nationalobserver--2020-06-25--How Stephen Harper is destroying the Conservative party

Although the federal Tories had grabbed 121 seats and won the largest share of the popular vote that evening , they ’ d failed to take out a weakened Prime Minister Justin Trudeau .
“ More Canadians wanted us to win this election than any other party , ” Scheer said in his speech .
“ And now we ’ re heading back to Ottawa with a much bigger team , with more support from coast to coast .
And with an endorsement from the Canadian people that we are the government in waiting.
” As he climbed the stage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ International Trade Centre in suburban Regina on election night last Oct. 21 , Andrew Scheer was a dead man walking .
He just didn ’ t know it .
Scheer had entered the crowded auditorium wearing a crisp navy blue suit and carrying his daughter Mary in his left arm , trailed by his wife Jill and their four other children , looking buoyant .
“ Frankly , I ’ m sick and tired of my party being run by people that have values that don ’ t reflect mine , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( 2004 ) when gay marriage became legal and it should be celebrated .
And I ’ m pissed off the leadership of my party wouldn ’ t celebrate that.
” Among those upset was Sara MacIntyre , a Toronto-based government relations consultant , former press secretary to both prime minister Stephen Harper ( 2009-12 ) and B.C .
premier Christy Clark , and a columnist for Sun Media .
MacIntyre was angry over Scheer ’ s stance on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights .
But the knives were already being sharpened .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ election campaign was viewed by many in the Conservative Party of Canada as a calamity .
“ He didn ’ t just lose the election , he was so incompetent that he left the party in horrible , horrible infrastructure shape , ” one senior Conservative , who ’ s now working on Erin O ’ Toole ’ s leadership campaign , told me .
“ It was the most incompetent campaign I could imagine.
” According to the Conservatives I interviewed for this story , they all agree it ’ s still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Teneycke wrote an opinion piece for CBC headlined , “ It ’ s Stephen Harper ’ s party — and he ’ ll do what he wants to ” that said : “ Even five years after his defeat , the presence of Stephen Harper still defines the Conservative Party of Canada ... Harper does n't need to campaign for or against anyone in the party leadership race .
Every candidate will be attempting to claim some degree of ownership or continuance of the Harper record… There is no path to victory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yet , how much of the party ’ s poor performance in the last two elections can be blamed on Stephen Harper ?
Still , for many familiar with how the Tory party operates , Scheer ’ s very public execution had Stephen Harper ’ s fingerprints all over it .
For one thing , Harper was sitting on the board of the Conservative Fund .
“ It ’ s very clear that this story ( of Scheer ’ s expenses ) came out of the Conservative Fund , ” says Del Mastro @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Andrew Scheer ’ s head and it was meant to take him out .
It was the same thing they did to ( Mike ) Duffy and to ( Pamela ) Wallin .
These people were largely outed by people within the party.
” Scheer tried to cling to his job , but the end came swiftly .
In December , Teneycke leaked to Robert Fife , Ottawa bureau chief for the Globe and Mail , explosive information that had been passed on to him by someone inside the Conservative Fund , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The fund had been paying private school expenses for some of Scheer ’ s children .
Scheer resigned on Dec. 12 , as the story broke .
Kory Teneycke , a political consultant and former director of communications to Harper ( 2008-09 ) began criticizing Scheer on-air during election night while working as a CBC analyst .
Soon after the election , he and former Tory MP John Reynolds and Jeff Ballingall , the founder of Ontario Proud — a conservative advocacy group — formed Conservative Victory , a non-profit designed to remove @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quickly joined as the group ’ s spokesperson .
And the attacks came fast and furious .
Former Harper cabinet minister Peter MacKay quipped that Scheer ’ s loss “ was like having a breakaway on an open net and missing the net , ” while his positions on same-sex marriage and abortion “ hung around Andrew Scheer ’ s neck like a stinking albatross , quite frankly.
” Ironically , Scheer also alienated the party ’ s social conservatives after promising a Tory government would not ban abortions or same-sex marriage .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the people who put him into leadership , that ’ s when he got into trouble after he lost the election , ” explains Dean Del Mastro , a former Tory MP from Peterborough , Ont.
, and once Harper ’ s parliamentary secretary .
“ He didn ’ t have a constituency anymore in the party to fight off the attacks that came against his leadership.
” MacIntyre is an urbanite who feels Scheer ’ s positions on same-sex marriage and abortion ( both of which he opposes ) hurt the party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Vancouver , which have a huge swath of seats — seats needed to win power .
Yet the Conservatives were almost entirely shut out of those hubs .
Meanwhile , they won only 10 seats in Québec , down from 12 the previous election .
“ The problem is that Conservatives are living Blackberry lives in an iPhone world , ” says Clinton Desveaux , a prominent Tory activist in Nova Scotia who worked with Harper on political campaigns .
“ Stephen Harper is responsible for the Blackberry culture in an iPhone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Conservative Party is facing today.
” If Harper is the most powerful force in the Tory party , is he preventing it from changing direction as many believe it must ?
And if he ’ s doing so , is Harper actually destroying the very thing he created by guaranteeing the party may never return to power — or at least not for a very long time ?
“ I think it 's fair to say the Conservative Party of Canada is still the House That Harper Built , ” says Andrew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former press secretaries and directors of communications .
“ How can it not be ?
He created it and was the leader for 12 of its 17 years of existence.
” Tories looking for new leader again - and it 's not going well Right now , for the second time in three years , the party is looking for a new leader .
And so far , it ’ s not going well .
For starters , none of the conservative movement 's biggest stars threw their hats in the ring — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ambrose and John Baird .
MP Pierre Poilievre lasted two weeks before he pulled the plug on his bid , ostensibly to spend more time with family .
L. Ian MacDonald , a former speechwriter for Brian Mulroney and publisher of Policy Magazine said the caliber of candidates is much weaker than past eras .
“ Harper did not prepare succession , ” he remarks .
What the race has revealed is a strong streak of bigotry and homophobia within the party .
