EDITORIAL: The Conservatives have to get this one right
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The flag officially dropped a week ago for the 2020 running of the race to replace Andrew Scheer as the leader of the federal Conservatives — yet candidates can play cat and mouse until Feb. 27 before officially declaring.
Too bad, we can’t cut to the chase now.
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The 2017 contest was a disaster, taking 13 ballots to replace former PM Stephen Harper, yet still coming within a hair’s breadth of giving us Mad Max Bernier and then giving us, instead, the accidental choir boy, Andrew Scheer.
Within days of Scheer’s resignation, long-time Ottawa MP and finance critic Pierre Poilievre clearly stated exactly what is needed in choosing the next Conservative to stand up against an increasingly weakening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“We need someone who will stand up, fight back, and win,” he said, all the while banging his fist on the podium.
And the party members may just end up choosing Poilievre, who is running.
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After all, there is an upside to being absolutely loathed by the Liberals for one’s intellectual feistiness and readiness to drop the gloves and toss articulate jabs, a role Poilievre clearly enjoys.
Who it likely won’t be, apparently, is Conservative favourite Rona Ambrose who is having more fun walking in Alberta’s snow than wrangling in an oft-stubborn caucus in Ottawa despite the high praises she earned from all quarters during her 18-month stint as interim leader.
In politics, though, knowing when to call it quits is a big part of the game, all made much easier, of course, when Trudeau is rumoured to be considering Ambrose for the plum post of Canada’s ambassador to Washington.
If so, he hasn’t gotten to it yet, and Ambrose is still fence-sitting.
Truth be known, most Conservatives think Ambrose’s progressive social stance and her fiscal conservative politics would make her a shoo-in to be Canada’s first elected female prime minister.
Now, Peter MacKay has put himself in play, alongside Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu.
Meanwhile, we wait to see when Erin O’Toole will announce and whether Jean Charest actually will or not.
What cannot be denied, however, is the Conservatives have to get it right this time.
The net’s still open.
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