Conservative MP Chris Warkentin told a local news outlet that Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s flip-flopping on policy positions led to a missed win for the party during the election this week.
Warkentin, who was re-elected to his riding with 68.4% of the votes, still lost a substantial amount of support considering his vote share in 2019 was 84%.
“It was when our party leader started to waffle on some of the policies that we had brought forward and hadn’t been clear that I believe that Canadians became uncertain and unwilling to continue to look to our party as an alternative,” Warkentin told Town & Country news.
“I believe that that was the beginning of polls shifting back in favour of the Liberals.”
According to Warkentin, others in the party are beginning to voice their concerns about O’Toole remaining at the helm since he was unable to deliver a victory.
“Justin Trudeau has promised during this campaign that if he was only given a minority that he would plunge Canadians back into an election within 18 months, and I don’t expect that this will be a long-term government,” said Warkentin.
As reported on by True North, O’Toole flip-flopped on several key campaign promises he made to his base including on his commitment to repeal Liberal gun bans, not introduce a carbon tax and walking back on defunding the CBC.
Warkentin is not the only member of the party who has called O’Toole’s election performance a missed opportunity.
As polling results indicated that a Liberal minority government was elected by Canadians, top aide to former prime minister Stephen Harper Jenni Byrne blasted the party leader for losing a “winnable election.”
Additionally, Conservative National Council member Bert Chen has launched a petition calling on O’Toole to be recalled as leader of the party.
“Erin O’Toole has BETRAYED the principles that the Conservative Party is founded on,” the petition says.
“Erin O’Toole has BROKEN THE TRUST of the members of the Conservative Party.”
To date, the petition has received nearly 2,200 signatures.
After being narrowly defeated by Liberal candidate Parm Bains, former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu is raising the alarm about Chinese election interference.
According to Chiu, his campaign faced an online assault from forces he claims could be directed by China.
Chiu believes that a private members bill he put forward earlier this year to set up a registry for foreign agents operating in Canada, made him a target of the suspected foreign influence campaign.
As a result of Chiu’s and the Conservatives’ aggressive stance on China, Chiu faced harassment online with one user going so far as calling him a “self-hating Chinese person.”
“When I go door knocking … there have been supporters of mine who just shut the door in my face,” said Chiu.
“There is so much hatred that I sense.”
According to Chiu, his views on China were misrepresented in Chinese-language media and online communities like WeChat, the popular Chinese social media app.
Campaign observer and Macdonald Laurier Institute fellow Charles Burton claimed that despite attempts to correct the false narrative around Chiu, the campaign against him spread like wildfire.
“It spread like a cancer over his campaign. He just saw his campaign disintegrating over the last couple of weeks,” said Burton.
One post on WeChat erroneously claimed that Chiu was trying to “suppress” Chinese Canadians.
“It’s very much organized,” said Chiu. “They have chat rooms and chat groups dedicated to unseating Kenny Chiu.”
Chiu was defeated by nearly 3,000 votes by Liberal candidate Parm Bains in the Steveston—Richmond East riding.
During the election, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said he doesn’t believe the Trudeau government has done enough to safeguard Canada’s elections against foreign interference.
“I do think there’s risks of foreign interference, particularly with what we’ve seen happen in other democracies – allies of Canada,” he said. “We’ve seen interference from bad actors and I feel that Mr. Trudeau hasn’t been doing enough in this situation,” O’Toole said.
Prior to the election, the Canadian Security Establishment said in a July report that influence campaigns against voters posed a significant threat to the integrity of Canadian elections.
“State actors may use threats, bribery or blackmail to affect the voting behaviour of individuals inside or outside of communities,” the report said.
As a movement grows to oust Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole from power after his disappointing election performance, the party has locked down its voter database.
According to a report by the Toronto Star, the Conservatives have locked out party members from the Constituent Information Management System (CIMS), a database that stores information on supporters and party members.
Sources told the outlet that O’Toole’s campaign team barred access to the database in what is being described as an attempt to save his leadership.
Members are no longer able to access the database which is required to contact and identify supporters.
The move could also potentially limit access to party members by any future leadership candidate, although the Conservative Party has called the lockdown “standard operating procedure.”