One potential candidate , Richard Décarie , a former deputy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was Opposition leader , was barred from running after he claimed homosexuality was a “ choice.
” This prompted Tory MP Michelle Rempel Garner to complain : “ I am very , very tired , beyond tired , of my party being hijacked by this type of bigotry.
” Someone who rushed to Décarie ’ s defence was leadership contender Derek Sloan .
The Ontario MP not only announced his opposition to banning gay conversion therapy , but garnered headlines for suggesting Canada ’ s chief public health officer , Dr. Theresa Tam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and grew up in the U.K. ) , was working for China rather than Canadians in her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic .
Another hopeful , Leslyn Lewis , is uncomfortable with same-sex marriage and opposes abortion .
And Ontario lawyer Jim Karahalios got thrown out of the race after attacking Walied Soliman , O ’ Toole ’ s campaign manager , for being a proponent of “ Sharia law.
” Even then the party couldn ’ t expel Karahalios smoothly : After Karahalios took the party to court , a judge found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ procedure ( and refused to refund his $ 300,000 registration fee ) .
After the ruling , the party threw Karahalios out of the race again — this time by the book .
Meantime , the two frontrunners , MacKay and former minister of veterans affairs Erin O ’ Toole , have embraced the Harper-Scheer platforms that lost the Tories two straight elections — namely cutting taxes , developing the oilsands , free trade deals , weakening environmental rules to build more pipelines , opposing carbon taxes , noncommittal on climate change and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says he would defund the CBC if elected prime minister , criminalize protesters involved in blockades , bring back mandatory minimum sentences ( which the Supreme Court has ruled are unconstitutional ) and has embraced Alberta Premier Jason Kenney ’ s false claims about the “ foreign-funded sources of influence ” over critics of the oilsands .
Neither men speak French fluently .
When announcing his candidacy , MacKay managed to mangle a common French verb tense .
Combined with Scheer making tone-deaf gaffes during the COVID-19 shutdown — such as questioning the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — polls show the party is languishing at 25 to 28 per cent support , which would mean a loss of up to 40 seats if an election were held today .
The Liberals , by contrast , are up to 40 to 46 per cent .
“ The Conservatives are in trouble , ” says Duane Bratt , a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary .
“ While they still have got money and volunteers and electoral support , there are cleavages in that party — regionally especially , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just flummoxed on how to deal with Trudeau.
” Many Tories despairing at direction of party Now many Tories are despairing .
“ We are at 25 per cent in the polls and in my neck of the woods in the Greater Toronto Area ( GTA ) we lost ground last election , ” frets Chris Alexander , former minister of citizenship and immigration under Harper , who lost his own seat five years ago .
`` I lost by what I thought was a jaw-dropping margin that took my breath away in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Liberal vote more than doubled ( in my riding ) than ours and our vote count went down by several thousand votes .
I honestly didn ’ t think that was possible after four years of Justin Trudeau.
” Yet Harper may not be helping matters : In January , he stepped down from the board of the Conservative Fund , ostensibly to ensure no conflict of interest with the investigation into Scheer ’ s private school funding .
But then Paul Wells , senior political writer for Maclean ’ s , ran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quit the fund was “ to free himself up to block Jean Charest ’ s campaign for the party leadership.
” An Ottawa press corps source told me Wells is often used by Harper as a conduit for leaks .
Either way , it worked : Charest , who ’ d even briefly posted a video announcing his plan to run , suddenly backed out .
Charest had called Harper in December to get his blessing — but did not get it .
Harper ’ s opposition to Charest is political : he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberal .
“ Not only was ( Harper ) opposed but he was going to do what he could to ensure that Jean Charest didn ’ t win , ” a former Harper confidant told me .
“ It ’ s ideological : Jean Charest is perceived to be more of a Red Tory and Harper is perceived to be more of a Blue Tory.
” Whether Charest would have won the job or not , he has the sort of credentials that would have helped the Tories pick up seats in Québec @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Vancouver and Montreal .
“ I think ( the Tories ) are in a vice for the foreseeable future , ” remarks Dimitry Anastakis , a historian at the University of Toronto ’ s Rotman School of Management .
“ I really do .
And it explains why so few people are actually putting their hats in the ring on this one .
Because what ( Harper ) left them with is a very ideologically narrow party… It ’ s rural , it ’ s white , it ’ s old but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in… So Harper really has put them in an ideological box which they can ’ t get out of because so many of their supporters look back on the Harper years as golden years.
” How Harper is ideologically undermining his own party If Stephen Harper is unconsciously torpedoing the party he created , how did this happen ?
After all , he led the party to three back-to-back election victories and was prime minister for nearly a decade — and blessed with a strategic mind .
The answer lies in the lessons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Prior to 1993 , conservatives gathered under the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada ( PC ) umbrella , which adopted what was called a “ big tent ” approach : social conservatives , Québeckers , Red Tories , Atlantic , Eastern and Western Canadians all felt welcome .
The Tories knew their base got them only about 30 per cent of the vote — and therefore they needed to attract voters who were not conservatives .
“ We knew that true conservative believers are not numerous enough to elect the government , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tory senator and former PC party activist .
Brian Mulroney was the most adept leader at building a coast-to-coast conservative coalition .
“ His approach was he welcomed right-wingers and left-wingers and centrists , ” says former Tory MP Bill Casey , who was first elected from Nova Scotia in 1988 .
“ There was a place in his party for everybody.
” And it worked : Mulroney won two back-to-back overwhelming majorities in 1984 and 1988 , even wiping out the Liberals in Québec .
Mulroney ruled as a centrist , taking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the environment .
“ With Mulroney it was a full bore embrace of multiculturalism and looking at the need for social justice and historic justice , ” explains Patrick Boyer , a lawyer , author and Tory MP during the Mulroney years .
Mulroney was a leading international voice against apartheid and releasing Nelson Mandela , and passed significant environmental legislation — including the acid rain treaty with the U.S. , the Environmental Protection Act and establishing eight new national parks .
