As Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole gears up for a leadership review that could take place as early as today, several Tories began publicly staking their ground for or against the captain on Tuesday, with one dissenter condemning him for “doubling down” on alleged threats and attacks against his opponents.
But one longtime Conservative organizer behind a new group backing O’Toole, dubbed the Majority Committee, told Parliament Today MPs should consider granting him more time to show he is moving on recommendations laid out in an election post-mortem report, which was submitted last week.
Fraser Macdonald said the campaign aims to rally behind O’Toole “on behalf of those of us who support common sense policy and understand we need to be united” in order to present a credible alternative to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
The group urges supporters to lend their name to a list of the “growing grassroots coalition” as it aims to help O’Toole “win a strong, stable, national” majority regime in the next election, framing the conservative movement as currently “at a crossroads.”
Tensions came to a head late Monday when word emerged that 35 MPs signed a letter calling for a caucus leadership review earlier than the one scheduled at next year’s convention for CPC members.
With 119 MPs in caucus, including O’Toole, it will only take 24 Tories to press a vote today, per the CPC’s rulebook. Ousting the leader will require a majority, or at least 60 votes, against him. An interim leader would then be installed.
The party is scheduled to hold its regular caucus meeting today. The leader was reportedly working the phones yesterday in hopes of holding support.
Macdonald said his goal is to ensure different factions of the party are “balanced.”
Pressed how that can be done with such a fractured caucus, he acknowledged it’s become obvious that there is “a lot of bridge-building to do.”
He sympathized with those irked by losing an election that “was possibly within reach,” arguing the captain should be given enough time to act on recommendations in the post-mortem report compiled by former MP James Cumming.
Not so, said thrice-elected MP Bob Benzen, who holds the Calgary Heritage seat of former PM Stephen Harper and backed O’Toole in his 2017 and 2020 leadership bids.
Benzen said late Monday O’Toole has been given “more than enough chances for a course correction,” listing off grievances like a “de-facto carbon tax policy” and his failure to “clearly” defend unspecified charter rights during the pandemic.
Reaction to Benzen’s letter was swift.
O’Toole, in a thread just before midnight, vowed he is not “going anywhere” or “turning back,” saying that “it’s time for a reckoning. To settle this in caucus. Right here. Right now. Once and for all.”
The leader, who’s been dogged by his record of campaigning as a “true blue Tory” during the leadership vote, only to take more moderate positions during the election campaign, said one road for the CPC to take reflects an “angry, negative and extreme” tone while the other recognizes the need to “better reflect the Canada of 2022.”
Benzen shot back late yesterday that O’Toole’s remarks “confirmed [his] worst fears,” as rather than “humbly” try to fix the situation, he is threatening “consequences” for his detractors.
