[DrCaleb]

Wholeee! A rare Caelon sighting!

[JaredMilne]

Here are my thoughts:

-This illustrates just how hard it can be to both keep your base's support and expand your political 'tent' to get enough support to win. The CPC base on its own likely isn't enough to win an election, especially under our outdated First Past The Post system, but O'Toole's efforts to expand it pissed off a lot of the party's most devoted supporters.

-This sort of thing isn't new in right-wing Canadian circles. In his book "The New Canada", Preston Manning recounted the efforts he had to make to persuade the grassroots in one B.C. riding not to nominate a local shock jock host that he knew would be political poison as far as the optics went.

-I'm not sure how much support for relaxing COVID restrictions, or even support for the trucker convoy in Ottawa, actually translates into some of the harder-right stances some CPC members might want to adopt. Even here in Alberta, I've yet to meet the conservative who wants to get rid of public healthcare, or who hates the handgun registry. Stephen Harper and Ralph Klein never suffered any consequences for refusing to roll back gay rights or marriage, or refusing to discuss abortion. Even just anecdotally, I've heard people in places like Cochrane and Olds say things that wouldn't have been out of place in downtown Toronto.

-On a deeper level, what's changed in the last few years that allowed the likes of John Diefenbaker and Bob Stanfield, and more recently Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper, could comfortably accommodate Western conservatives without these painful regional rifts, which started to appear under Mulroney's watch? I've had people on both the left and right praise the likes of Stanfield and Peter Lougheed to me for their accomplishments. What's changed since then? Is it the nature of conservatism? Of society in general?

Still trying to figure out what this all means.

[Thanos]

O'Toole should do a Chuck Cadman and vote with the government each and every time just to piss the backstabbers off.

Well, I didn't vote CPC last time and all this does is cement never voting for them ever again. I will not support a party of vicious bible-thumpers, conspiracy cranks, and borderline domestic terrorists. Conservatism in this country is dead to me, so fuck 'em.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

This needed to happen. O'Toole was a weak leader that didn't really stand for much and made very confusing moves most of the time.

Id it the demise of the CPC like some here say it is? Not even the slightest. There will be a leadership convention, and a new (hopefully BETTER) leader will be chosen. Trudeau is on borrowed time no matter how you look at it, and this if anything extended his borrowed time by maybe a year.

Anyone who thinks the Liberals might get a majority in the next election because of all this obviously didn't pay any attention to the last election. Canadians voted for status quo, for now. They don't want a Trudeau majority again, but don't want the opposite, either.

We'll be stuck with minority governments for some time.

-J.

[Scape]

Elections are fought and won from the centre, not the left or the right. 2/3rd of the CPC are old Tories and 1/3 are the new 'trumpians' who don't believe in climate science, carbon tax, regulations or taxes. They are the ones that stabbed O'Toole in the back for trying to win. CPC doesn't need to go any further right but the radicals won't allow that.

[raydan]

Right votes right, Left votes left, the Centre decides.

[Scape]

Conservatives name Candice Bergen as interim leader after O'Toole voted out

[Scape]

[herbie]

Scape Scape:

Elections are fought and won from the centre, not the left or the right. 2/3rd of the CPC are old Tories and 1/3 are the new 'trumpians' who don't believe in climate science, carbon tax, regulations or taxes. They are the ones that stabbed O'Toole in the back for trying to win. CPC doesn't need to go any further right but the radicals won't allow that.

I tend to agree. When you try a 'beg tent' approach and unite the right, there's that 1/3+ of your base that won;t give so much as an inch from their reprehensible demands.

[raydan]

If you pander to the extremists, they'll get stronger. I think that's being going on for a while now, maybe started in the USA but it crossed the border a few years ago.

[fifeboy]

CDN_PATRIOT CDN_PATRIOT:

This needed to happen. O'Toole was a weak leader that didn't really stand for much and made very confusing moves most of the time.

Id it the demise of the CPC like some here say it is? Not even the slightest. There will be a leadership convention, and a new (hopefully BETTER) leader will be chosen. Trudeau is on borrowed time no matter how you look at it, and this if anything extended his borrowed time by maybe a year.

Anyone who thinks the Liberals might get a majority in the next election because of all this obviously didn't pay any attention to the last election. Canadians voted for status quo, for now. They don't want a Trudeau majority again, but don't want the opposite, either.

We'll be stuck with minority governments for some time.

-J.

Minority government……..

Oh you sweet talking smoothie

[llama66]

Minority Governments with the NDP as the Opposition.

[DrCaleb]

The Groundhog Day massacre casts a shadow over Conservatives tilting hard to the right

[bootlegga]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

The Groundhog Day massacre casts a shadow over Conservatives tilting hard to the right

$1:

With zero chance the Liberals can engineer another election in the next year or two, the Official Opposition has time to regroup and reset under new management.

And that manager will most likely be Ottawa MP Pierre Poilievre.

I guess the CPC really wants to get wiped out in the next election...Skippy might get support from Alberta and Saskatchewan, but he's toast in central Canada.

[DrCaleb]

I don't think there is zero chance the Liberals can engineer an election though. All they have to do is find a cause that the CPC and Bloc agree with, and push a confidence bill through on that.