His government was even alarmed about climate change .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rio ( Earth Summit in 1992 ) , so he brought in the framework on climate change when Mulroney was prime minister , ” says Elizabeth May , outgoing leader of the Green Party and a senior policy adviser to one of Mulroney ’ s environment ministers .
“ In hindsight no government has come close since doing so much on the environment domestically and globally as was happening under Mulroney.
” In 2006 , Mulroney was given an award for “ greenest prime minister ” in Canadian history by environmental groups ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banquet ’ s head table ) .
Still , Mulroney couldn ’ t keep the fractious conservative movement together .
In 1987 , Preston Manning formed the Reform Party in response to Western grievances .
And three years later , Mulroney ’ s Québec lieutenant , Lucien Bouchard , left to form the separatist Bloc Québécois .
By 1993 , with the government unpopular and mired in corruption scandals , Mulroney stepped down .
His successor , Kim Campbell , led the Tories into a disastrous election , winning only two seats .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Bloc took 54 .
The PC Party never recovered and the right would be in the wilderness for more than a decade , splintered into pieces .
The person who would sew them back together was an obscure Reform Party policy wonk — Stephen Harper .
But his party would be very different from the PC Party .
Harper drives party away from the centre The son of an Imperial Oil accountant , Harper was born in Toronto , but ended up in Calgary in the early 1980s , studying economics at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fell under the influence of an emerging group of right-wing libertarian academics known as the “ Calgary School.
” Prominent among them was political scientist Tom Flanagan , an American who holds controversial views about First Nations people — arguing they don ’ t deserve special status and opposing their land claims .
Flanagan also embraced the neoliberalism of Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek , who was against government social programs .
The Calgary School were the types who scorned Red Tories .
Flanagan feels a conservative party does not have to move to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think what you need is a leader who will be adroit enough to avoid being typecast and therefore demonized as someone who is scary , ” he told me .
“ You don ’ t need to go full throttle in embracing Red Toryism and marching in every gay pride parade that you can find .
You just have to avoid being demonized.
” After university , Harper went to work for the Reform Party , even winning a seat in Parliament in 1993 .
But he soured on Preston Manning and didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He quit four years later to run the anti-tax National Citizens Coalition .
In 2002 , he returned to politics , taking over as leader of the Canadian Alliance , and soon struck a deal with Peter MacKay , then leader of the rump PC Party , to form the Conservative Party of Canada .
However , according to former Tory MP Lee Richardson , who came from the PC party , “ the current party is really the old base of Reform .
There is really very little of the old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moderates increasingly felt unwelcome in this new party .
Still , Harper and Flanagan — who became the party ’ s campaign manager — realized that a Western-focused right-wing populist party would never win power , and they had to keep social conservatives under lock and key .
They also had no interest in forming a “ big tent ” party fashioned after the old PC Party either .
Instead , they focused on portraying Harper as a fiscally responsible steward of government who would not revisit issues such as abortion or gay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But more importantly , they would win over urban voters by wooing socially conservative new immigrants and develop tax policies that would appeal to certain voting segments of the populace — such as seniors or young families — in what is known as slicing and dicing the electorate .
“ Harper never cared about getting the majority of Canadians to like him , ” May says .
“ He figured out that if you suppressed the vote for other parties and get your own group highly motivated to vote so you could take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get a majority without ever getting the majority of the voting populace to vote for you.
” Harper was also lucky — the Liberal Party was in crisis .
In 2006 , with Paul Martin weighed down by the sponsorship and other scandals , the Tories eked out a minority .
Harper lucked out again when the Liberals elected two milquetoast leaders back-to-back and sectarian feuding between Liberals and NDP split the progressive vote .
“ Harper adapted to new realities , ” says Dimitri Soudas , one of his former directors of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that a Conservative government led by Stephen Harper would have ran a deficit — it runs counter to Conservative principles ...
He was the Conservative prime minister who bailed out the auto sector.
” In 2011 , Harper finally won his majority .
But this high-water mark coincided with him losing his political touch .
He doubled down on his war with environmentalists and First Nations groups over resource extraction , introduced harsher punishment for criminals , including mandatory minimum sentencing ( which was shot down by the Supreme Court ) , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McLachlin .
The party also turned its back on new immigrants .
“ The party was tone deaf on issues like inclusion , it was tone deaf on the whole issue of Syrian refugees , it was tone deaf on the desire on the part of Canadians to see some investment and some growth in greater public sector leadership , ” says Hugh Segal , former Tory senator and once chief of staff to both Brian Mulroney and Ontario premier Bill Davis .
One by one , Harper ’ s strongest cabinet ministers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ design : Having watched Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin tear apart the Liberal party over succession , Harper wanted no pretenders to his throne .
And then , in 2012 , the Mike Duffy scandal broke .
The efforts of Harper and his PMO to bury the controversy only made his government appear scheming .
Moreover , the scandal dominated Ottawa right up until the 2015 election , demoralizing his caucus .
At that point , Harper ’ s government looked out of steam .
The Tories ’ campaign that year was riven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t just a campaign that was badly run , ” says former immigration minister Chris Alexander , “ there were three brain trusts , three principals behind the campaign with a different vision of what it should be and Harper never chose what the focus should be.
” Tellingly , the campaign was marred by accusations of bigotry after the party called for setting up a “ barbaric cultural practices ” tip line and banning niqabs at citizenship ceremonies .
Harper also attended rallies with the Ford brothers , Doug and Rob @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being an international punch line due to his crack cocaine use , partying with drug dealers and escorts , and making racially and sexually insensitive remarks .
Not surprisingly , new immigrant voters flocked back to the Liberals .
“ I think it 's absolutely fair to say Harper was much more focused on so-called 'new Canadian ' communities in the 2011 campaign than he was in 2015 , ” agrees former Harper director of communications Andrew MacDougall .
Above all else , Canadians were just tired of Harper .
