Advice to Conservatives: Think twice

Danbones

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Sep 23, 2015
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there is no good reason to vote conservative.
Yes, one should vote for conservatives just for the simple reasons you HATE them: because they are not nazis or communists and aren't into little drag kids and sex children.
 

spaminator

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Oct 26, 2009
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LILLEY: Scheer needs to act before others act for him
Brian Lilley
Published:
November 5, 2019
Updated:
November 5, 2019 9:26 PM EST
Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer addresses journalists during a news conference in Toronto, on Thursday, August 29, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Andrew Scheer is quickly becoming a lonely man.
Trying to find supporters for the Conservative leader as he heads into a crucial meeting of the Conservative caucus on Wednesday afternoon is becoming more difficult by the day. It’s not that Conservative MPs and supporters suddenly hate the man that they were rallying around during the election just days ago, it’s worse than that.
They are now indifferent. That’s my take away from conversations with close to two dozen Conservative MPs, staffers, workers and insiders.
There are Conservative candidates who — after putting the last six to 12 months of their lives on hold to run for the party — still have not been called by Scheer. That’s pretty basic and customary for a leader to do, yet Scheer has failed to complete the task.
He has yet to show, more than two weeks after the vote, that he has learned anything. Much of the criticism about Scheer’s performance has been centred around his handling of social conservative issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. As brutal as his answers on those questions could be, I don’t buy that as the reason he lost.
Story continues below
Scheer’s main problem on answering those questions was the same problem that he had answering questions about his insurance career, his American citizenship or his hiring of my friend and colleague Warren Kinsella. He didn’t sound believable or sure of himself and voters won’t back someone who doesn’t sound like they believe the words coming out of their own mouth.
As a friend who isn’t obsessed with politics said to me after watching one of Scheer’s more difficult press conferences: “I’m not sure what the issue he’s talking about really is, but he sure looks guilty.”
If that’s how casual voters viewed him, no wonder he lost the Ontario vote the way he did.
Now Scheer faces his own caucus, a group of people who, through a complex set of rules, could try to remove their own leader.
Before they get to that, Scheer will try to convince them not to dump him by telling Conservative MPs and Senators three key messages.
Trudeau is weakened, Trudeau is beatable and to accomplish that goal, they must stick together.
There is truth to that, Trudeau is weakened. He dropped 27 seats compared to his 2015 election result and dropped 6 points in the popular vote, which Scheer and the Conservatives actually won this time around. The Liberals expected to win a second majority and only won a minority because Ontario vote splits favoured them.
The question is whether Scheer can keep Conservatives together.
I think, and have been saying for more than a week, that if Scheer wants to stick around, then he needs decisive action. He can’t simply tell MPs, as he told leadership last week, that he had some bad luck and that with more events, he can win. More barbecues won’t beat Justin Trudeau, they won’t even save Scheer’s leadership.
Scheer needs to offer a full-fledged mea culpa to his party; he can do that in private if he wants, but it must be done. He and his team screwed up some key parts of the election and that must be acknowledged.
Then he has to fire people, mainly the key staff around him that allowed him to think he was winning the election, that he was saying the right things and that everything was going fine. Leaders rely on good advice and Scheer didn’t get good advice.
LILLEY: Premiers look for unity while Trudeau surfs
LILLEY: Ford government set to update the books
LILLEY: National pharmacare shouldn't force me to give up my plan
Since the day after the election, I’ve been hearing rumours of Brian Mulroney making calls and trying to put in place funding for a leadership bid for his daughter Caroline, something she told me she isn’t interested in. More recently, I’ve heard that the Mulroney money is looking to back Peter MacKay who has said he is not looking to run.
Scheer needs to realize that if he won’t show leadership and take action to show he is in control of his party and his agenda, others will and that will leave him on the outside looking in.
The choice is his.
http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-scheer-needs-to-act-before-others-act-for-him
 

