National Post (National Edition)
LET THE (TORY) RACE BEGIN
VANCOUVER• Michael Chong spent four straight hours shaking hands and posing for pictures at his hospitality suite.
Jason Kenney attracted huge crowds of Conservative delegates wherever he went.
Kellie Leitch was busy signing up volunteers and organizers for her leadership campaign.
Peter MacKay was seemingly everywhere at the convention for someone retired from politics, on stage at times, and busy working the hallways chatting with delegates.
Maxime Bernier, Lisa Raitt and Tony Clement – like Kenney and Chong – all hosted popular hospitality suites that attracted hundreds of delegates from across the country.
Indeed, the declared leadership candidates and those considering running spent three days glad-handing and shmoozing at the Conservative party national convention in Vancouver, as they keep their eye on a leadership election that’s still a year away.
OUR PARTY MUST BE MUCH MORE INCLUSIVE — MAKING (ALL) FEEL THAT THE (CPC) IS THEIR HOME.
But leadership hopefuls also received important signals from members about where they want the next leader to take the party — including on contentious policies like accepting samesex marriage — and how to make the party more inclusive to attract more Canadians into the Conservative fold.
“I think the grassroots of this party are looking for the face of the party to look like the face of the country — that we are open and inclusive and respectful of our volunteers,” Leitch said Saturday on the final day of the Conservative national convention in Vancouver.
Conservative delegates voted to effectively accept same-sex marriage by removing from their policy declaration a definition of marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.” Most of the leadership hopefuls already in the race or expected to join supported the move.
“Our party must be much more inclusive — making sure women, young people, people of all races and creeds and religious backgrounds — feel that the Conservative Party of Canada is their home,” Leitch said.
Both Leitch and Chong said the convention was an important opportunity for their teams to sign up volunteers and organizers for their campaigns.
Chong, who announced his candidacy earlier this month, said his take-away from the convention is that the party has to broaden its levels of support and reach out to new pools of voters.
The Conservative party has no seats in Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, Halifax and all of Atlantic Canada, he said, so the party needs to find ways to move beyond its traditional base of support.
“T he y ’re looking for a leader that is going to broaden the party, that is going to enlarge the tent by attracting new people to the party and new voters in the 2019 election,” Chong said.
Leadership candidates were also pleasantly surprised to learn that members are generally in an upbeat mood — despite the election defeat — and ready to move forward.
Kenney, who will announce by summer’s end whether he’ ll join the leadership race, said he was a little shocked to learn there are actually more delegates at the Vancouver convention than at the last one in 2013 when the party was in power.
“I’ll be honest with you, I think I and some others were expecting this to be a bit of a wake, a bit of a funeral reception and it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like the party that Stephen Harp- er put together has jelled and it has grown,” Kenney told reporters Saturday.
“The party is vigorous and is very much in competition to win the government in 2019,” he said.
Raitt, who is still weighing a run, said the convention was crucial for introducing herself to Conservative members from across the country who might not know her very well.
A lot of people whom she might not normally attract as potential voters came to her hospitality suite to say hello, she said.
Raitt was raised in the Maritimes and is an MP from the Greater Toronto Area, but said she was attracting members from British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“What that shows me is that people are willing to take a look outside their own little normal cubicle of how they see themselves as Conservatives,” she explained.
“People are really taking a hard look at the different candidates.”
Leadership hopefuls are also learning very quickly that their positions on policies debated at the convention are influencing how fellow Conservative MPs and party members view them for potential leaders.
Conservative MP Brad Trost, who fiercely defended the party’s long-standing traditional definition of marriage, took a few swipes at Kenney for supporting a policy to accept same-sex unions.
“Let me be blunt. I’m criticizing Jason Kenney for waffling on social conservative issues,” he said.
Tr os t , who declared Friday he wouldn’t back leadership candidates who don’t support the traditional definition of marriage, said Saturday he might still support Kenney if he runs because he respects the Calgary MP — but there’s no guarantee.
Trost said he’s now considering whether to join the race.
“Backing away from policies is flip-flopping, and you do not win people’s respect by being a flip-flopper,” Trost said.