Scheer stays on despite anger in West
Conservative leader names former Liberal MP Leona Alleslev as deputy
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer insisted Thursday that he will stay on as party leader even as he faces growing calls from prominent party supporters to step aside, including in the Conservative heartland in the West. Two Conservative caucus sources told the Star that anger in Alberta’s business community at Scheer for failing to defeat the weakened Liberal party leader, Justin Trudeau, is so strong that it exceeds frustrations expressed in the party’s Quebec and Ontario ranks.
The sources told the Star the clear message that influential donors within the business community have conveyed to Scheer’s Alberta caucus members — and which has been passed on directly to Scheer — is that “the wallets are closed until he’s gone.” Party spokesperson Cory Hann said he has no evidence to suggest donations have slowed, and that the volume of postelection donations to the party is the same as it was in the month after the 2015 election loss, but he acknowledged that it is a “tough” time to raise big amounts of money. Quarterly financing reports won’t be public until the end of January.
Two other influential Conservative party sources in Alberta said they have not heard that donors are prepared to withhold financial support from Scheer, but they said business leaders in the energy sector are deeply concerned that the party failed to persuade voters to support the Conservatives, and that they are ready to help whoever is next and wanting to know who that will be. One said the anger is not directed personally against Scheer. The other disagreed and said Scheer is a focus of concern.
As pressure on him continued to mount, Scheer dug in his heels Thursday and vowed that “I am staying on to fight the fight that Canadians elected us to do.”
But later Thursday Jenni Byrne, former national campaign director for Stephen Harper, said the time has come for Scheer to resign.
“It looks like Andrew right now would like to remain as leader. I do not think, though, it is in his best interests or the best interests of the party for the discussions to continue the way they’re happening now. People don’t think he can beat Justin Trudeau in the next election,” Byrne told CBC News. She said questions about Scheer’s leadership are “consuming the party right now.”
Scheer was to meet defeated Ottawa-area candidates Thursday night, hours after he named Leona Alleslev, a former rookie Liberal MP and floor-crosser, as his deputy party leader, a surprise move that sparked questions about the wisdom of ignoring many other longtime Conservative MPs in his caucus.
Amid all this, Scheer heads to Alberta Friday to speak to the provincial United Conservative Party’s convention. There he will deliver a speech and mingle in the crowd. He has no one-onone meetings planned with Premier Jason Kenney or with the business community.
However, a prominent Conservative party supporter in Alberta who spoke only on condition the conversation not be attributed, told the Star that Scheer “should not be deceived” by the warm western hospitality that will greet him, or mistake it for support.
The source who has deep ties to both federal and provincial parties said the anger is “white hot” in Conservative circles in Alberta that Scheer could not win. As a result, the voice of Alberta business, including its key oil and gas sector, is shut completely out of power. Scheer increased the party’s popular vote in the province, and increased the party’s seats, but failed to win votes in key ridings in Quebec and Ontario.
Scheer faces a strong “underlying antagonism, skepticism and pity,” said the source. “Antagonism because he had his boots on the Liberals’ neck and he could not, would not finish them off … There is serious skepticism that he’s up to the challenge over the next two years … And pity because he’s a nice guy, but it was a pitiful performance in the campaign.”
Another Alberta Conservative put it differently: that energy sector leaders are very disappointed the Conservative party could not persuade voters in the East to support “a party that supports us.” However it is more a pragmatic concern that the country is more divided, separatism is on the rise, the party needs someone who can give hope that “we can win the country and return to power.” Canadian Chamber of Commerce president Perrin Beatty, in a telephone interview from Calgary Thursday, did not address any of that, but said business leaders he has spoken with say they are encouraged by the visits of Trudeau’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, and Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan to Alberta, but are looking for “tangible evidence and action, not just words” on the part of the government to show it intends to hear the region’s concerns.
Meanwhile, the chorus of critics outside Scheer’s caucus is growing, challenging Scheer’s ability to stay on.
“Now is not the time for internal divisions or internal party politics,” Scheer told reporters Thursday. “Canadians expect us to stay united and focused on the job at hand.
“I will be making the case to our members that we need to stay united and stay focused and I will be seeking a mandate to do that in April,” he said. That’s when he will face a mandatory leadership review vote at a delegated party policy convention in Toronto, which could trigger a full-blown leadership race.
He insisted he has the confidence of his party, his caucus and “of millions of Canadians.”
He acknowledged the defeat raised “tough” questions for the party and “there’s much more work to do.”
“I’m committed to making improvements if necessary,” he said.
But Scheer’s pick of Alleslev, the Liberal who crossed the floor to Scheer’s side last year, to be Conservative deputy leader drew sarcastic comments from other Conservatives on social media.
Scheer said she represents the kind of voter who is disappointed in Trudeau and that the party wants to attract.
“I’m all for lavishly fêting a new member of the family, but this is taking the matter too far,” tweeted Dan Robertson, who worked in the Prime Minister’s Office under Stephen Harper and is a business partner of Scheer’s campaign manager, Hamish Marshall.
“Great choice, particularly given her long history of involvement in the CPC and her commitment to conservative principles. I especially appreciated her strong support for PM Harper,” tweeted Rachel Curran, a past policy adviser and current business associate of Harper’s.
On top of that, other figures in the Conservative party unwrapped a new third-party organization expressly designed to force Scheer to resign.
Called “Conservative Victory” — the name once coined for a political action committee by U.S. Republican political operative Karl Rove — the group will raise money to promote antiScheer advertisements online and call for a leadership race to replace him as soon as possible, said Jeff Ballingall, one of its founding members who also created the anti-Liberal social media enterprises Canada Proud and Ontario Proud.
Also behind Conservative Victory are John Reynolds, a former Conservative MP who was previously interim leader of the Canadian Alliance, and Kory Teneycke, former communications director to Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper who worked on Maxime Bernier’s losing leadership campaign, and was a key player on Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s winning campaign. Conservative MP Michael Barrett pushed back against their criticisms, and Byrne’s, saying it seems some who left Ottawa after Harper’s 2015 loss are seeking “a way to come back.” He called the efforts of Conservative Victory “selfserving” and “suspect at best.”
Ballingall said in an interview that Scheer’s election performance was “disappointing” and he has been “abysmal” in the weeks since. In order to effectively counter Trudeau’s Liberals, the Conservatives need a different type of leader, he said, who can appeal to broader constituencies like the LGBTQ community and diverse communities in the GTA.
“If we clear a path, we can have some smart, stellar people potentially come out of nowhere and lead this party to a modern version of itself and certainly one that can win.”
In a separate interview, Teneycke pointed out “hard-core social conservatives” like the anti-abortion Campaign Life Coalition and others have called for a new leader.
“He’s lost every wing of the party, which may actually be the explanation for why he’s appointed a Liberal as deputy leader,” Teneycke said, referring to Alleslev. “That’s the number two person in the party? I’ll tell you, that’s not the way to unite caucus. Every single person in that caucus feels and is more qualified to be the deputy leader than her.”