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
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LILLEY: Scheer needs to act before others act for him
Brian Lilley
Published:
November 5, 2019
Updated:
November 5, 2019 9:26 PM EST
Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer addresses journalists during a news conference in Toronto, on Thursday, August 29, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Andrew Scheer is quickly becoming a lonely man.
Trying to find supporters for the Conservative leader as he heads into a crucial meeting of the Conservative caucus on Wednesday afternoon is becoming more difficult by the day. It’s not that Conservative MPs and supporters suddenly hate the man that they were rallying around during the election just days ago, it’s worse than that.
They are now indifferent. That’s my take away from conversations with close to two dozen Conservative MPs, staffers, workers and insiders.
There are Conservative candidates who — after putting the last six to 12 months of their lives on hold to run for the party — still have not been called by Scheer. That’s pretty basic and customary for a leader to do, yet Scheer has failed to complete the task.
He has yet to show, more than two weeks after the vote, that he has learned anything. Much of the criticism about Scheer’s performance has been centred around his handling of social conservative issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. As brutal as his answers on those questions could be, I don’t buy that as the reason he lost.
Story continues below
Scheer’s main problem on answering those questions was the same problem that he had answering questions about his insurance career, his American citizenship or his hiring of my friend and colleague Warren Kinsella. He didn’t sound believable or sure of himself and voters won’t back someone who doesn’t sound like they believe the words coming out of their own mouth.
As a friend who isn’t obsessed with politics said to me after watching one of Scheer’s more difficult press conferences: “I’m not sure what the issue he’s talking about really is, but he sure looks guilty.”
If that’s how casual voters viewed him, no wonder he lost the Ontario vote the way he did.
Now Scheer faces his own caucus, a group of people who, through a complex set of rules, could try to remove their own leader.
Before they get to that, Scheer will try to convince them not to dump him by telling Conservative MPs and Senators three key messages.
Trudeau is weakened, Trudeau is beatable and to accomplish that goal, they must stick together.
There is truth to that, Trudeau is weakened. He dropped 27 seats compared to his 2015 election result and dropped 6 points in the popular vote, which Scheer and the Conservatives actually won this time around. The Liberals expected to win a second majority and only won a minority because Ontario vote splits favoured them.
The question is whether Scheer can keep Conservatives together.
I think, and have been saying for more than a week, that if Scheer wants to stick around, then he needs decisive action. He can’t simply tell MPs, as he told leadership last week, that he had some bad luck and that with more events, he can win. More barbecues won’t beat Justin Trudeau, they won’t even save Scheer’s leadership.
Scheer needs to offer a full-fledged mea culpa to his party; he can do that in private if he wants, but it must be done. He and his team screwed up some key parts of the election and that must be acknowledged.
Then he has to fire people, mainly the key staff around him that allowed him to think he was winning the election, that he was saying the right things and that everything was going fine. Leaders rely on good advice and Scheer didn’t get good advice.
LILLEY: Premiers look for unity while Trudeau surfs
LILLEY: Ford government set to update the books
LILLEY: National pharmacare shouldn't force me to give up my plan
Since the day after the election, I’ve been hearing rumours of Brian Mulroney making calls and trying to put in place funding for a leadership bid for his daughter Caroline, something she told me she isn’t interested in. More recently, I’ve heard that the Mulroney money is looking to back Peter MacKay who has said he is not looking to run.
Scheer needs to realize that if he won’t show leadership and take action to show he is in control of his party and his agenda, others will and that will leave him on the outside looking in.
The choice is his.
http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-scheer-needs-to-act-before-others-act-for-him
Exactly what I told the PC candidate in my riding . Sheer was/is a weak leader .
 

