Roundup: Putting Alleslev at the fore

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As expected, Andrew Scheer named Leona Alleslev as his new deputy leader yesterday, but left the majority of his House leadership team in place. Alleslev is a bit of a curious choice, given that she was a Liberal until a little over a year ago until she crossed the floor in a huff (and in conversation with MPs, it seems that a large part of her reason for crossing was because she was essentially being ignored by the PMO when she was trying to step up, and she felt unappreciated for her efforts, which is fair enough). There were plenty of sarcastic responses from long-time Conservatives over Twitter, given how she campaigned against Stephen Harper in 2015. Others Conservatives – Scheer loyalists in particular – were trying to insist that Alleslev represented the way the party needed to bring Blue Liberals into the fold – but this assertion is fairly problematic given that the Venn Diagram of Blue Liberals and Red Tories would show a fairly significant crossover in areas of being socially progressive, which is partly where the Conservatives are having problems right now. As well, it’s hard to qualify Alleslev as reaching out to those voters when she goes on TV and just parrots all of Scheer’s talking points, particularly around the environment, to the point where she was contradicting her previous statements and trying to walk them back when called on them. I’m not sure how demonstrating groupthink is reaching out to new voters. It’s also hard not to be cynical about Alleslev’s appointment as a box-ticking exercise about her being both a woman and from the GTA as the political reasons as to why she was chosen.

Scheer also took the opportunity to vow that he was staying on as leader, and insisted that the party needed to pull together behind him. This while Stephen Harper’s former campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, also called for his ouster, and there also talk about how Conservatives in Alberta are angry that he wasn’t able to defeat Trudeau in spite of Trudeau doing his level best to defeat himself in some cases.

In amidst this, Lisa Raitt was also keeping herself in the media, putting out the supposition into the public sphere that the more xenophobic populism that reared its head during the party’s last leadership campaign branded them during the election, and that it changed the perceptions around the party. (Raitt is also defending Scheer and saying that his weakness is that he doesn’t come off as a “strong man” on any particular area). And while Raitt is trying to insist that the likes of Kellie Leitch (and eventually Maxime Bernier’s Twitter persona) were somehow isolated incidents, she ignores the fact that Scheer himself promulgated far-right conspiracy theories about the UN Compact on Global Migration, that his comms team spread racist memes about irregular border crossings, that he offered succour to avowed racists because he thought he could use them to “own the Libs,” and that even though he knew that the xenophobia and far-right element of the “yellow vesters” had taken over that so-called “convoy” to Ottawa, he nevertheless still met with them – in full view of their xenophobic signs and symbols – and then took weeks to actually denounce white supremacy when called on it. So I’m having a hard time giving Raitt the benefit of the doubt for this theory of hers.

Meanwhile, Matt Gurney posits that Scheer’s ability to survive now turns on whether he can convince enough people that he can actually do better in the next election – and that’s becoming harder to do. Paul Wells poses more questions that the Conservatives need to consider regarding Scheer, the direction of the party, and their ability to build a winning coalition internally that has proved fairly elusive in recent decades.

Good reads:

  • Here is a look at the process that will unfold with the summoning of Parliament next week, with the Speaker election and Speech from the Throne.
  • The leader of the Independent Senators Group is calling for rule changes to avoid “dilatory motions.” (Look for more in my upcoming weekend column).
  • Jagmeet Singh also unveiled his caucus’ critic portfolios yesterday, and he is keeping both intergovernmental affairs and Indigenous services for himself.
  • The premiers of Manitoba and Quebec are getting into a slap-and-hairpull fight.
  • Kevin Carmichael builds on his previous work around central banks and the advent of AI, and what lessons are to be drawn from the Greenspan-era of the US Fed.

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9 thoughts on “Roundup: Putting Alleslev at the fore”

  1. As to the CPC being a populist hate group masquerading as a political party, Raitt also conveniently ignores the fact that Scheer’s campaign manager co-founded Ezra Levant’s two-minute-hate channel of Rebel Media. Hamish Marshall doesn’t deserve to skate for his hand-waving, “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” disclaimer of simply being the “IT guy.” Ever since the Deformers aka Tea Party North lobotomized the PCs thanks to MacKay’s betrayal, the entire party has become infected with Breitbartian rot.