“ I tend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a great campaign by Trudeau that turned the tide in 2015 , ” says political scientist Duane Bratt .
“ He didn ’ t want to lose , he didn ’ t expect to lose , he didn ’ t intend on losing , ” said U of T historian Anastakis .
“ He wasn ’ t planning his retirement or to do the walk in the snow or anything like that .
It was taken from him in a way that he wasn ’ t happy about.
” Harper creates a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Another aspect of Harper ’ s legacy was creating an internal party culture that could be cruel and unforgiving with people who ’ d fallen out of favour .
“ It was very much his party and he ran it with an iron fist and ‘ my way or the highway , ’ ” recalls former Tory MP Richardson .
“ He was ruthless.
” Indeed , former Tory MP Bill Casey — who was thrown out of caucus in 2007 after a dispute with Harper — describes Harper as a bully , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points , and not conferring with caucus .
Soon after the 2006 election , Casey recalls Harper coming into caucus and bluntly informing the MPs that “ 'Lookit , we have decided to make $ 1-billion in cuts and it ’ s going to affect most of your ridings and anybody who complains about it will suffer the consequences to your career as a Conservative politician.
’ And then he sat down .
He didn ’ t even tell us what they were.
” Nearly all of the Tories I spoke to echoed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the broader issue of dealing with people , yes I think there is a certain gracelessness on several occasions , ” admits Alexander .
Examples of Harper ’ s harshness toward party members abound .
Probably the most notorious is Helena Guergis , who became secretary of state for foreign affairs and sport , and later minister for the status of women .
Guergis was so friendly with Harper and his wife Laureen that she dined and went to the movies with them .
Guergis was even given the visible “ special chair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But in 2009 , Guergis ’ husband was arrested for impaired driving , speeding and possession of cocaine .
Allegations soon emerged that Guergis and her husband were socializing with a businessman of ill repute .
A private detective , Derrick Snowdy , began shopping around a story of lurid allegations of political corruption about Guergis , suggesting she and her husband were being used by the businessman .
Harper quickly removed Guergis from cabinet and threw her out of caucus .
He also called in the RCMP to investigate .
In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ driving charges against her husband were dropped .
After a thorough investigation , the RCMP found no evidence supporting any of the corruption allegations against Guergis or her husband .
In 2010 , Snowdy admitted to a parliamentary committee “ I have nothing — I have no evidence , or no information , with respect to conduct of Ms. Guergis in my possession or knowledge.
” By then it didn ’ t matter — her political career was over .
Mike Duffy thrown to the wolves to protect Harper A similar pattern occurred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ levelled at Tory senators Duffy , Wallin and Patrick Brazeau .
In the case of Duffy , he was pressured and threatened by Harper ’ s staff to admit he ’ d abused his expenses , despite Duffy protesting his innocence and the lack of any damaging evidence against him .
Harper was simply trying to staunch the flood of bad press .
Duffy was then charged with 31 counts of fraud , breach of trust and bribery charges — all of which the court found were baseless , acquitting him .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ control plan “ was not for the benefit of Senator Duffy but rather , it was for the benefit of the government and the PMO.
” Another loyal foot soldier who feels betrayed is Dean Del Mastro , the Tory MP from Peterborough , Ont.
, and Harper ’ s former parliamentary secretary .
In 2014 , he was charged with overspending during the 2008 election , accused of writing a personal cheque of $ 21,000 to cover an expense — which was over the limit — and then submitting an invoice for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day , Del Mastro protests his innocence .
Del Mastro says he was offered a deal early on — to pay a $ 2,000 fine and plead guilty to a lesser charge .
Del Mastro says when the PMO was told of the offer , he was informed if he accepted it , there would be no guarantee he would be allowed back into caucus .
Del Mastro says Harper and the PMO wanted him to fight the charges as a way to distract the media from the on-going Duffy affair .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focus off the prime minister and put it on to me , ” Del Mastro explains .
If he had been allowed to stay in caucus , he says , he would have taken the deal .
Instead , he fought the charges — to disastrous effect .
Del Mastro lost his seat , was sent to jail for 30 days and four months of house arrest , and was hit with a nearly $ 750,000 legal bill .
“ Before I was put in shackles it was not just the media that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s own people that were actively jamming things in my back as Stephen drove the bus over me repeatedly , ” Del Mastro says .
“ It was pretty lonely ... For my family , it was devastating.
” Harper continues to meddle in the party after he loses After his 2015 loss , Harper lingered in Ottawa before moving to Calgary where he opened Harper & Associates Consulting .
He and his wife began building a large house in Alberta ’ s foothills .
But he couldn ’ t stay away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joined the board of the powerful and secretive Conservative Fund , which raises money for the party ( including $ 30.8 million last year alone ) .
And in 2018 , he was elected chairman of the International Democrat Union ( IDU ) , a global alliance of conservative and centre-right parties .
He was also carrying grudges .
In a 2018 interview that recently came to light , Harper claimed that “ a major reason I am not the prime minister of Canada ” was the lack of a right-wing Fox News-like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rest of the media were too liberal and “ would not cover my announcements , they would not cover any gaffe of my opponent , they scrubbed it out .
They actually met every day to coordinate their coverage , they would not run any ad I had showing footage depicting my opponent in an unfavourable light… We literally were censored out of the coverage.
” Reporters and pundits across the political spectrum mocked Harper ’ s claim , as did some of his former staffers .
Fourteen candidates ran for the leadership @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stars .
It was also evident that moderates who might appeal to urban voters were out of favour .
When leadership contender Michael Chong came out in support of a carbon tax during one debate in Edmonton , he was vociferously booed .
Chong came in fifth .
“ ( The party ) needs to grow .
It clearly needs to make inroads with millennials , ” Chong told me .
“ That ’ s why we need to have strong policies on climate change going into the next election.
” Hugh Segal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interested in pandering to voters outside of its base .