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
36,362
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Conservatism is the very practical realization that the U.S. and Canada have provided their people with more peace, prosperity, and freedom than any other system in history, period. And proven more willing to correct their mistakes than any other system (western Europe is a close second).
Conservatism looks at proposed fixes to our problems with a sceptical eye, asking for facts and sound reasoning that the proposed fix will actually make things better, and that the cost is not too high. It proceeds from the notion that the system as is has worked pretty damn well, and is reluctant to sacrifice its features without a careful analysis of what may be lost and what may be gained.
This isn't a quote, it's my own conclusions. And that's coming from a member of a traditionally disadvantaged race.
The real difference between me and the tight whitey righties is that I don't deny the problems exist. I just want the facts and reasoning about how your whiz-bang solutions will actually fix them.
Here in Canada we are constantly asking the so called progressives how their feel good expenditures will make things better and how more government intrusion in our lives is good for us. They never have good answers but always claim the rich have to pay their fair share without defining what fair share is. Few of them understand economics at all.
Have to remember that I live in BC where most of the real nutbars like cliffy and hoid migrate to and then want us to support them.Only they don't want us to have an economy to provide the taxes necessary to provide their freebees. Acording to our NDP MP building bicycle trails is better for the economy than Exporting resources.
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
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Tory Sen. Dagenais quits caucus over Scheer's socially conservative views
Canadian Press
Published:
November 18, 2019
Updated:
November 18, 2019 1:06 PM EST
Sen. Jean-Guy Dagenais poses for a photo in his office in Ottawa Feb 21, 2012. ANDRE FORGET / Postmedia Network File Photo
OTTAWA — Conservative Sen. Jean-Guy Dagenais is leaving his party’s caucus over concerns about leader Andrew Scheer’s socially conservative views and will join a newly-formed group of independent senators in the upper chamber.
In a statement Monday, Dagenais said Scheer’s views on abortion and same-sex marriage led to a “mass exodus” of support in the province of Quebec, effectively ending the chances of electing more candidates there.
There’s no possibility things will change in time for the next election, Dagenais said.
“We have wasted a unique opportunity and the result will be the same the next time if the current leader and those who advise him remain in office as is the case at this time,” Dagenais said.
He said his opinions would make it inappropriate for him to continue to participate in the Conservative caucus, but he intends to remain a member of the party.
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The Canadian Senators Group was formed earlier this month by 11 senators seeking to ensure regional issues get their due.
The majority of its members have links to the Conservative party, but the group also announced Monday that Sen. Percy Downe, who was appointed as a Liberal, was joining its ranks.
Downe had previously been one of the last members of the Senate Liberal caucus.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had severed all ties with the group in 2014, and upon forming government had appointed senators only as independents.
Last week, the remaining members of the Liberal caucus had also rebranded themselves as the Progressive Senate Group.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...ucus-over-scheers-socially-conservative-views
 

Danbones

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 23, 2015
24,505
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The way globalist elites rig an election on Canada is to pick un-electable opposition leaders to the one they want in. So we will get what ever the oil barrons want and will be doing what ever they want with our natural resources too.
 

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
55,435
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Washington DC
Here in Canada we are constantly asking the so called progressives how their feel good expenditures will make things better and how more government intrusion in our lives is good for us. They never have good answers but always claim the rich have to pay their fair share without defining what fair share is. Few of them understand economics at all.
Have to remember that I live in BC where most of the real nutbars like cliffy and hoid migrate to and then want us to support them.Only they don't want us to have an economy to provide the taxes necessary to provide their freebees. Acording to our NDP MP building bicycle trails is better for the economy than Exporting resources.

