Whither the People's Party of Canada?

As reported here last Sunday, the self-styled Conservative Party of Canada, having failed under two "moderate" leaders -- Andrew Scheep and Erin O'Tool -- to distinguish itself from the ruling Liberals, has now chosen a new and (they hope) better leader, Pierre Poilievre.

The lickspittle media long ago labelled M Poilievre as a "right wing populist" and "the Canuck version of to Donald Trump". Hardly. Populist he may be, but, as I told you way back in April in "The problem with Poilievre", he is no social conservative, let alone a turn-back-the-clock right-winger. He reminds me not so much of The Donald as of a nasty, bilingual version of Ronald Reagan.

Earlier this week, the new Tory leader [Canadians have stopped using that word. Ed.] announced his new leadership team on Tuesday. Left on the outside looking in was Leslyn Lewis, MP, seen here at the Freedom Rally in Ottawa last February.

Dr Lewis, who has a perfect rating on issues pertaining to life and family. Despite presenting a strong pro-life, pro-faith message, she finished third in the CPC leadership race. 

But there's no room in Pierre Poilievre's coterie for such as she. The press release included an image of "My inflation-busting leadership team", standing together in front of those same Parliament buildings.

One of PP's team is Melissa Lantsman, a proud lesbian Member of Parliament. Another is Ontario MP Eric Duncan, an openly homosexual man, who was appointed to party-caucus liaison,

Another notable absent from the team was former party leader Erin O'Tool, who was ousted quickly after he took a squishy stance on February's Freedom Convoy. M Poilievre's choice of MPs with anti-life and pro-LGBT voting records are not surprising, considering he himself has been given a failing grade by Campaign Life Coalition due to his pro-abortion voting record.

Where will the Conservative Party's more traditionalist and libertarian members, like Andrew Scheer, go now? Will they sit on the back bench, behind PP (on the left, wearing the pink tie) or will they join Canada's only truly conservative party, the People's Party of Canada, led by Maxime Bernier, on the right. (Geddit?)

The choice will be difficult, if not impossible, even for Dr Lewis, for the simple reason that the PPC seems destined for the ashheap of Canadian political history. They have been languishing at 4-5 per cent in public opinion polls, which is remarkable for a party founded only recently. 

But they have no seats in Parliament -- "Mad Max" failed for the second time to win his own riding of Beauce -- and are in grave danger of being crushed by the stampede of conservatives hurrying to get aboard the CPC bandwagon, since M Poilievre looks certain to beat the socks of Just In Trudeau whenever the latter dares to call an election.

Walt's headline question, then, might better be: Wither the People's Party of Canada? It's sad.

Worth watching: "Individuality and Autonomy: Maxime Bernier and the PPC", recorded by Dr Jordan B. Peterson on The JBP Podcast, exactly a year ago.

Further reading (added 17/9/22): "The Trudeau factor in Pierre Poilievre's big win", by good ole Rex Murphy in the National Post. Subhead: "Conservative chief's leadership campaign was greatly helped by the Liberals' increasingly embarrassing feats of incompetence"