“There’s a number of accounts with access to CIMS created in every riding for election purposes that don’t require access outside of elections. (Shutting it down is) to ensure only those involved in, and approved by, their (riding association) has access,” said Conservative director of communications Cory Hann.
When reporters called the CIMS support line, a voicemail message told them that the system was closed “due to post-election activities.”
An anonymous source who is an elected Conservative MP has claimed that the reason behind the move is the growing number of members signing petitions declaring that they want O’Toole removed from the leadership.
“As we speak, our sign teams are out there collecting yard signs that were distributed, and we just lost all of our data,” the anonymous MP told the Toronto Star.
“And the reason they’ve done that is now they’re worried about people being able to verify if those signing petitions against the leader are members (of the party) or not … They want to be the only ones to determine if these petitions are valid.”
Despite running a campaign attempting to appeal to Liberal and progressive voters, O’Toole was not able to unseat Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau who won a minority government on Monday.
As of September 22, 2021, the Conservatives remain in very much the same position they were in 2019 under former leader Andrew Scheer. Currently, the Conservatives have only elected 119 MPs, while the Liberals elected 158.
After five weeks of treating Conservatives unfairly, writing fake news stories, misrepresenting O’Toole’s positions, repeating Liberal talking points, pushing Trudeau’s wedge issues and generally vilifying conservatives, many in the legacy media have suddenly had a change of heart.
Now that the election is over, they’re urging conservatives to keep Erin O’Toole as their leader.
Why? Well, because O’Toole lost. That, and he pulled the party to the left.
That’s exactly what legacy media journalists want in a conservative politician: a non-threatening leader who promotes liberal ideas and has proven he cannot beat Trudeau.
On today’s episode of the Candice Malcolm show, Candice says that Conservatives should NEVER listen to the legacy media, especially when they’re trying to tell Conservatives how to run their own party.
Justin Trudeau has won another term as Prime Minister, albeit with the lowest percentage of the vote in Canadian history. Meanwhile, leftist issues such as climate change are becoming more mainstream.
However, the Conservatives still managed to win the popular vote by receiving the most amount of votes.
Is Canada moving towards the left or is Canada more divided than ever? Anthony Furey discusses in his latest video.
Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole spent 400% more time campaigning in Quebec than Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau did in Alberta this election.
To arrive at the results, True North relied on the whereabouts of both leaders as listed in official itineraries published by both parties spanning back to August 15, 2021.
The count also included virtual events held by the leaders in both provinces as well as the stop in Montreal on September 2, 2021 by federal leaders for the French-language TVA debate.
According to the itineraries, O’Toole made ten campaign stops in various Quebec ridings including one virtual town hall in August.
On the other hand, Trudeau attended only two events in Alberta, including a recent virtual town hall held in Alberta last week.
Despite the substantial amount of campaign events O’Toole attended to woo Quebecers, the Conservatives did not gain any seats in Quebec. Meanwhile, the Liberals won Calgary Skyview and are leading in Edmonton Centre – a remarkable change from 2019 where they had no MPs elected in the province.
Among the Quebec ridings O’Toole was physically present in include Jonquière, Brome–Missisquoi, Ville-Marie–Le-Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Soeurs, Saint-Hyacinthe–Bagot, Trois–Rivières, Laurier–Sainte-Marie, Louis-Hébert and Louis-Saint-Laurent.
Conservatives lost in every riding except for Louis-Saint-Laurent where Conservative incumbent Gérard Deltell was re-elected.
Additionally, O’Toole’s shortcomings in Quebec were not aided by the unexpected implicit endorsement from Quebec Premier François Legault who warned Quebecers shortly before election day that a Liberal government would be bad for the province.
Although few ridings continue to count ballots due to Elections Canada delays, preliminary results indicate that Trudeau will have another minority government. As of Wednesday, the Liberals are leading in 158 ridings while the Conservatives have only elected 119 MPs.
As Conservatives lick their wounds following the defeat, critics of O’Toole, including top aide to former prime minister Stephen Harper Jenni Byrne, have begun to blast the leader for losing a “winnable election.”
Additionally, Conservative Party of Canada National Council member Bert Chen has launched a petition calling for the party to recall O’Toole as leader.