Yeah, I always figured "BC" stands for "Boreal California."
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
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BONOKOSKI: The wakening of the sleepy Senate not good news for Scheer
Mark Bonokoski
Published:
November 23, 2019
Updated:
November 23, 2019 2:30 PM EST
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer speaks at a news conference the day after he lost the federal election to Justin Trudeau in Regina, on Oct. 22, 2019.Todd Korol / Reuters
Unless there is a scandal involving skimming off taxpayers’ money or lurid tales of sexual improprieties, Canadians do not spend a lot of time pondering the lives and times of those who populate the Senate.
If there is paint to watch dry, there’s at least an option.
The headline-producing exceptions, of course, were the Ol’ Duff’s victorious and highly-publicized legal battle over accusations of playing fast and loose with his Senate expense account, and Sen. Don Meredith, a disgraced Pentecostal minister from Toronto who resigned after being found guilty by the Senate’s ethics office in 2017 of having a two-year fling with a girl that began she was only 16.
Sen. Mike Duffy(The Canadian Press)
And then everyone went back to watching paint dry-and that’s with Sen. Mike Duffy remaining low, and Meredith back in Toronto with his personal bio long gone from the Senate’s website.
Within a week of the Oct. 21 election, Conservative Sen. Jean-Guy Dagenais, rewarded with a Senate seat for his failure to win his Quebec riding in 2011, was calling for the resignation of Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.
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His reason? Quebec would remain a dead zone for Tory MPs if the social-conservative Scheer were to remain the party’s leader.
He is likely not far from wrong.
Dagenais’ party loyalty, therefore, has come to an end-sort of.
His Senate office sent out a news release last week in which the former 40-year-veteran cop in the Surete du Quebec announced he was leaving the Conservative caucus and sitting, instead, with the newly-formed Canadian Senators group which allegedly makes him even less constrained.
Senator Jean-Guy Dagenais poses for a photo in his office in Ottawa Feb 21, 2012. (ANDRE FORGET/QMI AGENCY)
But he’s keeping his membership card because it’s “the only political party in the country that conveys his economic and national security values.”
“Andrew Scheer’s beliefs about abortion and same-sex marriages led to a mass exodus of the Quebec vote that the party hoped to win with the excellent candidates who had been recruited,” read Dagenais’ news release.
Dagenais argued the Conservatives “wasted a unique opportunity” in the federal election with a result that will only be repeated “if the current leader and those who advise him remain in office as is the case at this time.”
The Conservatives, of course, won only 10 seats in the province of Quebec, with the Liberals taking 35 seats, the Bloc Quebecois 32, and the sad-sack NDP just one, a far cry from the late Jack Layton’s “Orange Crush” of 2011 when 59 seats were gained.
The other defector, by the way, was P.E.I. Sen. Percy Downe who, until his Senate appointment in 2003, was chief-of-staff to Liberal PM Jean Chretien.
Surely this was coincidental.
It has yet to play out how far the breakaway senators will go now that party loyalty no longer has them hog-tied to enforced discipline, and with Dagenais having five more years as a senator to mess with the political landscape.
Mike Duffy was pawn in a bigger game
Ex-senator Don Meredith harassed staff, constable, ethics officer reports
Patrick Brazeau takes seat in Senate for first time in more than three years
EDITORIAL: How the Senate failed to deal with Lavscam
Since the national media rarely looks at the Senate unless there are money scandals or sex shenanigans, rest assured there is a plot or two afoot.
So, if Scheer is going to survive and then win the mandatory leadership vote at the party’s convention in April, he had best be tuned in to the Senate’s rumour mill and its ever-present political conspiracy theorists.
One can bet the family farm that there are already contenders hiding in the Conservative weeds and weighing their chances at success.
The sleepy old Senate is therefore worth keeping an eye for plots, conspiracies and the insider scuttlebutt that is always churning from within.
Knowledge, after all, is power.
markbonokoski@gmail.com
http://torontosun.com/opinion/colum...of-the-sleepy-senate-not-good-news-for-scheer
 

spaminator

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Scheer fires chief of staff, communications director in wake of election loss
Canadian Press
Published:
November 23, 2019
Updated:
November 23, 2019 6:12 PM EST
Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer speaks to reporters after meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Nov. 12, 2019. (REUTERS/Patrick Doyle)
Federal Conservative party Leader Andrew Scheer dismissed two of his top aides on Saturday as he and his party grapple with the fallout of what many see as a disappointing performance in last month’s election.
Scheer announced the changes in a morning letter to caucus, saying chief of staff Marc-Andre Leclerc and communications director Brock Harrison have been relieved of their duties effective immediately.
Martin Belanger and Simon Jefferies will fill the respective posts on an interim basis until full-time replacements can be found.
Scheer did not spell out reasons for the dismissals in his letter, saying only that personnel changes were being made as the party prepares to assume an active role in the Liberal-led minority parliament.
“We have an important job to do — holding Justin Trudeau and his corrupt Liberal government to account — and when we do that job well, we will be ready to replace him when the next election comes,” the letter said.
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The changes come at a time when both the party and Scheer are facing tough questions following the results of the Oct. 21 election.
Scheer was widely perceived as a front-runner following the SNC-Lavalin affair that was believed to have dimmed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chances at re-election. Victory seemed still more plausible after images surfaced earlier in the campaign depicting Trudeau in blackface.
But polls consistently showed that Scheer was unable to gain a meaningful edge, with the Liberals and Conservatives running in a dead heat throughout the campaign.
And while the Conservatives gained seats on election day, few of them came in the seat-rich battlegrounds of Quebec and Ontario. The Liberals now form a minority government with the Conservatives maintaining their status as the official Opposition.
Word of the staffing changes came as Scheer toured the Atlantic provinces, partially to gather feedback from party members.
Both of the dismissed staffers issued Facebook posts acknowledging the personnel changes and thanking Scheer for his support over the years.
“Of course, the results of October 21 are not what I expected,” Leclerc wrote. “But they do not reflect all the efforts our team made before and during the campaign.”
Leclerc said he would now be retiring from politics after spending the past 10 years in the field.
“I wish nothing but success to my former colleagues in the months ahead,” wrote Harrison, who once worked for Alberta’s now-defunct Wildrose party. “We all poured ourselves into this campaign, and while I am part of changes that had to be made, I hope you all continue on with your eyes on the prize.”
Questions around Scheer’s own job continue to swirl as the house prepares to resume in two weeks time.
His fate will be decided at a leadership review in April 2020.
Tory Sen. Dagenais quits caucus over Scheer's socially conservative views
Peter MacKay again denies he wants to be Tory leader
http://torontosun.com/news/national...munications-director-in-wake-of-election-loss
 

