Conservative party must go back to being progressive

The Conservative Party of Canada — no matter who the leader is — is not home to most Canadians. Formed in 2003 with the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, it soon became obvious that the word progressive was now extinct, as Peter MacKay soon discovered. Two Stephen Harper minority governments and one majority confirmed that fact, resulting in the present dilemma of the Conservative party.

When choosing Harper’s successor, Maxime Bernier lost to Andrew Scheer by a hair. In the recent election, Erin O’Toole tried to pull the party to the centre, and now the knives are out. When will the Conservatives understand that until they put the “Progressive” back into their name and their politics, changing leadership after every election will not bring them back into power?

Or are they really ready to embrace the Bernier brand of ugly, right-wing, divisive, Trumpstyle politics?

Carol Libman, Toronto

While Conservative insiders cast blame on Erin O’Toole for the party’s second-place finish in the 2021 federal election, they must look no further than the party’s own backward facing policies.

The party will never win unless they drop policies which, rather than securing our future, endanger the rights of a woman’s freedom of choice, endanger urban dwellers from unnecessary gun violence and innocent deaths, and endanger everyone from the spread of COVID-19 and the deterioration of our climate.

In my view, O’Toole showed himself to be prime ministerial. His party, however, wanted to turn the clock back to the 18th century.

Stephen Thiele, Etobicoke