Former Liberal cabinet minister and MP Jane Philpott chastised voters for electing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to another term in office.
Philpott made the comments over Twitter on Monday night as the election results continued to roll in.
“We have so much work to do. Good for you (Jody Wilson-Raybould) for calling out the racism and misogyny that continue to dominate our political landscape. I struggle to understand how Canadians keep rewarding symbolism over substantive change,” wrote Philpott.
Recently, Wilson-Raybould published a book relating her experiences as the former attorney general during the 2019 SNC-Lavalin scandal in which she was ejected from the Liberal cabinet by Trudeau for refusing to succumb to political interference.
The book was published earlier this month shortly before election day and is titled “Indian” in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power.
“While I certainly had some successes, there were an increasing number of red flags around what was not happening. Vitally important issues – my priorities – would be interfered with and delayed more and more,” wrote Philpott in the book.
“On issues in which I had first-hand and lifelong experience, the (Prime Minister’s Office) seemed to insist they knew better. In addressing racism and the legacy of colonization, and in tackling overrepresentation of Black, Indigenous and other marginalized people in the justice system, I was told time and again to slow down. The PMO knew what was right.”
Following an investigation into the PMO and Trudeau himself by the Office of the Ethics Commissioner, it was found that Trudeau had broken ethics laws in his attempt to interfere in the judicial system by pressuring Wilson-Raybould to give SNC-Lavalin a break during criminal proceedings.
“I found that Mr. Trudeau used his position of authority over Ms. Wilson‑Raybould to seek to influence, both directly and indirectly, her decision on whether she should overrule the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision not to invite SNC-Lavalin to enter into negotiations towards a remediation agreement,” wrote Commissioner Mario Dion in his report.
Conservative incumbent Richard Lehoux has been re-elected in the Quebec riding of Beauce. PPC Leader Maxime Bernier came second in the riding, followed by the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals. This is the second time Lehoux has defeated Bernier in the riding since the 2019 federal election. Bernier previously held the riding for 13 years, from 2006 to 2019.
In the 2019 federal election, PPC won no seats, and after polling much higher in the 2021 campaign, many had been banking on the PPC leader to win the seat in his home riding.
2. Annamie Paul
Green Party Leader Annamie Paul’s lacklustre performance in the 2021 election resulted in a mere 8.5% of the vote in the riding of Toronto Centre, placing fourth behind the Liberals, NDP and Conservatives. In the 2020 by-election, Paul placed second and gained 32.73% of the vote.
The party also saw a drop in overall national support, receiving a meagre 2.3% of the vote compared to the 6.55% it received in the 2019 federal election.
3. Maryam Monsef
Liberal candidate Maryam Monsef will not be returning to Ottawa for the upcoming parliamentary session, as she lost the riding of Peterborough-Kawartha to first-time Conservative candidate Michelle Ferreri on Monday night.
Monsef received 34.4% of the vote and Ferreri garnered 39.4%. In comparison — in the 2015 election, Monsef was elected with 43.8% of the vote and in 2019, she was re-elected with 39.3% of the vote.
Leading up to the election, Monsef saw a dramatic decline in popularity after she referred to the terrorist organization the Taliban as “our brothers.”
4. Bernadette Jordan
Fisheries and Oceans Minister Bernadette Jordan lost her seat in Nova Scotia’s South Shore-St. Margarets to Conservative Rick Perkins by a margin of 4.1%.
Lex Brukovskiy, president of Local 9 of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union, said Tuesday that Bernadette Jordan paid a price for the dispute in southwestern Nova Scotia between Indigenous and non-Indigenous lobster fishers.
Sipekne’katik First Nation Chief Mike Sack said Tuesday that he believes that part of the reason Jordan lost her riding is because she didn’t exhibit leadership in regard to his group’s demand to fish for lobster outside the federally regulated season.
5. Kenny Chiu
Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu lost to Liberal candidate Parm Bains by 9.4% in Steveston-Richmond East. Chiu immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong in 1982 and his criticisms of China’s human rights abuses and support for Hong Kong’s democracy movement have landed in hot water with the Chinese regime. Chiu was sanctioned by China in March and claims that a disinformation campaign was being run against him.