spaminator

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Oct 26, 2009
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LILLEY: Scheer axes top staffers to save his own job but is it too late?
Brian Lilley
Published:
November 23, 2019
Updated:
November 23, 2019 7:08 PM EST
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer speaks at a news conference the day after he lost the federal election to Justin Trudeau in Regina, Oct. 22, 2019. (REUTERS/Todd Korol)
Andrew Scheer has finally taken action to shake up the operations after the Conservative loss in last month’s election.
The question now becomes, is it too late?
It was announced Saturday morning that Scheer had fired his chief of staff, Marc-André Leclerc, and his director of communications, Brock Harrison.
“I would like to thank Marc-André and Brock for their service to our team and to our movement over the past number of years. These decisions are never easy, especially when they involve friends,” Scheer wrote in a letter to Conservative MPs and staff.
This should have been done the day after the election or shortly thereafter to show that Scheer realized he and his team had screwed up but he was going to fix it. Instead he dithered in making changes, was slow to call candidates and supporters to thank them for their support and allowed the various groups plotting to oust him to fester and organize.
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I think it would be foolish for the Conservatives to dump Scheer at this point but he’s been slow to show that he can or will change himself or shake up operations. Firing Leclerc and Harrison was necessary and perhaps if Scheer was hesitant in firing them the two men should have done the right thing and resigned.
When you are a political staffer your job is to protect your boss and sometimes that means falling on your sword. The fact this took a month to happen is not a good sign.
In that month the people looking to push Scheer out have been talking, meeting, plotting and raising funds. There is plenty of chatter, whispers in every conversation about what is happening. And while few are willing to step forward and say they’re looking to oust Scheer publicly, these movements are real.
Beyond the outrage of hard-core social conservatives angry Scheer wasn’t strong enough in their view on issues like abortion and same-sex marraige, there are others who want the leader gone from the other side. Money is being raised among Red Tories to pay for anti-Scheer candidates to travel to Toronto and vote against him in April.
And there is constant talk of Brian Mulroney looking to find a replacement, though it won’t be his daughter Caroline who is not interested at this time.
Last week at Toronto’s Albany Club, a meeting of Ontario Progressive Conservatives featured people sporting and passing around buttons saying “Vote Yes.” Another button showed an empty hockey net, an allusion to the comment by Peter MacKay that Scheer losing the election was like missing a “breakaway on an empty net.”
BONOKOSKI: The wakening of the sleepy Senate not good news for Scheer
GOLDSTEIN: Andrew Scheer's trial by religion
Ontario Premier Doug Ford isn’t part of the push to ditch Scheer and he’s unlikely to get involved, but don’t expect him to stop his people from getting involved if they want to. Scheer refused to say Ford’s name for much of the election campaign, let alone be seen in public with the premier.
Scheer’s indifference to Ford is about to be repaid in kind.
Kory Teneycke, Ford’s campaign manager in the 2018 election, insists he isn’t behind any organized attempt to get rid of Scheer but says he has to go as leader.
“Most people don’t want to resign but eventually they make the right decision,” Teneycke said.
I have trouble believing Scheer will resign before the Conservative convention but there are people trying to find ways to convince the leader to step down and allow the party to pick a new leader quickly.
So as Scheer finally starts going out and talking to party faithful — he had meetings in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia over the weekend while travelling there for other business — he faces a number of disparate attempts to force him to step down.
“It would be easier to name the people not trying to take out Scheer,” one former supporter said.
Seems the Conservatives have reverted back to their tradition of circling the wagons and shooting inside at each other. Scheer has a big fight on his hands to survive his leadership review in April, if he can last that long.
blilley@postmedia.com
http://torontosun.com/opinion/colum...affers-to-save-his-own-job-but-is-it-too-late
 

