Yes, the Conservative Party of Canada is having a convention in a year or so to pick a new leader. After all, the party could hardly allow temporary leader Rona Ambrose time to get comfortable at Stornoway. So far, it is a very thin field of applicants. Though what would you expect when the leader in 2019 could get his or her head handed to them by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Nobody thinks the bloom will be off Justin that soon.
The real leader is waiting to be discovered in the lead up to the next leadership convention circa 2021.
You have to admit that Stephen Harper’s former minister of everything, Calgary MP Jason Kenney, could be having fun. He is the most relaxed he has ever been in the past ten years. And he can afford to keep the news media guessing. Maybe it strikes his funny-bone. Maybe he is just feeling perverse. Whatever, it must be fun to turn the tables on the media.
Can you imagine the problems the media have in turning in more than 500 words of copy on the suspected contestants for the Tory leadership? And that would be with Maxime Bernier, Michael Chong, Tony Clement, Kellie Leitch, Erin O’Toole(?) and Lisa Raitt combined.
Of course, they can do more than 500 words on why Doug Ford, Peter MacKay and Kevin O’Leary are not in the race and probably never will be.
And that leaves the heir presumptive, Jason Kenney. After all the time he spent understudying the Hair, Kenney has to be taken at least half seriously.
But in the meantime the question has come up about uniting the right in Alberta and defeating the upstart New Democrats in that Ark of Conservatism. That might just be easier said than done. You have to remember that the Conservative Premier and Wildrose leader who last tried to do that are no longer on the Alberta political scene. Jason Kenney might not be in good enough fighting trim to take on the Wildrose. And never assume that Wildrose would not be above suggesting that Mr. Kenney’s possible sexual orientation needs to come out of the closet. Those people know their bigots like good golfers know their divots.
But the real problem for the Conservative Party is that it is bleeding support among both the rationalists and the fanatics. Without the heavy hand of a Harper or a Manning on the helm, the party is at the mercy of populists and extremists. It has to find some direction.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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