6. Lenore Zann
Liberal incumbent Lenore Zann lost her seat in Cumberland—Colchester to Conservative Stephen Ellis by a margin of 11.9%. Zann had a long career as an actress and previously served as the Nova Scotia MLA for Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River for ten years.
7. Bob Saroya
Two-time Conservative MP Bob Saroya lost to Liberal candidate Paul Chiang in Markham-Unionville by 6.8%. This riding was one of the many ridings with a large Chinese population that the Conservatives failed to capture this election. Markham-Unionville was one of the seats the Conservatives held in the Greater Toronto Area – this is no longer the case.
8. Alice Wong
Long-time Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Alice Wong was unseated in Richmond Centre by Liberal candidate Wilson Miao. Wong, born in Hong Kong and a prominent member of the Chinese community in British Columbia, held the seat since 2008. The race was close and Miao won by 2.3%.
9. Leona Alleslev
Conservative incumbent Leona Alleslev lost her seat in Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill to Liberal Leah Taylor Roy by 2.5%. Alleslev was originally elected as a Liberal in the 2015 federal election but crossed the floor to join the Conservatives following disagreements with the Liberal government’s handling of the economy and foreign affairs. She was re-elected as a Conservative in 2019 and appointed as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party by former leader Andrew Scheer.
10. Deborah Schulte
Minister of Seniors Deborah Schulte lost her King-Vaughan seat to Conservative Anna Roberts who won by 2.9%. Schulte is a well-known environmental activist and previously served as a councillor for the City of Vaughan from 2010 to 2014. King-Vaughan was the only seat the Conservatives managed to gain in the 905 region.
12. Jag Sahota
Conservative incumbent Jag Sahota lost her Calgary Skyview seat to Liberal George Chahal. Prior to the 2021 election, the Liberals did not hold any seats in Alberta. The Liberals now have seats in Calgary Skyview and likely Edmonton Centre.
13. Kerry Diotte
Conservative incumbent Kerry Diotte lost his seat to NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais. Diotte won the riding for the Conservatives in 2019 with an overwhelming 51.4% of the vote. However, in 2021, Diotte mustered only 37.5% of the vote while the NDP candidate had 39.9% of the vote.
14. Tamara Jansen
Former Liberal MP John Aldag will be returning to Parliament this fall, as he was able to edge out Conservative candidate Tamara Jansen. Erin O’Toole’s lacklustre performance in British Columbia resulted in the defeat of many prominent Conservatives, including the Conservative candidate in Cloverdale–Langley City. Jansen, a social conservative, won the seat in 2019 with 37% of the vote.
Everyone lost in last night’s election — especially Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
Trudeau callously called a needless election for one reason and one reason only: to increase his own power.
Trudeau governed over a stable minority Parliament, having the support of both the NDP and Bloc to enact his left-wing agenda. He had no problem passing legislation. His left-wing allies could be counted on to help him in the committees. No opposition leaders wanted this election, they all spoke out against it.
There was no good reason to have this election, and Trudeau never adequately explained his rationale for calling it.
The reason was personal. It was for vanity and power. Trudeau cynically plunged the country into a pandemic election because he thought he was popular enough to gain a majority government. Having to work with other left-wing parties was bothersome to the Prime Minister, and he wanted absolute power.
He believed that Canadians would be grateful, after 18 long hard months in lockdown, to have a summer where most people were vaccinated, restaurants were open and we could begin to live our normal lives again.
He thought they would reward him with a majority government. He thought wrong.
Trudeau’s approval rating with regards to COVID-19, we learned, did not translate into greater support for his Liberal Party.
Instead, Trudeau wasted $610 million, five weeks of our lives, and the result of this vanity election is a Parliament that looks eerily similar to the 2019 results and a country that is angry, bitter and divided.
That’s again because of Trudeau. He pushed wedge issues to deliberately divide Canadians for partisan ends, he ramped up his hateful rhetoric against Canadians who opposed lockdowns and protested his campaign, and he spread misinformation about Covid vaccines and the way out of the fourth wave.
Trudeau is the biggest loser of Election 2021, and the whole country is worse off after election night.
But the Conservatives lost too, and we need to talk about why.