spaminator

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Scheer appoints floor-crossing Liberal as deputy leader of Conservative party
Canadian Press
Published:
November 28, 2019
Updated:
November 28, 2019 12:16 PM EST
In this Oct. 10, 2019 file photo, Leona Alleslev is pictured at her campaign office during the federal election. (Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network)
OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said Thursday that despite considerable party infighting over his future as leader, he will remain at the helm, and as a show of how he intends to change the party, he’s appointed a former Liberal as his number 2.
Toronto-area MP Leona Alleslev was named this morning as deputy leader of the Conservatives, replacing former deputy leader Lisa Raitt, a longtime MP who lost her own Toronto-area seat in the October election.
Alleslev was first elected as a Liberal in 2015, but crossed the floor to join the Conservatives in September 2018, saying at the time she disagreed with the Liberals’ handling of the economy and foreign affairs.
She declined to answer questions from reporters Thursday, leaving Scheer to explain why he plucked her out his 120-member caucus, as opposed to others who had been in the trenches with the Tories for years.
“This is all about moving forward,” Scheer said.
“Leona embodies exactly the type of person that we are trying to reach out to, to show that if you have voted Liberals in the past, if you are disappointed with the government that Justin Trudeau has been providing Canadians, there is a place for you in the Conservative Party of Canada.”
Scheer has kept some longtime loyalists on the team who will manage the party’s affairs in the House of Commons, including Candice Bergen, who will remain as House leader and Mark Strahl, who will stay as chief Opposition whip.
Many members of the party have been outspoken in recent days about Scheer’s failure to win a majority government in October, citing a variety of reasons why they feel he can no longer stay on as leader and demanding he resign.
Scheer fires chief of staff, communications director in wake of election loss
Tory Sen. Dagenais quits caucus over Scheer's socially conservative views
Peter MacKay again denies he wants to be Tory leader
Two campaigns have now been launched to galvanize grassroots support against Scheer, in the hopes of either forcing him to step aside soon, or lose a leadership review that will be held at the party’s convention in April.
Scheer reiterated Thursday he intends to spend the coming months making the case for why he should stay on.
In the meantime, he intends to remain where he is.
“I am staying on to fight the fight that Canadians elected us to do,” he said.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...iberal-as-deputy-leader-of-conservative-party
 

spaminator

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Tory deputy leader apologizes for comparing Pride, St. Patrick’s Day parades
Canadian Press
Published:
November 30, 2019
Updated:
November 30, 2019 6:21 PM EST
Leader of the Opposition Andrew Scheer walks with Leona Alleslev, who crossed the floor from the Liberal party to Conservative party before Question Period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Monday, September 17, 2018. Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Andrew Scheer’s second-in-command apologized Saturday after comparing the Conservative leader’s decision not to march in a Pride parade to choosing not to take part in a St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Leona Alleslev, who was named the Tories’ deputy leader earlier this week, made the comments on an episode of the CBC News radio show “The House” that aired Saturday morning.
When asked if she had an issue with Scheer not attending Pride parades, Alleslev gave a response that drew online criticism.
“I think that’s obviously his choice and we live in a country where that’s his choice,” she said, referring to Scheer. “Have we asked anybody if they’ve marched in a St.Patrick’s day parade?”
Alleslev apologized for the comment on Twitter on Saturday afternoon, saying that the Pride parade is an important symbol in the fight for LGBTQ rights.
Story continues below
“I did not intend to make erroneous and hurtful comparisons — I apologize unreservedly,” she wrote.
In another tweet, she said she’s committed to being a progressive voice and ensuring equal opportunity exists in the Conservative party.
Over the summer, the Liberals lambasted Scheer for declining to participate in any Pride events and dug up 14-year-old video footage of him speaking out against same-sex marriage.
In August, then-public safety minister Ralph Goodale — who lost his seat in the October election — tweeted a short, edited video of an April 2005 speech Scheer gave in the House of Commons explaining his opposition to the Civil Marriage Act, which legalized same-sex marriage in Canada later that year.
Scheer has softened his stance on same-sex marriage since the debates over the Civil Marriage Act, supporting a move to erase the traditional definition of marriage from the Conservative Party of Canada’s policy book at its 2016 convention.
Scheer has been touring the country to make his case to the party faithful that he should be allowed to continue to lead the Tories, even after losing the federal election.
He received a warm reception while speaking at the Alberta United Conservative Party’s annual general meeting on Friday, but a contingent of MPs and other party members have been calling for his resignation.
Scheer appoints floor-crossing Liberal as deputy leader of Conservative party
Andrew Scheer welcomes former Liberal MP Leona Alleslev to Conservative caucus
Defecting MP Leona Alleslev says decision was 'personal' as Liberals left in disbelief
He’ll have a chance to fight for his spot at the party’s helm at the Conservatives’ convention in April.
Alleslev was first elected as a Liberal MP in 2015 in the Toronto area, but crossed the floor to join the Conservatives in September of last year.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...s-for-comparing-pride-st-patricks-day-parades
 

