When Rona Ambrose announced she wasn’t going to seek the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) in a Facebook video, she talked about the things she’d like to see her party stand for.
“I know we will choose a strong, compassionate person to lead us — who supports all families; a leader who unleashes the potential of the private sector and Canadian ingenuity through low taxes and less regulation; who defends universal human rights and principled foreign policy,” she said.
Ambrose, who was the interim leader of the party from 2015 until Andrew Scheer won the post in 2017, was widely seen as a frontrunner for the job, if she had chosen to jump in.
What Ambrose didn’t mention was the rules for the leadership campaign — she simply said she likes what she’s doing in the private sector and is happy to be back in Alberta.
At least two other prospective candidates, Jean Charest and businessman Bryan Brulotte, have said the rules would have hampered their candidacy. Both pulled out of the contest.
“The leadership contest rules set by the CPC do not favour external candidates. The deadlines are very short,” Charest said.
On Thursday, when leadership Pierre Poilievre pulled the plug on his own leadership bid days ahead of a planned formal campaign launch on Sunday, what had looked peculiar began to look almost ominous.
Because at least one campaign is marching resolutely forward, as if it had been underway for months.
In some ways, it’s hard to believe that it hasn’t been.
All in all, though, you can’t help but wonder how much is left to chance and how much is careful stage-management inside the party.
Peter MacKay’s campaign officially started with a tweet, though the launch is far from over: his campaign scheduled a campaign launch at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton, N.S., the exact spot where he announced his retirement from politics in 2015.
But MacKay’s name was being bantered about long ago. During the last federal election, even before the Conservatives failed to win wide-ranging support against what was seen as a staggering Liberal campaign, there was already a group that openly wanted MacKay as the next leader.
The leadership rules suit MacKay well. In fact, they are almost perfectly suited for him, if for no other reason than his long-standing presence in the party. He also has the benefit of being an outsider during the last election — campaigning for the Tories, but not “inside” enough to share the blame for the campaign’s failure.
Now, day after day, prominent Tories have been popping up to back MacKay, their support just haphazard enough for the campaign to claim it’s a convenient groundswell, rather than a structured and deliberate process.
All in all, though, you can’t help but wonder how much is left to chance and how much is careful stage-management inside the party.
The fact is that beating MacKay will mean having to run much faster than the candidate who appears to have been running for a while now.
The committee that set the rules for the Tory campaign said they did so to ensure that candidates would have to showcase their ability to be election-ready in a similar timetable to a federal election, including the ability to raise big money.
But spiking opponents inside your own party isn’t exactly the same as fighting an election where neither the rules nor the timing might have given you an immediate and insurmountable advantage.
And if selecting a leader is close to a coronation, significant discussion of MacKay’s record — like, say, his use of search and rescue helicopters or his role in attacking the credibility of a Canadian intelligence officer who blew the whistle on the issue of Canadian soldiers handing prisoners over to potential Afghan torturers — won’t see the light of day.
Tories may not have liked the last crowded leadership campaign. There are reasons to like an anointment even less.
Russell Wangersky’s column appears in SaltWire newspapers and websites across Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] — Twitter: @wangersky.