It became increasingly clear during the five-week campaign that CPC Leader Erin O’Toole’s strategy was to run as a moderate and try to appeal to liberal and progressives who may be disillusioned with Trudeau.
After running as a “true blue” alternative to Red Tory Peter Mackay, O’Toole tacked hard to the left after becoming party leader, and that trend continued throughout the campaign.
He flip-flopped on key issues — including the carbon tax, protecting legal gun owners, defunding the CBC, allowing free votes among his caucus and protecting the conscience rights of healthcare workers.
He also took the left-wing position on many other key issues, like supporting mandatory vaccines, wanting to phase out Western Canadian energy (albeit more slowly than the other parties), ramping up spending on big government schemes and pledging his unlimited support to abortion.
He pushed away the libertarians in the party through his pro-lockdown and pro-vaccine passport policies, and he shunned social conservatives — pledging to ignore moral issues and move the party towards woke progressive values.
He spent the final week of the campaign apologizing for the conservatives in his party.
The conservative consultant class in Toronto and Ottawa have long pushed the idea that the party needs to “modernize” — that is, it needs to fall in line with the left-wing parties on social and moral issues.
O’Toole followed suit. His strategy, it seemed, was to move the party to the left, lose some support in strongholds like Alberta and Saskatchewan in order to gain support in the cities, suburbs, and across Quebec.
This strategy failed. Badly.
Sure, Conservatives did lose support in the West.
But they also failed to make any inroads among liberal and progressive voters. They were shut out of the 905, decimated in the Lower Mainland and failed to add to their seat count in Quebec.
Instead, O’Toole lost seats and alienated longtime Conservative voters.
The base is angry. They were ignored, disrespected and thrown under the bus by their own leader — and for what? Fewer seats but some supportive words from left-wing journalists (journalists who, of course, would never in a million years vote Conservative.)
O’Toole’s decision to abandon conservative principles and slander the Conservative base did not go unnoticed.
There must be a reckoning. There will be a reckoning.
The ballots from Monday’s federal election haven’t yet been counted, but a member of the Conservative Party of Canada’s National Council has already launched a petition calling for Erin O’Toole to be recalled as leader.
Bert Chen, who holds an Ontario seat on the Conservatives’ governing council, says in his petition that O’Toole has “betrayed” the party and has to go.
“Erin O’Toole has BETRAYED the principles that the Conservative Party is founded on,” the petition says.
“Erin O’Toole has BROKEN THE TRUST of the members of the Conservative Party.
“Erin O’Toole’s campaign in the 2021 Federal Election FAILED in electing enough Conservative MPs to form a government.”
The Change.org petition is non-binding, but according to Chen it is being used to collect contact information to share an official version with Conservative members for the purpose of recalling O’Toole by internal party referendum.
The Conservative Party of Canada’s constitution allows party members to trigger a binding referendum if 5% of members in at least five provinces sign a petition calling for one.
The petition cites O’Toole’s proposed carbon tax as a key objection, as well as “trampling the freedoms of the individual in supporting vaccine passports” and putting forward “an ineffective plan that abandoned fiscal responsibility.”
While the party’s constitution requires O’Toole as a losing party leader to submit to a leadership review at the next policy convention, this isn’t scheduled until 2023, which Chen’s petition says allows O’Toole to “dodge his accountability.”
O’Toole has signalled his intention to stay on and build off of his party’s performance in the election.
Speaking to reporters from Ottawa Tuesday afternoon, O’Toole avoided questions about calls from within his party for his resignation.
“In about 30 ridings, we came within 2,000 votes of the Liberals. We are building towards victory next time. We are closer in dozens upon dozens of ridings but not close enough,” he said.
“I am disappointed that we lost some members and I’ve already initiated a post-election review to examine what went right, what went wrong and what we can do better to win in 18 months.”
O’Toole mentioned the “18 months” target several times in an apparent reference to a comment made by Justin Trudeau during the campaign that a minority government might not be stable enough to last longer than a year and a half.
As of Tuesday evening, the Conservatives had about 250,000 more votes than the Liberals, but trailed in seats with the Liberals leading and elected in 158, compared to 119 for the Conservatives.
