An excerpt from an article a year ago for
Leslyn Lewis
Lewis’s leadership platform emphasizes fairness within the Conservative Party, its nominations and conventions; a pushback against political correctness; and a repeal of Liberal policies including the carbon tax, the firearms ban and Bills C-69 (which overhauled the federal environmental assessment process) and C-48 (which banned tanker traffic along a stretch of B.C. coastline). She is, to put it charitably, a beginner in French.
Lewis believes her credentials in environmental studies would help convince Canadians that a Conservative government can be trusted on climate change. She promises a balance between economic growth and sustainable development. She would incentivize green tech and introduce tax credits for green home and business renovations. She says she rejects the carbon tax because it “doesn’t change individual behaviour.”
It is no secret that the Conservative Party struggles with how to stay a mainstream electoral option while satisfying its “big tent” of supporters, some of whom, in their wildest dreams, would like to see abortion fully banned in Canada and the debate on gay marriage reopened. Any leader of the party will have to grapple with that dynamic and sustain attacks from across the aisle. Because she identifies as a social conservative, Lewis would face even more of an uphill battle. A Leger poll of 1,554 Canadians in January found 60 per cent of respondents felt a Conservative leader should be pro-choice and 53 per cent felt the leader should be in favour of same-sex marriage. Among Conservatives, 47 per cent wanted a pro-choice leader and 36 per cent wanted a leader who supports same-sex marriage.
The best way to avoid being attacked for having a “hidden agenda” is to not hide your agenda, Lewis says. “I don’t think you need a ploy to get into the broader debate” over social conservative issues, she tells
Maclean’s. “The broader debate has already been there. It’s always been a part of our society. I’m not an activist. I’m looking to effect policy, and that means I’m looking to effect policy that the majority of Canadians can agree with. I don’t hide who I am as a person who believes in the sanctity of life, and I don’t hide my views on abortion, but as a policy-maker, my goal is to find things that unite us and that we can agree on.”
In messages to supporters, Lewis has spoken openly about how her own unplanned pregnancy during law school informed her opinions. The policies she proposes include banning sex-selective abortion, measures to protect women from coerced abortions, an increase in support for pregnancy care centres and redirecting foreign aid away from groups that offer abortions.
Lewis also promises to repeal the Liberals’ Bill C-16—legislation that added “gender expression” and “gender identity” as grounds for discrimination protection in the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act—because she believes it could threaten people for using “incorrect speech,” a controversial reading of the bill popularized by University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson.
And she expresses concerns about legislation on the table to ban conversion therapy. Attempting to force someone to change their sexual orientation is “an atrocious thing,” she says. “I actually believe that children who are struggling with their sexuality should be left alone and given support to find out who they are.” But she says the bill, as drafted, doesn’t contain a clear definition and risks penalizing talk therapy or conversations with religious leaders.
Underpinning her forthrightness on all of the above is a concern about “cancel culture” and a narrowing of the range of issues considered acceptable, especially by the progressive left, to debate publicly.