“ While they didn ’ t do all that badly in terms of seats and total vote ( last year ) , ” he says , “ they still could not penetrate in any meaningful way the 905 ( area code ) , the 416 , the 613 , the 902 , the 514 — all those areas didn ’ t produce anything for them and that ’ s where , for better or for worse , the vast majority of Canadian voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the problem.
” Or as another Tory insider told me about the current caucus : “ It ’ s a rump of old whiteys , small-town mayors and that ’ s not a recipe for success in the future.
” Indeed , the party is so conservative that former prime minister Campbell was quoted in Maclean ’ s last year saying she couldn ’ t survive in today ’ s party because : “ It ’ s too intolerant ; it ’ s too right-wing.
” Tories seem to have written off Québec @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the party seems to have written off Québec altogether , despite the fact Québeckers are turning to the right .
“ In Québec at the moment there is a strong conservative movement which is not close to the Conservative Party , ” says Université de Montréal political scientist Christian Nadeau .
“ I think the main reason ( Quebeckers ) don ’ t vote for the Conservative Party is that ( the party is ) too stupid to investigate what is going on here .
They don ’ t care.
” Instead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social conservative and someone so unremarkable Harper hadn ’ t put him in any of his cabinets .
As leader , Scheer regularly consulted with Harper and Kenney before making important decisions .
He then ran on a platform that was a carbon copy of Harper ’ s from four years earlier .
“ I think ( the party ) is out of step perhaps with the political times , ” agrees Jim Armour , Harper ’ s former director of communications in the early 2000s and an Ottawa lobbyist .
“ In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through now is what the Liberals went through when Paul Martin lost .
They tended to fight the same campaign… So the Liberals continually ran the same campaign under Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff .
And the Conservatives essentially ran the same campaign with Andrew Scheer.
” Harper , meanwhile , is showing no signs of mellowing : On more than one occasion he ’ s showered praise on the authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — under whom anti-Semitism and anti-Roma bigotry has flourished ( “ The IDU and I are looking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was one of Harper ’ s messages to Orban ) .
He ’ s attacked Chancellor Angela Merkel for letting a million refugees into Germany , praised his “ great friend ” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , who is currently on trial for corruption , and defended President Donald Trump against attacks leveled at him by French President Emmanuel Macron .
Meanwhile , the current crop of contenders for the Tory leadership is singing from Harper ’ s hymnbook .
The scuttlebutt is Harper supports O ’ Toole , who launched his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and promising to take on “ cancel culture and the radical left.
” O ’ Toole even dropped his promise to cut subsidies to the oil industry .
MacKay , meanwhile , felt pressured to apologize for the “ stinking albatross ” remark about Scheer and has flip-flopped on LGBQT rights — all to pander to the party ’ s base .
Many Tories I spoke with say to win the leadership you must woo the base before pivoting toward being more moderate once you win .
Michael Chong seems to hold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out to him the party ’ s position on climate change and carbon taxes has remained unchanged since Harper ’ s time , he conceded : “ I agree the party had not been there on climate change .
That ’ s one of the big reasons I believe we lost the last election… I agree we are not there on the environment yet , but that ’ s no reason to believe we will never get there.
” Others I spoke with suggest the Harper playbook merely needs to be fine-tuned by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t think we need to be centrist to win , ” one consultant working for O ’ Toole told me .
“ We just need to be competent and want to win .
Andrew Scheer , quite frankly , is a loser and didn ’ t have the fire in his belly , didn ’ t have the winning instinct and didn ’ t do what he had to do to win.
” Others are skeptical .
“ We have stayed too narrow , ” says former Harper cabinet minister Chris @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind of party in the midst of a hangover after a fairly crushing defeat in 2015 .
And while there have been a few half-serious attempts to push things to open the door and in a new direction , they haven ’ t yet borne fruit .
So I don ’ t think it ’ s a party that fully reflects — in its membership , its idea or its debate — the national conversation that Canadians want to have .
And that ’ s what you need to be to win .
@

But the knives were already being sharpened. Scheer’s performance during the 40-day election campaign was viewed by many in the Conservative Party of Canada as a calamity. “He didn’t just lose the election, he was so incompetent that he left the party in horrible, horrible infrastructure shape,” one senior Conservative, who’s now working on Erin O’Toole’s leadership campaign, told me. “It was the most incompetent campaign I could imagine.”
Although the federal Tories had grabbed 121 seats and won the largest share of the popular vote that evening, they’d failed to take out a weakened Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “More Canadians wanted us to win this election than any other party,” Scheer said in his speech. “And now we’re heading back to Ottawa with a much bigger team, with more support from coast to coast. And with an endorsement from the Canadian people that we are the government in waiting.”
As he climbed the stage to give his concession speech at the International Trade Centre in suburban Regina on election night last Oct. 21, Andrew Scheer was a dead man walking. He just didn’t know it. Scheer had entered the crowded auditorium wearing a crisp navy blue suit and carrying his daughter Mary in his left arm, trailed by his wife Jill and their four other children, looking buoyant.
“Frankly, I’m sick and tired of my party being run by people that have values that don’t reflect mine,” she told me. “It was in (2004) when gay marriage became legal and it should be celebrated. And I’m pissed off the leadership of my party wouldn’t celebrate that.”
Among those upset was Sara MacIntyre, a Toronto-based government relations consultant, former press secretary to both prime minister Stephen Harper (2009-12) and B.C. premier Christy Clark, and a columnist for Sun Media. MacIntyre was angry over Scheer’s stance on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights.
Kory Teneycke, a political consultant and former director of communications to Harper (2008-09) began criticizing Scheer on-air during election night while working as a CBC analyst. Soon after the election, he and former Tory MP John Reynolds and Jeff Ballingall, the founder of Ontario Proud — a conservative advocacy group — formed Conservative Victory, a non-profit designed to remove Scheer from his post. Sara MacIntyre quickly joined as the group’s spokesperson.
And the attacks came fast and furious. Former Harper cabinet minister Peter MacKay quipped that Scheer’s loss “was like having a breakaway on an open net and missing the net,” while his positions on same-sex marriage and abortion “hung around Andrew Scheer’s neck like a stinking albatross, quite frankly.”
