Stunning fall: Canada's Conservatives boot leader O'Toole

Conservative lawmakers in Canada ousted leader Erin O’Toole Wednesday in a stunning takedown that follows his attempts to veer Justin Trudeau’s main opposition party to the left.

O’Toole’s strong-armed expulsion by a rebellion of his own MPs opens a vault of questions about the future of the Conservative movement. Who will lead the party and will its diverse coalition of fiscal and social conservatives stay united?

O'Toole addressed Conservative MPs during the closed-door meeting in a last-ditch effort to stay on. “My commitment to change starts at the top," O'Toole said, according to the Globe and Mail. "Give it a chance to work together.”

He lost the leadership after 73 Conservative MPs voted to remove him from the job, compared to 45 who backed him. Only 60 votes were needed to push him out.

The vote was triggered by 35 MPs who requested the leadership review.

The caucus meeting, held by virtual conference, lasted four hours and finished with a secret vote.

O'Toole formally announced his resignation in a video message later Wednesday.

“It was the honor of a lifetime to lead the party of Sir John A. Macdonald and Confederation,” he said. “I pledge my support and unwavering loyalty to our next leader and I urge everyone in our party to come together and do the same.”

O'Toole added that he will remain an MP: “There is not a bad seat in the House of Commons.”

Many Conservative MPs insisted to reporters after the vote to boot O'Toole that they were confident in party unity despite the results.

But it was clear from others that a lot of internal work will be needed.

“I'm not gonna get into what was raised at caucus, but it's obvious by the vote that there was a lot of unhappiness,” Alberta MP Ron Liepert, who said he voted to keep O'Toole as leader, told reporters.

When asked about bringing the party together, Liepert said: “It's gonna be a bloody tough job — bloody tough job.”

O’Toole’s removal comes during a global-headline-grabbing week in Ottawa, where a convoy of truckers has occupied the downtown core to protest vaccine mandates, Covid measures and the Trudeau government. The demonstrations have links to individuals associated with far-right groups and have generated threats to politicians, journalists and the federal government.

O’Toole took heat for oscillating on whether or not to meet with truckers. In the end, he took the political risk of joining some convoy participants away from the main protest site on Parliament Hill.

The revolt against leadership is unfolding as observers wonder about Trudeau’s future as Liberal leader.

There’s speculation around Ottawa about whether the prime minister's heart is still in it — and who might replace him before the next election. O’Toole’s departure — and the Tory turmoil in its wake — could give Trudeau a reason to stick around.

Either way, the prime minister’s grip on parliamentary power has been weakened since his troops first won a majority of seats in the House of Commons in 2015, a period when his popularity soared.

Canadians’ views of Trudeau have slid since then thanks to a series of biting scandals. Last fall, his Liberals avoided defeat for a second time, though they once again lost the popular vote to the Conservatives.

“There is a lot we don't agree on for the direction of this country," Trudeau told the House of Commons after O'Toole's expulsion. “But he stepped up to serve his country and I want to thank him for his sacrifice and also particularly [his family] Rebecca, Molly and Jack for being part of what is a very, very difficult life for even the most successful of us."

O’Toole earned the most ballots in the September election, but it wasn’t good enough to become prime minister, let alone stay as leader. Nor was it sufficient in 2019 for his predecessor Andrew Scheer, who resigned weeks after the vote.

But O’Toole’s time at the top has been far different, insiders say.

He’s been accused of failing to properly consult caucus on major decisions including on the campaign platform and a carbon-pricing plan — something he never said he would support. He’s also been criticized for flip-flopping on crucial Conservative issues like gun control.

Insiders say that in defeat he dodged any true mea culpa.

But perhaps the biggest internal concern is that O’Toole’s leftward shift failed to align with the policies he supported when he campaigned for the leadership in August 2020.

O’Toole, who had long been viewed as a moderate, billed himself as a “true blue” candidate to attract the party’s social conservative base.

He attacked his main competitor — former Cabinet minister Peter MacKay — as “Liberal-lite” and pledged to confront the “radical left” and “cancel culture.”

In the months after the win, O’Toole revealed different colors.

His new course included a climate plan, with a price on carbon, and a departure from the party’s bread-and-butter vow to balance the federal budget within a few years. He pledged to eliminate the deficit in a decade.

During the election campaign, the military veteran gambled by guiding what’s traditionally been a center-right party toward the left to bring them a little closer to the centrist Liberals.

Earlier this week, O’Toole defended the new direction. “Conservatism is organic not static and that a winning message is one of inclusion, optimism, ideas and hope,” a defiant O’Toole wrote on Twitter. He warned the party against taking an “angry, negative, and extreme” road because it was a “dead-end.”

He also dug in, though he said he would accept Wednesday’s result.

“I’m not going anywhere and I’m not turning back. Canada needs us to be united and serious!” he wrote. “It’s time for a reckoning. To settle this in caucus. Right here. Right now. Once and for all.”

O’Toole’s leftward course coincided with broadening support for the right-wing People’s Party of Canada, led by former Conservative cabinet minister Maxime Bernier. The PPC’s rise resulted in about five percent of the overall vote and appeared to yank enough ballots from O’Toole to weaken the Conservative results.

