MacLeod pulls out of PC leadership race
MPP unsure about federal run
Ottawa • MPP Lisa MacLeod will drop out of the race for provincial Progressive Conservative leader Friday morning, but she hasn’t made up her mind about whether she’ll run for federal office.
“That may not be the answer anyone wants immediately, but it’s the answer I have,” she said in an interview over tea in an Ottawa café. “I’ll make that decision in the next week.”
She’s tempted by the federal seat newly opening up by federal MP John Baird’s decision earlier this week to bow out of politics: In the next federal election, a new Nepean seat on Ms. MacLeod’s home turf will be available, unexpectedly. But “I don’t know whether it’s right for me, for my family, for my constituents,” she said.
Word of Mr. Baird’s plan to leave leaked late Monday and he made it official on Tuesday. She was as surprised as anybody — she still hasn’t spoken with him — and when people started touting her as his successor, she was taken aback.
“I thought it was one of the other campaigns putting it around, to try to mess with me,” she said. It wasn’t until she got back to Ottawa from a leadership swing through Niagara and Brampton that she realized the calls for her to run federally were serious.
There’s no way she can campaign to lead provincial Tories while she’s either thinking about running for a different job or actively doing so, she said.
She is also behind in fundraising and faces a deadline Friday for a $50,000 payment to the PC party to stay in the race until the provincial party’s May leadership convention. She has to decide now whether she’s in or out.
She’s scheduled an 11 a.m. announcement for her Ottawa campaign office on Metcalfe Street, where she’ll end her campaign, she said. And then she’ll think about what to do next. She was just re-elected last spring as the MPP for Nepean-Carleton, a job she won’t lose just because she’s giving up on becoming the next Progressive Conservative leader.
She has a provincewide organization going full-steam and has to power it down before she does anything else, she said.
“We’ve had a minority government, an election, and now a leadership. I’ve been in a campaign for four years, even though it’s taken different forms,” she said. “You know what I’m really looking forward to this week? Sleeping in my own bed, spending some time with my daughter, taking her to school, and maybe taking her skating. Target is closing and Victoria wants me to take her to spend her allowance.”
More substantially, she said, she has to think about whether seeking federal office — possibly in a byelection, more likely in a general election in the fall — suits her family and her supporters at home. She’s been away for months and wants to reconnect with them, she said.
Although her provincial Tories are in opposition at Queen’s Park, she’s a big dog in that party. Her place in the federal Conservatives is less assured. “I mean, one of these days we’re going to win,” she said with a wry laugh. “Do I want to be there for that? Why stop after four elections?”
And finally, she said, she needs to think about whether she wants to devote her life to federal issues after nine years of focusing intensely on energy, education and health care in provincial politics.
“This isn’t me being coy. I really don’t know,” she said.
The pressure on Ms. MacLeod to make the switch is intense. At midday Thursday, councillors Scott Moffatt and Jan Harder, both conservatives who represent a lot of the same people locally as Ms.
This isn’t me being coy. I really don’t know
MacLeod does provincially, started tweeting a call for Ms. MacLeod to run federally. She should “Come back home,” the tweets said, echoing Ms. MacLeod’s own campaign call for former Tory voters to return to the party. They’re MacLeod supporters and she’d met them both at city hall the day before.
Ms. MacLeod said she’ll endorse another candidate for the provincial Tory leadership, but who that will be is something else she hasn’t decided.
Candidate Vic Fedeli, the former North Bay mayor, backed out of the race on Wednesday, leaving the field to front-runner Christine Elliott, Barrie MP Patrick Brown and London-area MPP Monte McNaughton.
The party will announce the winner on May 9 in Toronto.