    And that’s barely the tip of the iceberg when you really dig into the fact that it’s still Harper’s cult of personality, and the kind of fellow travelers he’s in with at the IDU. It’s not a “George Soros” conspiracy theory to sound the alarm about Canada’s conservative movement and its evident spokesman, the 22nd prime minister, backing the likes of Viktor Orbán and Nigel Farage. Orbán is in fact a known anti-Soros militant who chased Iggy out of Hungary for being the dean at a university Soros founded. By the way, did anyone ever bother to ask Scheer *why* he thinks Brexit is cool?

    Why is it some kind of third rail for the media to just go ahead and draw the obvious conclusion that, by their own actions and associations, the word “conservative” has become synonymous with racist? And shun its supporters accordingly, make them pariahs in civilized society, like apologists for, say, Jeffrey Epstein, Michael Jackson or Harvey Weinstein? “But but but Justin wore blackface” is a bogus red herring. The CPC is irredeemably Canada’s version of the GOP.

  2. I’m a conservative, and so a racist? And a pedophile to boot? What a despicable little bundle of bile we’re nurturing here.

    • Yes, conservatives have been nurturing and normalizing a bundle of bile, and should do some soul searching to ask themselves why so many of the younger set recoil at the word “conservative” because they see it as interchangeable with “bigot.” The problems go well beyond Scheer. Start with why Levant was granted a mainstream op-ed by the G&M recently, why NatPo gave Jordan Peterson column space, why the founder of the Proud group of Manning-funded Internet troll hives keeps getting trotted out on CTV to disclaim Scheer as an aberration after pumping his tires for two whole years, or why CPC MPs aren’t condemned and called to apologize for making jaunts to Fox News. Why Harper is cozying up to fascists in the former Eastern Bloc.

      If this is what “conservatism” stands for, then it’s no wonder the brand has become toxic. If it isn’t, then self-identified “small-c conservatives” need to figure out what it does mean and chase the rest out. But it seems the apologists are content to simply shrug and say “not my party” or turn a blind eye to the fostering of hate for as long as tax cuts, electoral opportunities, and ratings-bait “controversy” can come out of it. No one is being called a pedophile except by… conservative media outfits who fanned baseless and libelous insinuations about a Liberal prime minister, which were then funneled into the CPC’s official press releases and became a “just asking questions” issue during the campaign.

      Is this what, and who, “conservatives” are comfortable being associated with? Because just like with hockey, Olympic gymnastics, and the RCC, it is no mark of courage to look the other way or wash your hands when bad behavior is rotting your institution from within. You don’t have to be a Sandusky to be just as culpable being a Paterno. All it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do and say nothing.

  3. Does “bastardized” just mean not English in the anything “America” is automatically bad (same folks opposed to Charter of Rights and Freedoms as being too “American”)? Parties have been choosing their leaders this way since 1919 so seems weird to STILL be lamenting it. Why do we just have to copy and paste the English system? Especially as a monarchist, the idea of a leader hard to push out or a right to rule not solely from caucus of MPs seems up your alley. Also fine and dandy for you or Andrew Coyne or other members of the chattering class to make these points, but should parties have the final say on how they chose their leaders and they seem find with it.

    • It’s not English and not American, but an unsuccessful merger of the two, which creates a false “democratic legitimacy” without sufficient accountability. And just because they started making this change in 1919 it doesn’t mean it was good – it means that we have been dealing with the consequences since then.

  4. There seems to be an idea that Andrew Scheer will settle down his opponents within his party when QP starts up again. As somebody so watches him day in and day out, do you buy his stellar House performance with quiet down his CPC critics?
    Looking at previous example, I’m not so sure.
    http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2684341270

  5. I like all those people. Especially Jordan Peterson. He’s a psychologist. Just sayin’.

    • “I like all those people. Especially Jordan Peterson.”

      Peterson is a quack, a transphobe and a misogynist.

      But you also like Ezra Levant and Viktor Orbán???

      • Peterson is a clinical psychologist.

        He could help you with your crush on Justin, who, I’m guessing, hasn’t answered any of your letters yet.

        Over and out.

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