A petition launched by Conservative Senator Denise Batters calling for a review of Erin O’Toole’s leadership within six months prompted frustration within CPC ranks yesterday, with thrice-elected MP Ron Liepert calling it grounds for her expulsion from the party’s Upper Chamber caucus.
Speaking to Parliament Today, Liepert struck a candid tone in reaction to the petition (which was deemed “not in order” with the constitution by party president Rob Batherson), saying Batters “does not represent, in my view, any more than her own opinion.”
“I trust that the leader in the Senate will deal with her as he should,” said Liepert, referencing Conservative Senator Don Plett, who’s been the Opposition head honcho since 2019. “If it is appropriate for the party’s national council to suspend a member for doing something similar, I believe it is appropriate that she receives the same treatment from her Senate colleagues.” (Plett could not be reached in time for publication.)
Batters ruffled several blue feathers yesterday after tweeting her plea to fellow Tories to sign an online document for O’Toole to be subjected to a leadership review within six months — an idea that Alberta CPC MP Shannon Stubbs said she supported last month.
Coming off the election, Stubbs said the captain’s push to the centre appeared to abandon the base and was difficult for her to contend with at the doorstep. (Stubbs was left out of the shadow cabinet last week, despite having a critic role during the last Parliament.)
“He reversed core policies without input from members and caucus, then lost [the election] by every measure,” said Batters, echoing concerns that O’Toole ran as a “true blue” leader before pivoting to the centre. She linked to a webpage that indicated five per cent of Conservative members in five provinces need to lend their names within 90 days to the document for it to succeed.
But just hours after she launched that effort, Batherson wrote in a letter that her petition is out of bounds because the party constitution allows for a “leadership selection process” to be triggered only if a leader dies, retires or steps away from the posting, or if more than half of the delegates at a party convention vote in favour of a new election. The next convention is set to take place in 2023, but that has not stopped Batters, who backed Peter MacKay in last summer’s leadership race that O’Toole won, from pushing the petition.
Per CTV, Batters appeared undeterred by Batherson’s letter, saying her intent is to ask for a “referendum of the members,” not for the “leadership selection process to commence.” Her website asks people to respond to whether they want to have a “confidence vote” on O’Toole’s leadership by June 30, 2022.
