Oh, the poor social conservatives, always being played by mainstream conservative parties, both federal and provincial, for the sake of their votes at leadership conventions only to be dumped when the going gets tough. We have two provincial examples to now add to the list, for what it’s worth. In Ontario last weekend, Progressive Conservative leader dumped former leadership rival Tanya Granic Allen as a candidate after comments she made about same-sex marriage came to light, and everyone was shocked! Shocked!That the woman whose entire leadership campaign was the disingenuous fear that Ontario’s new sex-ed curriculum was going to indoctrinate children to anal sex was going to be a problematic homophobic candidate. But hey, Ford used her second-choice votes to get himself over the top for the leadership and let her run for a nomination and win, despite everyone knowing that she not only made homophobic comments, but also disparaging comments about Muslims, and it was okay until the weekend before the writ-drop. How terribly cynical. Chris Selley walks us through that particular bit of theatre that abuses social conservatives’ trust, while Martin Patriquin notes that while her ouster makes Ford look more centrist, Granic Allen’s replacement is far more of a credible threat to Liberals, for what it’s worth.

Meanwhile in Alberta, Jason Kenney is now twisting himself in a pretzel to defend the social conservative policies adopted at the UCP convention over the weekend, coming up with bogus equivocations about the anti-GSA resolution being “poorly worded,” or how the policy around “invasive medical procedures” had its roots in a minor getting a “controversial vaccine” and totally has nothing to do with abortion, no sir. Jen Gerson notes that this is the chickens coming home to roost after Kenney so deliberately courted these social conservatives and made this “grassroots guarantee” about them making the policies – only for that pledge to vanish down the memory hole, and him insisting that platforms aren’t made by committees and how it’s his pen that will translate it all, and you can take his assurances that they won’t out LGBT kids “to the bank.” (I personally wouldn’t cash that cheque, but I may be biased, being gay and all).

The common lesson here? That conservatives both federally and provincially are quick to insist “big blue tent” to draw in the social conservatives and the Red Tories but are quick to disappoint both in pursuit of populist measures that they hope will get them votes. It’s not about being centrist, because if that were the goal, you’d see way more Red Tory appeals than we do (and in fact, if the last federal leadership convention was any indication, Red Tories like Michael Chong were often derided as Liberals and traitors to the cause). It’s more about the cult of personality around the chosen leader, and policy is almost an afterthought, and those identifiable groups within the big tent are just fodder to get that leader into place. It’s a sad state of affairs for political parties, and these latest examples are just more proof of that.

Good reads:

• The Prime Minister has named Greta Bossenmaier, currently the head of CSE, to be the new National Security Advisor.
• New RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki was officially on the job, and got her mandate letter about modernising the Force and rooting out harassment.
• While the government is trying to make assurances about irregular border crossers, only one percent of ineligible claimants have been removed from the country.
• While there are complaints that the new elections bill will curtail the Conservatives’ spending advantage, Scott Brison sounds like he may be open to privacy changes.
• A report commissioned by the federal government says there’s no evidence Canadian-built armoured vehicles took part in a Saudi crackdown.
• While a Centre of Excellence for PTSD at the Royal Ottawa Hospital was announced, veterans say they should have a standalone facility.
• Bill C-65, meant to combat harassment in federally regulated workplaces, has passed the Commons and is on its way to the Senate.
• After having already floated a name as the new Chief Electoral Officer, the government is now floating a different name to opposition parties for sign-off.
• Canada is falling behind on transparency for corporate ownership, especially when it comes to shell corporations being used for tax evasion.
• While we hear a lot about the Arctic surf clam drama in QP, here’s a detailed look at some of the background and the players involved.
• The former commander of Canada’s operations in Afghanistan hopes we apply the lessons we learned there to Mali.
• Andrew Scheer admitted to smoking marijuana in university, but says he opposed the legalization legislation. He also declined to attend Montreal Pride. Again.
• Jason Kenney says he only supports a carbon levy on major emitters, which totally won’t be passed onto to consumers! It also will still be a problem for Alberta.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at whether the electoral reform bill is an inappropriate omnibus bill.
• Chantal Hébert says that while Andrew Scheer may have charmed Quebec on Tout le monde en parle, he’s unlikely to have won over the province’s electorate.
• John Ivison notes Jason Kenney’s mastery of Orwellian political language around carbon taxes.
• Andrew Coyne correctly notes that the answer to our border problem rests with the Americans.

Odds and ends:

From me in Law Timesis a story about how a judge wiped out a jury’s damage award because of a poor choice of expert witness.

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