AIDE FIRINGS FUEL DEBATE
Tory insiders frustrated
OTTAWA • Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer will return to Parliament this winter without two of his most senior political advisers, adding to a perception that his leadership future is increasingly in question following a bruising election loss.
Scheer on Saturday said chief of staff Marc-andre Leclerc and communications director Brock Harrison had been relieved of their duties, effective immediately. Scheer did not expand on his reasons for the dismissals, but said in a letter to his Conservative caucus that such decisions are always difficult — “especially when they involve friends.”
The decision comes as Conservatives become increasingly outspoken in their criticism of Scheer’s election campaign, in which he failed to secure more seats than the ruling Liberals despite a string of scandals that marred Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Scheer had established a narrow lead in most polls ahead of the election, particularly after an Ethics Commissioner ruling in which Trudeau was found guilty of breaking conflict of interest laws as part of the Snc-lavalin affair. It was the second such guilty verdict in his first four years in office. Victory seemed still more plausible after images surfaced earlier in the campaign depicting Trudeau in blackface.
Trudeau instead eked out a narrow win, forming a government that will need support from one of the smaller opposition parties in order to pass legislation.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Peter Mackay likened the election loss to a hockey player “having a breakaway on an open net and missing” — comments he later walked back.
One Conservative official told the National Post on Sunday that patience with Scheer is especially thin after he failed to convincingly shake off Liberal attacks that framed him as being dangerously social conservative.
Liberal ministers early in the campaign relentlessly bombarded voters with suggestions that Scheer would limit women’s rights to an abortion, despite the Conservative leader’s claims otherwise. Some pointed to Scheer’s aversion to Pride parades as a sign of his deeply-held social conservative views.
Since the election result, some party insiders have become more vocal about what they view as a need to shift Conservative social policy in order to win over a younger generation of voters.
On Thursday Melissa Lantsman and Jamie Ellerton, two former senior Conservative staffers, wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail that called on the party to endorse more moderate social conservative views, particularly on the topic of gay rights “which ought not to be a question at all.”
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel came out in support of the op-ed on Twitter, applauding the pair “for saying what needs to be said.”
Liberal attacks on Scheer came to an abrupt end after reports emerged that Trudeau had dressed in blackface or brownface more times than he could count, but that he would not be stepping down as leader.
An earlier attack by former Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, who tweeted out a 2005 video of Scheer arguing against same-sex marriage, was called hypocritical after it emerged that Goodale had himself voted in favour of a motion just a few years earlier that explicitly categorized marriage as “the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.”
Word of the staffing changes on Saturday came as Scheer toured the Atlantic provinces, partially to gather feedback from party members. Both of the dismissed staffers issued Facebook posts acknowledging the personnel changes and thanking Scheer for his support over the years.
“Of course, the results of October 21 are not what I expected,” Leclerc wrote. “But they do not reflect all the efforts our team made before and during the campaign.”
Leclerc said he would be retiring from politics after spending the past 10 years in the field.
“I wish nothing but success to my former colleagues in the months ahead,” wrote Harrison, who once worked for Alberta’s now-defunct Wildrose party. “We all poured ourselves into this campaign, and while I am part of changes that had to be made, I hope you all continue on with your eyes on the prize.”
Martin Belanger and Simon Jefferies will fill the respective posts on an interim basis until full-time replacements can be found. Conservatives will decide whether Scheer retains his own position as head of the party at a leadership review in April 2020.