Another big source of internal resentment was how O’Toole went about caucus management, a senior Conservative told POLITICO on Wednesday before the caucus meeting.

“He didn't consult, he didn't build relationships inside caucus, he made announcements before giving a heads up — a lot of people were frustrated about that,” said the insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they didn’t want to influence the process.

In one example, the source said O’Toole shocked his MPs by unveiling a carbon-price plan — something that he had committed not to do — without telling them beforehand at a meeting the same day.

In the aftermath of the election, the insider said O’Toole showed little interest in changing things up or removing members of his entourage, like Scheer had done.

The insider said the final straw may have been the election postmortem released last week by former Conservative MP James Cumming. The source said the report went easy on O’Toole, arguing he was too scripted or overcoached on messaging.

“It lacked seriousness,” they said of Cumming's work. “He had a few months to basically consult, he could have called a policy convention, he could have said, ‘Look, let's start again brainstorming on ideas …’ He didn't do it.”

The Conservatives will have to chose an interim leader until they find a permanent replacement for O’Toole. The vote was set for 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Immediately, after the results were public, New Brunswick MP John Williamson released a statement saying he wanted to run for the interim job.

“I will respect my caucus colleagues,” he said on Twitter. “I will listen to our movement.”

MP Tom Kmiec also said he would throw his name into to be interim leader.

With O’Toole out the door, the trajectory of the Conservative Party is up in the air — and there are risks to the delicate unity of what has been a big coalition for nearly 20 years.

The next Conservative leader will become the party’s fifth since Trudeau took the helm of the Liberals nearly nine years ago.

Here’s a quick look at the potential contenders:

Pierre Poilievre: The Conservatives’ top parliamentary agitator is considered an early favorite to replace O’Toole. A recent poll in the Globe and Mail found that 17 percent of respondents thought Poilievre would be the best leader for the party in the next election. Only 10 percent thought O’Toole should guide the party in the next vote.

Speculation about a leadership run has swirled around Poilievre for a while, though he declined to run last time around. The Ottawa-area MP is known for his stinging, quick-on-his-feet exchanges in Parliament. For years, he’s been effective at needling Trudeau and his ministers. Some YouTube videos of his parliamentary showdowns have attracted millions of views.

Almost exactly a year ago, O’Toole surprised the Ottawa bubble by shuffling Poilievre out of the finance critic’s role. Some observers saw the move as a way for O’Toole to prevent being upstaged by the attention-drawing Poilievre.

Leslyn Lewis: The rookie lawmaker emerged as a rising Conservative star even before she won her seat last September. Lewis, a social conservative who opposes abortion, generated surprising popularity on her way to a third-place finish in the leadership race behind O’Toole. The corporate lawyer from the Toronto region finished with impressive results in the contest, especially in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. She represents a riding south of Hamilton, Ont., and is the first Black MP for the region.

Rona Ambrose: The former interim Conservative leader has twice declined to run for the top job since Stephen Harper’s departure in 2015. If third time’s a charm, she would be a popular choice. Ambrose, who held several Cabinet posts under Harper, retired from politics in 2017 and is deputy chair of TD Securities. She has also served as a government adviser for the NAFTA renegotiation and is on the advisory boards of organizations, including the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Canadian American Business Council.

Doug Ford: Ford is set to lead the Progressive Conservatives into a provincial election in June and reelection would mean he won’t be available to run for the federal party leadership. Some polls suggest the Ontario premier’s approval ratings have taken a hit in large part due to his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Other surveys show his party with a decent lead over his top rivals. The former city councillor in Toronto, where his late brother Rob Ford made international headlines as mayor, has led the province since 2018.

Jason Kenney: Kenney, another former senior Harper minister, has been premier of Alberta since 2019. Like Ford, polls show the Alberta premier's support has tumbled over his pandemic response. Kenney, however, is facing a leadership review in April that, depending how it goes, could free him up to try something else. Before leaving federal politics in 2016, he was credited with boosting the Harper Conservatives' breakthroughs with minority groups and newcomers to Canada.

Patrick Brown: The mayor of Toronto's massive Brampton suburb could also be a contender. A former federal Conservative during the Harper years, Brown later became leader of Ontario's Provincial Conservatives. He was forced to resign in 2018 after allegations of sexual misconduct.

Brown said Wednesday he wouldn't want to run for the federal leadership.

Caroline Mulroney: A showdown between Mulroney, the eldest child of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, and Trudeau, the eldest of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, would be a campaign to watch. Mulroney, who serves as Ontario’s transportation minister under Ford, is a lawyer with degrees from Harvard College and New York University.

Peter MacKay: The former Harper Cabinet minister entered the 2020 leadership race as the perceived front-runner. MacKay, who was an MP until 2015, did not run in last year's election. It's unclear whether he'd be interested in another shot at the top job. He's reportedly still paying off debt from his last attempt. He would be an interesting candidate, though his more-progressive approach may no longer appeal to many Conservatives.