Conservative Party Leadership | The aspiring candidates

The Conservative Party is holding its third leadership contest in seven years. Here are the main candidates who could be in the running.

Melanie Marquis
The Press

Joel-Denis Bellavance
The Press

(Ottawa) PIERRE POILIEVRE

MP for Carleton, in the Ottawa region, since 2004, he was a minister under Stephen Harper. The elected 42-year-old, who is bilingual, is particularly incisive in the debates in the Commons, where he constantly tries to get his opponents out of their hinges.

He gave his unconditional support to the “freedom convoy”, using hashtags like #FreedomOverFear (“Freedom over Fear”) and #TruckersNotTrudeau (“Truckers not Trudeau”), accusing the media – whom he also constantly nags – of wanting to “silence” the demonstrators.

In the last leadership race, he passed, citing family reasons. He then had a little girl; a baby doll has since been added. If he decided to start, he would probably be the favorite. A Nanos probe published last Tuesday in the Globe and Mail put him in the lead position.

LESLYN LEWIS

The face of the social right wing of the party, this lawyer by training was elected for the first time in the election last September in a riding in southern Ontario. However, she stood out in the leadership contest, where she came in third place behind Erin O’Toole and Peter MacKay – her elimination in the second round benefited Erin O’Toole.

Also pro-convoy, fiercely opposed to the restrictive measures linked to the pandemic, the 51-year-old woman from Jamaica denounced the imposition of vaccination within the public service and shared on Twitter (where she is registered as D.^r Leslyn Lewis, because she has a doctorate, but not in medicine) doubts about vaccines against COVID-19. She does not speak French. On Wednesday, she fled the microphones of journalists.

PATRICK BROWN

The mayor of Brampton, who is leading a charge of Canadian cities against the State Secularism Act of Quebec (“Bill 21”), does not exclude the possibility of settling on the starting blocks. “I get a lot of calls. And I listen,” he wrote to The Press, Wednesday. The man who resigned as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in 2018 after being the subject of sexual allegations, added that it nevertheless seemed to him “premature to [s’avancer] about leadership right now,” and that he was currently focusing “on reopening [sa] city ​​after extended provincial shutdowns”.

Aged 43, father of two young children, Patrick Brown speaks hesitant French. He was a federal Conservative MP between 2006 and 2015.

PETER MACKAY

An unsuccessful candidate during the last leadership race won by Erin O’Toole, former Justice Minister Peter MacKay could try his luck again to lead the Conservative Party. In the progressive ranks of the Conservative Party, Mr. MacKay could be the candidate of choice to unite the troops. Especially since he worked with former Prime Minister Stephen Harper to create the new Conservative Party, resulting from the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance.

But his refusal to seek the votes in the last ballot, after having suffered defeat at the hands of Erin O’Toole, could harm his chances. A 57-year-old father of three, Mr. MacKay also served as Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs in the Harper government. The website of his last leadership campaign is still accessible.

THEY SAID NO

Conservative MP Gérard Deltell, Ontario Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney and former New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord