The most important federal party leadership contest in decades has taken an unexpected turn.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Yes, we are talking about the leadership race of the Conservative Party of Canada. The one opposing Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest and – until his exclusion last week – Patrick Brown.
Less attention is paid to federal politics in Quebec. Even less to the federal Conservatives, who have never had more than 12 MPs in Quebec since the 1988 elections under Brian Mulroney.
But it is wrong to ignore what is currently happening among the federal Conservatives.
Because sooner or later it will end up affecting us concretely, the Conservatives and the Liberals having been exchanging power in Ottawa since the 1940s.
And because the further the race goes, the more a scenario that is hardly reassuring for the health of our democracy seems to want to materialize: Pierre Poilievre, a populist who courts the radical wing of the party and opponents of health measures, could become the next leader of the Conservatives.
Pierre Poilievre was already seen as the leader of this race before Patrick Brown was excluded from it on Tuesday by the party due to allegations of illegal election financing.
Faced with a situation as serious as it is extremely rare (we do not remember situations of the kind in modern Canadian political history), we would not expect a party aspiring to lead Canada to be ultra-transparent. That it clearly explains to the public and its members exactly what Patrick Brown is being blamed for making such a drastic decision.
Rather, the race committee did the opposite: it spoke in general terms of “serious allegations of wrongdoing […] which seem to violate […] the Election law “. The media searched and learned that a Camp Brown organizer alleges that she was hired by a company to do work for the candidate’s campaign. If so, it would be illegal, because a company cannot contribute to an election campaign in Canada. Patrick Brown’s campaign rejects these allegations.
We don’t know what happened in Patrick Brown’s campaign. We are not defending Patrick Brown here.
A party has the right to exclude a candidate for a serious reason. Failure to comply with electoral laws may constitute serious misconduct, depending on the nature of the facts in question. However, the evidence must be solid, the candidate must have been given a real opportunity to explain himself, the decision-making process must be exemplary. And, finally, explain to the public precisely why the candidate was excluded!
We don’t have the information to judge whether the party made the right decision. But on public explanation, the Conservative Party completely fumbled the ball. It’s embarrassing.
The party claims that it cannot give detailed explanations because of the Canada Elections Act, so as not to interfere with an investigation by Elections Canada (to whom the file was forwarded). However, nothing in the Election law does not prevent the party from giving more details on the content of the allegations. Party leaders also say they want to minimize the risk of prosecution. We have news for them: this case will end up in court anyway.
When you make a decision with such serious consequences, you assume responsibility and clearly communicate the reasons. Especially since the exclusion of Patrick Brown changes the dynamics of the race, which will be decided by preferential vote.
This race pits candidates with two very different visions of politics against each other.
On the one hand, there is Pierre Poilievre, an economic libertarian who applies the recipe of Trumpism and the Tea Party in Canada, who attacks our institutions, who wants to fire the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who is opposed to the sanitary measures, which supported the “freedom convoy” in Ottawa last winter, which confuses the notion of “freedom” with that of individualism in times of crisis and which flirted in the fall of 2020 with economic conspiracy theories related to the World Economic Forum.
On the other side, we find Jean Charest and Patrick Brown, two classic conservatives who are not likely to be confused with Maxime Bernier.
With the preferential vote, if Pierre Poilievre is not elected in the first round with 50% of the votes, he can theoretically lose during the following rounds if the supporters of Patrick Brown overwhelmingly support Jean Charest, or vice versa; 675,000 members will be able to choose the next Conservative leader.
If Mr. Brown remains excluded from the race, some of the 150,000 new members he has recruited may well not vote. This further narrows the path to victory (already narrow) for Jean Charest in his difficult duel against Pierre Poilievre.
Several years ago, it was thought that a populist like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson could never get elected in Canada. It hurts to see it, but it is now possible at the head of the Conservative Party.
Canadian society is increasingly divided. Pierre Poilievre feeds on this division. He cultivates it. He embodies this hyperpartisan politics at its worst.
Yes, other Tory leaders like Erin O’Toole adopted a rhetoric to please the radical wing during the leadership race, only to refocus afterward. But they never went as far as Pierre Poilievre.
Brian Mulroney said recently that he did not identify with the current version of the Conservative Party of Canada. If Pierre Poilievre wins, the former prime minister will recognize himself even less – if that’s possible.