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
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Tory deputy leader apologizes for comparing Pride, St. Patrick’s Day parades
Canadian Press
Published:
November 30, 2019
Updated:
November 30, 2019 6:21 PM EST
Leader of the Opposition Andrew Scheer walks with Leona Alleslev, who crossed the floor from the Liberal party to Conservative party before Question Period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Monday, September 17, 2018. Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Andrew Scheer’s second-in-command apologized Saturday after comparing the Conservative leader’s decision not to march in a Pride parade to choosing not to take part in a St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Leona Alleslev, who was named the Tories’ deputy leader earlier this week, made the comments on an episode of the CBC News radio show “The House” that aired Saturday morning.
When asked if she had an issue with Scheer not attending Pride parades, Alleslev gave a response that drew online criticism.
“I think that’s obviously his choice and we live in a country where that’s his choice,” she said, referring to Scheer. “Have we asked anybody if they’ve marched in a St.Patrick’s day parade?”
Alleslev apologized for the comment on Twitter on Saturday afternoon, saying that the Pride parade is an important symbol in the fight for LGBTQ rights.
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“I did not intend to make erroneous and hurtful comparisons — I apologize unreservedly,” she wrote.
In another tweet, she said she’s committed to being a progressive voice and ensuring equal opportunity exists in the Conservative party.
Over the summer, the Liberals lambasted Scheer for declining to participate in any Pride events and dug up 14-year-old video footage of him speaking out against same-sex marriage.
In August, then-public safety minister Ralph Goodale — who lost his seat in the October election — tweeted a short, edited video of an April 2005 speech Scheer gave in the House of Commons explaining his opposition to the Civil Marriage Act, which legalized same-sex marriage in Canada later that year.
Scheer has softened his stance on same-sex marriage since the debates over the Civil Marriage Act, supporting a move to erase the traditional definition of marriage from the Conservative Party of Canada’s policy book at its 2016 convention.
Scheer has been touring the country to make his case to the party faithful that he should be allowed to continue to lead the Tories, even after losing the federal election.
He received a warm reception while speaking at the Alberta United Conservative Party’s annual general meeting on Friday, but a contingent of MPs and other party members have been calling for his resignation.
Scheer appoints floor-crossing Liberal as deputy leader of Conservative party
Andrew Scheer welcomes former Liberal MP Leona Alleslev to Conservative caucus
Defecting MP Leona Alleslev says decision was 'personal' as Liberals left in disbelief
He’ll have a chance to fight for his spot at the party’s helm at the Conservatives’ convention in April.
Alleslev was first elected as a Liberal MP in 2015 in the Toronto area, but crossed the floor to join the Conservatives in September of last year.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...s-for-comparing-pride-st-patricks-day-parades
Another weak ass red Tory that does not have the courage of his convictions. No wonder they lost .
 

Curious Cdn

Hall of Fame Member
Feb 22, 2015
37,070
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Another weak ass red Tory that does not have the courage of his convictions. No wonder they lost .
The only chance that the Conservatives will ever have ... for ever and ever to form a government is to entice back those Red Tories that have fairly well abandoned them because they are not rootin' tootin' Alt Reich Yahoos.

No Red Tories ... no power.
 

Hoid

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 15, 2017
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The term "conservative" is a misnomer. They are the Reform Party plain and simple. A Western regional party
 

Hoid

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 15, 2017
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Liberals are strong everywhere in Canada. Always have been.