The would-be uniter
Name: Lisa Raitt Age: 48 Current job: MP for Milton Out of the quiet of the holiday season on Parliament Hill, Lisa Raitt came swinging. It was one of the first workdays of the new year, and she — perhaps in an effort to gain attention in the Conservative race — took shots at two of her more flamboyant and controversial opponents.
“Kevin O’Leary and Kellie Leitch are both taking lessons from what we just saw recently in the U.S. election,” said Raitt, referring to the election of President Donald Trump. “They’re embracing a style of negative, and I would say irresponsible, populism.
“If principled and pragmatic Conservatives don’t join together, we will see our party hijacked by the loudest voice in the room.”
The message was clear. Raitt is positioning herself as a candidate with broad appeal, one who isn’t inflaming divisions and fears in Canadian society, which makes her the best candidate to win the 2019 election over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. At least, that’s the pitch. Raitt has been an MP for Milton since 2008, after working as CEO of the Toronto Port Authority. She held three successive ministerial portfolios in Stephen Harper’s cabinet — natural resources, labour and transport — and was the Conservatives’ finance critic in the House of Commons until last October, when she was prepping her bid for the leadership.
The mother of two teenage boys launched her campaign with a video that described a working-class upbringing in Cape Breton, which she said has given her an understanding of Canada “from the bottom.”
Her vision for Canada includes shrinking and reducing personal and corporate income taxes.
In an open letter to Conservative members just before she launched her attack on O’Leary and Leitch, Raitt characterized the party’s leadership race as nothing less than existential: that it could determine whether the unified right-wing party — created from the union of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party in 2003 — succeeds or fails.
She is the youngest of seven kids. She told the Globe and Mail in January that, until her early teens, she didn’t know that she was being raised by her grandparents, and that one of the people she’d always known as her older sister was actually her mother.
Raitt has said that she struggled with the decision to run for the leadership, after her husband was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s last year. Chance of winning: She was once initially considered a contender, given her extensive cabinet experience. But she hasn’t done particularly well in the polls and has been overshadowed by the controversial positions and celebrity of some of her opponents. She has a chance, but she’s not a frontrunner. —Alex Ballingall