the Peace Tower.

The problem, as you have discovered, is there is only one big issue and it is COVID. At a time when Canadians are rallying together, there are votes to be lost and none to be won by opposing the government’s handling of the crisis.

The Liberals aren’t six points ahead in the latest Nanos Research poll for no reason.

Normally, when Conservatives in opposition have nothing relevant to say about the big issues, they default to doing what they love most — beating up Liberals over government spending. Same problem as above, right? Tens of billions are pouring out the door for pandemic relief and recovery, and the public would not have it any other way.

May I call you, Erin? I appreciate the dilemma, Erin, that you faced last week with your first opportunity to introduce a motion of nonconfidence in Justin Trudeau’s minority government.

But how to register lack of confidence without actually defeating the government and forcing an election? How to show your troops you are armed and ready to take on the prime minister without running the risk of having to face him at the polls?

I am afraid you overplayed your hand. The motion you introduced ran to an absurd 1,203 words and cited every Liberal sin, present or past, real or hypothetical, that your advisers could conjure up.

It called for creation of a 15-member Anti-corruption Committee, to be controlled by nine opposition members, to investigate everything from WE Charity, to the purchase of ventilators from a company owned by a retired Liberal MP, to the summer prorogation of Parliament, to the lobbying (or not) by the husband of the chief of staff to the prime minister.

A better name would have been the Muckraking Committee. I’m not being negative. “Muckraking” was nonpejorative description applied to the investigative reporting of reform-minded American writers such as Upton Sinclair whose 1906 novel “The Jungle” exposed the appalling conditions of the Chicago meat-packing industry.

I’m afraid your proposed Muckraking Committee had no such lofty goal. You would have handed it power to investigate whatever it chose, to call any witnesses it wanted, including the PM, and to rummage through departmental files in search of incriminating items.

It would have shifted control of the parliamentary agenda to a significant degree from the government to the opposition. No one who voted for it could creditably pretend to have confidence in the government.

Trudeau called you on it, didn’t he, Erin? Passage of the motion would mean a certain election, he warned. That quickly brought the New Democrats and Greens to the Liberals’ support.

There’s a lesson in this for any overreaching leader of the opposition. Parliamentary poker is a highstakes game. Don’t raise the ante when all you have is a pair of deuces. Your opponent may be holding a straight flush.

Yours faithfully, Etc.

Normally, when Conservatives in opposition have nothing relevant to say about the big issues, they default to doing what they love most — beating up Liberals over government spending

Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at the University of Guelph. His column appears Mondays. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com