Ironically, Scheer also alienated the party’s social conservatives after promising a Tory government would not ban abortions or same-sex marriage. “When he seemed to be abandoning the people who put him into leadership, that’s when he got into trouble after he lost the election,” explains Dean Del Mastro, a former Tory MP from Peterborough, Ont., and once Harper’s parliamentary secretary. “He didn’t have a constituency anymore in the party to fight off the attacks that came against his leadership.”
MacIntyre is an urbanite who feels Scheer’s positions on same-sex marriage and abortion (both of which he opposes) hurt the party in cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, which have a huge swath of seats — seats needed to win power. Yet the Conservatives were almost entirely shut out of those hubs. Meanwhile, they won only 10 seats in Québec, down from 12 the previous election.
Yet, how much of the party’s poor performance in the last two elections can be blamed on Stephen Harper?
Still, for many familiar with how the Tory party operates, Scheer’s very public execution had Stephen Harper’s fingerprints all over it. For one thing, Harper was sitting on the board of the Conservative Fund. “It’s very clear that this story (of Scheer’s expenses) came out of the Conservative Fund,” says Del Mastro. “It was intentionally shot right at Andrew Scheer’s head and it was meant to take him out. It was the same thing they did to (Mike) Duffy and to (Pamela) Wallin. These people were largely outed by people within the party.”
Scheer tried to cling to his job, but the end came swiftly. In December, Teneycke leaked to Robert Fife, Ottawa bureau chief for the Globe and Mail, explosive information that had been passed on to him by someone inside the Conservative Fund, the party’s fundraising arm. The fund had been paying private school expenses for some of Scheer’s children. Scheer resigned on Dec. 12, as the story broke.
According to the Conservatives I interviewed for this story, they all agree it’s still very much his party. Last winter, Teneycke wrote an opinion piece for CBC headlined, “It’s Stephen Harper’s party — and he’ll do what he wants to” that said: “Even five years after his defeat, the presence of Stephen Harper still defines the Conservative Party of Canada... Harper doesn't need to campaign for or against anyone in the party leadership race. Every candidate will be attempting to claim some degree of ownership or continuance of the Harper record… There is no path to victory running against Harper’s legacy.”
“I think it's fair to say the Conservative Party of Canada is still the House That Harper Built,” says Andrew MacDougall, one of Harper’s former press secretaries and directors of communications. “How can it not be? He created it and was the leader for 12 of its 17 years of existence.”
If Harper is the most powerful force in the Tory party, is he preventing it from changing direction as many believe it must? And if he’s doing so, is Harper actually destroying the very thing he created by guaranteeing the party may never return to power — or at least not for a very long time?
“The problem is that Conservatives are living Blackberry lives in an iPhone world,” says Clinton Desveaux, a prominent Tory activist in Nova Scotia who worked with Harper on political campaigns. “Stephen Harper is responsible for the Blackberry culture in an iPhone world. And that is the dilemma the Conservative Party is facing today.”
Tories looking for new leader again - and it's not going well
Right now, for the second time in three years, the party is looking for a new leader. And so far, it’s not going well.
For starters, none of the conservative movement's biggest stars threw their hats in the ring — Jason Kenney, Jean Charest, Rona Ambrose and John Baird. MP Pierre Poilievre lasted two weeks before he pulled the plug on his bid, ostensibly to spend more time with family. L. Ian MacDonald, a former speechwriter for Brian Mulroney and publisher of Policy Magazine says the caliber of candidates is much weaker than past eras. “Harper did not prepare succession,” he remarks.
What the race has revealed is a strong streak of bigotry and homophobia within the party.
One potential candidate, Richard Décarie, a former deputy chief of staff for Harper when he was Opposition leader, was barred from running after he claimed homosexuality was a “choice.” This prompted Tory MP Michelle Rempel Garner to complain: “I am very, very tired, beyond tired, of my party being hijacked by this type of bigotry.”
Ontario Tory MP Derek Sloan in Conservative leadership debate in June 2020. Image from CPAC video
Someone who rushed to Décarie’s defence was leadership contender Derek Sloan. The Ontario MP not only announced his opposition to banning gay conversion therapy, but garnered headlines for suggesting Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam (who was born in Hong Kong and grew up in the U.K.), was working for China rather than Canadians in her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another hopeful, Leslyn Lewis, is uncomfortable with same-sex marriage and opposes abortion. And Ontario lawyer Jim Karahalios got thrown out of the race after attacking Walied Soliman, O’Toole’s campaign manager, for being a proponent of “Sharia law.”
Even then the party couldn’t expel Karahalios smoothly: After Karahalios took the party to court, a judge found the Tories had failed to follow proper procedure (and refused to refund his $300,000 registration fee). After the ruling, the party threw Karahalios out of the race again — this time by the book.
Meantime, the two frontrunners, MacKay and former minister of veterans affairs Erin O’Toole, have embraced the Harper-Scheer platforms that lost the Tories two straight elections — namely cutting taxes, developing the oilsands, free trade deals, weakening environmental rules to build more pipelines, opposing carbon taxes, noncommittal on climate change and eschewing gun control. O’Toole says he would defund the CBC if elected prime minister, criminalize protesters involved in blockades, bring back mandatory minimum sentences (which the Supreme Court has ruled are unconstitutional) and has embraced Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s false claims about the “foreign-funded sources of influence” over critics of the oilsands.
Neither man speaks French fluently. When announcing his candidacy, MacKay managed to mangle a common French verb tense.
Combined with Scheer making tone-deaf gaffes during the COVID-19 shutdown — such as questioning the wisdom of paying out-of-work Canadians federal funds — polls show the party is languishing at 25 to 28 per cent support, which would mean a loss of up to 40 seats if an election were held today. The Liberals, by contrast, are up to 40 to 46 per cent.
