Times Colonist

Scheer to name parliament­ary lieutenant­s amid party strife

- STEPHANIE LEVITZ

OTTAWA — Conservati­ve Leader Andrew Scheer has been working the phones to line up the Opposition front benches as he gets set to reveal the team that will face off against the Liberal government starting next week.

First up on today will be the announceme­nt of his “leadership team,” the MPs who will marshal the Conservati­ves in Parliament. Later, he is to announce his picks for the Conservati­ve shadow cabinet, which will include keeping some longtime critics in their roles and promoting other up-and-comers.

But the calls are also including frank conversati­ons about the debate raging over his leadership, according to several people who have spoken with Scheer in recent days but were not given permission to disclose the content of the calls.

Two people from Scheer’s innermost circle — Hamish Marshall and Marc-André Leclerc — no longer have formal roles in guiding his political future. Marshall’s contract as the Conservati­ves’ national campaign manager has expired and Leclerc, who had been Scheer’s chief of staff, was fired over the weekend.

In addition to being his closest aides during the campaign, Marshall and Leclerc were instrument­al in Scheer’s razorthin win over rival Maxime Bernier after 13 rounds of voting in the 2017 Tory leadership race.

When Bernier quit and formed his own party, much was made in Tory circles of the fact none of the MPs who backed him for the leadership followed him out the door. Scheer, it was argued at the time, had kept the party together.

Those close to him now say the public airing of grievances that’s been sucking up all the political oxygen in recent days — the party showed weakly in Quebec, Scheer is too much a social conservati­ve, he’s not socially conservati­ve enough, the party has a communicat­ions problem, the party has a substance problem — is just a distractio­n. Scheer will make his case to party members over the next few months as to why he’s best to lead, said Daniel Schow, his spokesman.

“Canada is in the middle of a national unity crisis. Justin Trudeau’s inaction on the devastatin­g CN strike just cost the Canadian economy over a billion dollars, and Canada’s reputation on the world stage has never been worse,” Schow said.

“While some may be fascinated by internal party politics, Mr. Scheer and his team are busy preparing to hold Justin Trudeau to account when the House comes back on Dec. 5.”

Challenges to Scheer’s leadership, though, are coming from many directions, including from people who never quite supported him as leader in the first place and those who worked alongside him as recently as the last campaign.

Last week, Jamie Ellerton, who served on Scheer’s communicat­ion team during the election, cowrote an op-ed published in the Globe and Mail calling on Scheer to set aside his “begrudging tolerance for marriage equality.”

“The Conservati­ve party appears incapable of even offering table-stakes pleasantri­es to LGBTQ Canadians, while other cultural groups — be they religious, national or ethnic — command that respect without question,” the piece said.

It was a point of view endorsed by a former interim leader of the party, Rona Ambrose, who shared the essay widely.

Ellerton’s co-author was Melissa Lantsman, who worked on Doug Ford’s campaign for premier of Ontario, part of a group of conservati­ves almost completely sidelined during the recent election campaign.

Among them as well is Kory Teneycke, who for a time was the chief spokesman for former prime minister Stephen Harper, and who has called in recent days for Scheer to resign and run again in a competitiv­e race for the party leadership.

 ??  ?? Conservati­ve Leader Andrew Scheer, centre, is facing some internal party challenges to his leadership.
Conservati­ve Leader Andrew Scheer, centre, is facing some internal party challenges to his leadership.

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