Slow, steady paying off for O’Toole
In a Conservative leadership race that features 14 candidates and a winner chosen by ranked ballot, only a fool would make any predictions.
As such, I forecast Erin O’Toole will not come seventh, which is where he currently sits in the public polling.
The affable former Veterans Affairs minister barely registers in the weekly Mainstreet CPC leadership poll, attracting just 4 per cent support from the 7,400 party members most recently polled.
This is at odds with the momentum the O’Toole campaign is generating in endorsements among the Conservative caucus, where he now has the support of 26 current MPs, three more than Andrew Scheer.
In particular, the backing of social conservative Harold Albrecht and Quebec star Gérard Deltell are seen as evidence that the former navy captain may be emerging as a consensus candidate with a chance to surprise when the votes are counted at the end of May.
“He puts a check in a lot of boxes,” said one unaligned senior Conservative.
Maxime Bernier and Kevin O’Leary continue to be seen as the candidates to beat. But even rivals admit O’Toole has run a solid ground game, particularly in Nova Scotia, where he was stationed in the navy, and in his home province of Ontario.
In an interview Tuesday in the sumptuous library of the Royal Canadian Military Institute on Toronto’s University Avenue, O’Toole said he is confident he will emerge among the top three in new membership sales when the party unveils final figures. (The window for signing up new members eligible to vote for the leadership closed Tuesday.)
“We’re exactly where we want to be — and we haven’t gotten to this point by controversy or division,” O’Toole said.
“My dad used to say slow and steady wins the race — and we’re on track to win,” said the 44-year-old MP for Durham, who won the riding in a byelection after its former MP, Bev Oda, stepped down. “In the early months, we were quietly building our organization, which is the plumbing of politics. We have a plan to win in a positive way,”
With membership sales closed, the race will enter a new phase where campaigns will attempt to convert supporters who have pledged allegiance elsewhere.
It’s not too late for any member experiencing buyer’s remorse to switch their support, and O’Toole believes he can woo those voters by leveraging the fact he’s well-liked by the people with whom he spends most of his time — his parliamentary colleagues.
He downplayed the picture painted by the public polls. “In this race, polls don’t matter.
It isn’t a popularity contest about whose name is best known because they’ve been on TV.
It’s a 338-riding ground game race.”
A number of senior Conservatives with whom I spoke like what they see in the O’Toole campaign, even while they remain skeptical about his ability to win.
One concern for some party insiders is the role played by Jenni Byrne, who ruffled feathers as Conservative campaign manager during the 2015 election. O’Toole, though, said Byrne is a friend but is not involved in his campaign.
Aside from the Byrne connection, his biggest problem may be that there is, on the face of it, little to distinguish him from his rivals.
His policy commitments are, not surprisingly, an affirmation of the Harper government policies and aspirations.
An O’Toole government would push for a trade and security pact with the U.K., Australia and New Zealand; cut the top income tax rate by two points; conduct a major review of regulations; extend amortization rates to 30 years for first time buyers; pass a strategic pipelines act to fast-track the resource review process; establish a 10-per-cent holdback of United Nations funding in order to push for reform; and establish a plan to meet Canada’s 2-per-cent spending commitment to NATO, which would help fund replacements for the aging Victoria Class submarines and complete the naval base in Nunavut.
“Canada has always played a role commensurate with our values and our allies.
I’m wearing the Vimy pin — Justin Trudeau should find out that Vimy Ridge was not a UN peacekeeping mission,” he said.
None of this is particularly flashy or innovative but neither is O’Toole. The one concession to political showbiz is his Generation Kickstart — a tax credit aimed at millennials that would give graduates and apprentices an extra $100,000 in basic personal exemption to be used in their first three years out of school to help pay down tuition debt.
Close observers of the race say they sense a disillusionment with candidates like O’Leary, who earlier this week told the Post he would “coerce” provinces to do his bidding as prime minister by withholding equalization payments.
At the same time, O’Toole has had a run of adding high-profile supporters on an almost daily basis — including, most recently, Alberta MP Jim Eglinski, who had previously endorsed Scheer.
Joe Clark once won the Progressive Conservative leadership not because he was the greatest but, in his own words, because he was the best available.
He proceeded to beat the current prime minister’s father in 1979, when the Liberals became unpopular for breaking promises made in the previous election.
Like Clark, O’Toole is a contender because he is not particularly obnoxious to anyone. A growing number of Conservatives appear to agree it is “not impossible” for him to win. And if he did, he would prove a fresh challenge for the Liberals: How to attack a rock-ribbed Conservative that everybody likes?