“The Conservatives are in trouble,” says Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary. “While they still have got money and volunteers and electoral support, there are cleavages in that party — regionally especially, as well as ideologically. And they are just flummoxed on how to deal with Trudeau.”
Many Tories despairing at direction of party
Now many Tories are despairing.
“We are at 25 per cent in the polls and in my neck of the woods in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) we lost ground last election,” frets Chris Alexander, former minister of citizenship and immigration under Harper, who lost his own seat five years ago. "I lost by what I thought was a jaw-dropping margin that took my breath away in 2015. In this last election the Liberal vote more than doubled (in my riding) than ours and our vote count went down by several thousand votes. I honestly didn’t think that was possible after four years of Justin Trudeau.”
Harper resigns from board of Conservative Fund to block Jean Charest from becoming new Tory leader. File photo of Charest by Elizabeth McSheffrey
Yet Harper may not be helping matters: In January, he stepped down from the board of the Conservative Fund, ostensibly to ensure no conflict of interest with the investigation into Scheer’s private school funding. But then Paul Wells, senior political writer for Maclean’s, ran a story saying the main reason Harper quit the fund was “to free himself up to block Jean Charest’s campaign for the party leadership.”
An Ottawa press corps source told me Wells is often used by Harper as a conduit for leaks. Either way, it worked: Charest, who’d even briefly posted a video announcing his plan to run, suddenly backed out. Charest had called Harper in December to get his blessing — but did not get it.
Harper’s opposition to Charest is political: he thinks the former Québec premier is too liberal. “Not only was (Harper) opposed but he was going to do what he could to ensure that Jean Charest didn’t win,” a former Harper confidant told me. “It’s ideological: Jean Charest is perceived to be more of a Red Tory and Harper is perceived to be more of a Blue Tory.”
Whether Charest would have won the job or not, he has the sort of credentials that would have helped the Tories pick up seats in Québec and in the voter-rich bastions of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.
“I think (the Tories) are in a vice for the foreseeable future,” remarks Dimitry Anastakis, a historian at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. “I really do. And it explains why so few people are actually putting their hats in the ring on this one. Because what (Harper) left them with is a very ideologically narrow party… It’s rural, it’s white, it’s old but more importantly its policy positions are locked in… So Harper really has put them in an ideological box which they can’t get out of because so many of their supporters look back on the Harper years as golden years.”
How Harper is ideologically undermining his own party
If Stephen Harper is unconsciously torpedoing the party he created, how did this happen? After all, he led the party to three back-to-back election victories and was prime minister for nearly a decade — and blessed with a strategic mind.
The answer lies in the lessons forgotten when the Conservative Party was born.
Prior to 1993, conservatives gathered under the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC) umbrella, which adopted what was called a “big tent” approach: social conservatives, Québeckers, Red Tories, Atlantic, Eastern and Western Canadians all felt welcome. The Tories knew their base got them only about 30 per cent of the vote — and therefore they needed to attract voters who were not conservatives. “We knew that true conservative believers are not numerous enough to elect the government,” explains Lowell Murray, a retired Tory senator and former PC party activist.
Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who ruled from the centre, and won two majority governments in the 1980s. Photo from Canada 2020 (April 8 2014)
Brian Mulroney was the most adept leader at building a coast-to-coast conservative coalition. “His approach was he welcomed right-wingers and left-wingers and centrists,” says former Tory MP Bill Casey, who was first elected from Nova Scotia in 1988. “There was a place in his party for everybody.”
And it worked: Mulroney won two back-to-back overwhelming majorities in 1984 and 1988, even wiping out the Liberals in Québec.
Mulroney ruled as a centrist, taking progressive stands on human rights, racism and the environment. “With Mulroney it was a full bore embrace of multiculturalism and looking at the need for social justice and historic justice,” explains Patrick Boyer, a lawyer, author and Tory MP during the Mulroney years.
Brian Mulroney was Canada's "greenest prime minister"
Mulroney was a leading international voice against apartheid and releasing Nelson Mandela, and passed significant environmental legislation — including the acid rain treaty with the U.S., the Environmental Protection Act and establishing eight new national parks. His government was even alarmed about climate change. “Jean Charest was minister of environment at Rio (Earth Summit in 1992), so he brought in the framework on climate change when Mulroney was prime minister,” says Elizabeth May, outgoing leader of the Green Party and a senior policy adviser to one of Mulroney’s environment ministers. “In hindsight no government has come close since doing so much on the environment domestically and globally as was happening under Mulroney.”
In 2006, Mulroney was given an award for “greenest prime minister” in Canadian history by environmental groups (May sat with him at the award banquet’s head table).
Still, Mulroney couldn’t keep the fractious conservative movement together. In 1987, Preston Manning formed the Reform Party in response to Western grievances. And three years later, Mulroney’s Québec lieutenant, Lucien Bouchard, left to form the separatist Bloc Québécois. By 1993, with the government unpopular and mired in corruption scandals, Mulroney stepped down. His successor, Kim Campbell, led the Tories into a disastrous election, winning only two seats.
Meanwhile, Reform won 52 seats and the Bloc took 54.
The PC Party never recovered and the right would be in the wilderness for more than a decade, splintered into pieces. The person who would sew them back together was an obscure Reform Party policy wonk — Stephen Harper.
But his party would be very different from the PC Party.
Harper drives party away from the centre
The son of an Imperial Oil accountant, Harper was born in Toronto, but ended up in Calgary in the early 1980s, studying economics at the University of Calgary. There he fell under the influence of an emerging group of right-wing libertarian academics known as the “Calgary School.”
Prominent among them was political scientist Tom Flanagan, an American who holds controversial views about First Nations people — arguing they don’t deserve special status and opposing their land claims. Flanagan also embraced the neoliberalism of Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, who was against government social programs. The Calgary School were the types who scorned Red Tories.
Flanagan feels a conservative party does not have to move to the centre to win. “I think what you need is a leader who will be adroit enough to avoid being typecast and therefore demonized as someone who is scary,” he told me. “You don’t need to go full throttle in embracing Red Toryism and marching in every gay pride parade that you can find. You just have to avoid being demonized.”
