In the wake of the Conservative Party’s second-place finish in last week’s federal election, a campaign has formed to call for Andrew Scheer’s removal as Conservative Leader.
The Scheer Must Go campaign has a website and a small Twitter following of 352 as of Wednesday.
“For Conservatives to win, we need a leader who represents the modern conservative movement,” the website reads.
“We need a leader that can win across Canada”
The October 21 federal election saw the Conservative Party win the popular vote and gain seats, but fail to beat the scandal-plagued Liberal Party and remain the opposition party.
Scheer Must Go claims to be organizing opposition to Scheer’s leadership ahead of the Conservative Party’s leadership review in April.
“We think defeating Justin Trudeau in the next election is of utmost importance to the national unity and continued prosperity of Canada. The Conservatives will never win with Andrew Scheer as our leader,” ScheerMustGo co-founder Anthony Koch told True North.
Koch says that the election result suggests that Andrew Scheer does not resonate in the seat-heavy Ontario and Quebec.
“Compared to 2015, Andrew Scheer lost votes in almost every single seat in Ontario and Quebec that we would need to win to form another majority. He needs to go.”
The Scheer Must Go campaign received unexpected publicity when Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Twitter account retweeted a post from the campaign. The retweet was quickly deleted, but not without being noticed.
“It was retweeted by a staffer by mistake who used to have access to the premier’s Twitter account,” an Ontario government official said.
Ford later confirmed that he does not support ousting Scheer from the leadership.
Despite the limited following, Koch says the feedback he has received has been positive.
Scheer has promised to stay on as leader of the Conservative Party, saying that under his leadership the party has improved its results significantly from 2015.
“We point to the fact that we won the popular vote, a million more votes for our party last night than ever before, and that we have the strongest opposition in Canadian history,” said Scheer.
“More people voted for me and the Conservative platform than any other party.”
