Andrew Scheer’s decision to step down as the Conservative Party leader shouldn’t be viewed as a surprise by anyone.
Perhaps the only thing that’s surprising is the timing.
Many expected he would resign on election night, after the Conservative Party lost an election that was utterly winnable, against a Liberal Party rocked by repeated scandals during its four years in power.
But he didn’t resign that night, which meant he would eventually face a leadership review in April.
We don’t know if he would have survived that review, but based on the sentiments expressed after the election, you had to think that even if he did, it would have been by a narrow margin of victory, and it would have only created further problems within the Tory party.
Scheer’s announcement on Dec. 12 that he would step down after a leadership campaign not only prevented a leadership review, but it allowed the Tories to find a new leader earlier.
This isn’t going to be the long, drawn-out leadership campaign like the last Tory leadership race. They need a new leader and they need it fairly quickly, so that they have someone firmly in place once they do decide to topple the Liberal government. As long as they’re without a leader, they won’t try to bring the government down.
The Tories are far better off venturing into a leadership race in January 2020 than three or four months later.
When Scheer became the Tory leader, it felt like he would be a placeholder, the guy who won a leadership race long on quantity but short on star candidates. He’d be the leader through the 2019 election, and then eventually resign so that the Tories could elect someone to lead them to victory in 2023.
His leadership wasn’t the train wreck that some people make it out to be, but he didn’t exactly inspire people, and we found out he was lacking in charisma.
There’s no shortage of speculation on who will be the next leader. The Tories might not have 14 candidates vying for the job this time, but there will be prominent candidates we didn’t see in 2017.
You can expect to hear lots of speculation about Peter MacKay, Rona Ambrose, James Moore, Erin O’Toole and Pierre Pollivere.
Regardless of who is the next party leader, a big part of their challenge will be to reach out to the undecided voters. The Tories didn’t do a good enough job of that in the last election; it’s a big reason they lost a lot of close races, especially in Ontario.
Conservatism is a big tent, just like any other political ideology. There are those in the party who would like to see the party make a stronger shift to the right and follow the People’s Party of Canada’s lead, but that’s not the direction that will lead to the party being elected in this country.
If you want to be a conservative party and govern in this country, you have to start from the centre and move to the right with your governance and your economic policies.
They need to continue with the largely moderately conservative direction they have taken since their formation nearly two decades ago. They also need to show Canadians that they’re ready to move forward on certain social issues, such as gay rights. It’s no longer good enough to say they won’t go after same-sex marriage.
Ultimately, there won’t be a shortage of candidates ready to enter the leadership race this time around, and take down Trudeau at the polls in the next election.
