Kenney praises Leslyn Lewis as strong Tory asset in Alberta

OTTAWA Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis is not a voice that can be dismissed, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Tuesday.

“She won overwhelmingly the support of rural Albertans and people across the rural Prairies,” he said at a news conference in Edmonton when asked about his thoughts on the race.

“I think that sends a very important message about how this truly is a country characterized by equality of opportunity and about how the conservative movement embraces people of diverse backgrounds.”

Kenney said he had been among those who initially recruited Lewis to run for the party at the last minute in the 2015 general election.

She replaced the party’s candidate in the Ontario riding of Scarborough-rouge River, who was turfed after old video of him urinating into a cup in a person’s house surfaced. Lewis didn’t win and has said she sat out the next federal election, in 2019, to focus on her ongoing education.

Lewis, who finished a strong third in the Conservative leadership race after starting off an unknown, will run for the party in the next election.

Speaking Tuesday with new Conservative Leader Erin O’toole, she pledged her support and efforts to help him on the path to forming the government.

“She is 100 per cent committed to running and helping build the party and grow the party,” said Steve Outhouse, her campaign manager.

Lewis, 49, made history in the race as the first Black woman to run for the Conservative leadership.

She entered the campaign with the support of social conservatives, whose causes she promised to champion. But she broadened her base during the race, and saw steady increases in donors and dollars, finishing with nearly $2 million in the bank.

Insiders in rival campaigns pinpointed several key places along the way where she got a boost, among them when O’toole opened the door to carbon-pollution pricing on industry.

Though Peter Mackay would attack him mercilessly, calling it a carbon tax — which O’toole insisted it wasn’t — it drove support among western party members to Lewis, not Mackay.

On the second ballot, she won the popular vote and beat both Mackay and O’toole in the four western provinces, although that ultimately wasn’t enough to win.