After university, Harper went to work for the Reform Party, even winning a seat in Parliament in 1993. But he soured on Preston Manning and didn’t enjoy being an opposition backbencher. He quit four years later to run the anti-tax National Citizens Coalition.
In 2002, he returned to politics, taking over as leader of the Canadian Alliance, and soon struck a deal with Peter MacKay, then leader of the rump PC Party, to form the Conservative Party of Canada.
However, according to former Tory MP Lee Richardson, who came from the PC party, “the current party is really the old base of Reform. There is really very little of the old Progressive Conservative party left.” Indeed, moderates increasingly felt unwelcome in this new party.
Still, Harper and Flanagan — who became the party’s campaign manager — realized that a Western-focused right-wing populist party would never win power, and they had to keep social conservatives under lock and key. They also had no interest in forming a “big tent” party fashioned after the old PC Party either.
Tories eschew "big tent" approach for slicing and dicing electorate
Instead, they focused on portraying Harper as a fiscally responsible steward of government who would not revisit issues such as abortion or gay marriage and be friendly to Québec. But more importantly, they would win over urban voters by wooing socially conservative new immigrants and develop tax policies that would appeal to certain voting segments of the populace — such as seniors or young families — in what is known as slicing and dicing the electorate.
“Harper never cared about getting the majority of Canadians to like him,” May says. “He figured out that if you suppressed the vote for other parties and get your own group highly motivated to vote so you could take it riding by riding, you could get a majority without ever getting the majority of the voting populace to vote for you.”
Harper was also lucky — the Liberal Party was in crisis. In 2006, with Paul Martin weighed down by the sponsorship and other scandals, the Tories eked out a minority. Harper lucked out again when the Liberals elected two milquetoast leaders back-to-back and sectarian feuding between Liberals and NDP split the progressive vote.
“Harper adapted to new realities,” says Dimitri Soudas, one of his former directors of communications. “Who would have thought that a Conservative government led by Stephen Harper would have ran a deficit — it runs counter to Conservative principles... He was the Conservative prime minister who bailed out the auto sector.”
In 2011, Harper finally won his majority. But this high-water mark coincided with him losing his political touch. He doubled down on his war with environmentalists and First Nations groups over resource extraction, introduced harsher punishment for criminals, including mandatory minimum sentencing (which was shot down by the Supreme Court), and picked a fight with Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin. The party also turned its back on new immigrants. “The party was tone deaf on issues like inclusion, it was tone deaf on the whole issue of Syrian refugees, it was tone deaf on the desire on the part of Canadians to see some investment and some growth in greater public sector leadership,” says Hugh Segal, former Tory senator and once chief of staff to both Brian Mulroney and Ontario premier Bill Davis.
One by one, Harper’s strongest cabinet ministers left, which may have been by design: Having watched Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin tear apart the Liberal party over succession, Harper wanted no pretenders to his throne.
And then, in 2012, the Mike Duffy scandal broke. The efforts of Harper and his PMO to bury the controversy only made his government appear scheming. Moreover, the scandal dominated Ottawa right up until the 2015 election, demoralizing his caucus.
Canadians tired of Harper by 2015
At that point, Harper’s government looked out of steam. The Tories’ campaign that year was riven by internal discord. “It wasn’t just a campaign that was badly run,” says former immigration minister Chris Alexander, “there were three brain trusts, three principals behind the campaign with a different vision of what it should be and Harper never chose what the focus should be.”
Tellingly, the campaign was marred by accusations of bigotry after the party called for setting up a “barbaric cultural practices” tip line and banning niqabs at citizenship ceremonies. Harper also attended rallies with the Ford brothers, Doug and Rob, despite former Toronto mayor Rob Ford being an international punch line due to his crack cocaine use, partying with drug dealers and escorts, and making racially and sexually insensitive remarks.
Not surprisingly, new immigrant voters flocked back to the Liberals. “I think it's absolutely fair to say Harper was much more focused on so-called 'new Canadian' communities in the 2011 campaign than he was in 2015,” agrees former Harper director of communications Andrew MacDougall.
Above all else, Canadians were just tired of Harper. “I tend to go with voter fatigue with Harper and a great campaign by Trudeau that turned the tide in 2015,” says political scientist Duane Bratt.
“He didn’t want to lose, he didn’t expect to lose, he didn’t intend on losing,” says U of T historian Anastakis. “He wasn’t planning his retirement or to do the walk in the snow or anything like that. It was taken from him in a way that he wasn’t happy about.”
Harper creates a political culture that is cruel and unforgiving
Another aspect of Harper’s legacy was creating an internal party culture that could be cruel and unforgiving with people who’d fallen out of favour. “It was very much his party and he ran it with an iron fist and ‘my way or the highway,’” recalls former Tory MP Richardson. “He was ruthless.”
Indeed, former Tory MP Bill Casey — who was thrown out of caucus in 2007 after a dispute with Harper — describes Harper as a bully, liberally using four-lettered words to underline his points, and not conferring with caucus.
Soon after the 2006 election, Casey recalls Harper coming into caucus and bluntly informing the MPs that “'Lookit, we have decided to make $1-billion in cuts and it’s going to affect most of your ridings and anybody who complains about it will suffer the consequences to your career as a Conservative politician.’ And then he sat down. He didn’t even tell us what they were.”
Nearly all of the Tories I spoke to echoed Casey’s assessment. “On the broader issue of dealing with people, yes I think there is a certain gracelessness on several occasions,” admits Alexander.
Examples of Harper’s harshness toward party members abound. Probably the most notorious is Helena Guergis, who became secretary of state for foreign affairs and sport, and later minister for the status of women. Guergis was so friendly with Harper and his wife Laureen that she dined and went to the movies with them. Guergis was even given the visible “special chair” behind Harper in the house.
Profile photo of Helena Guergis from Facebook
But in 2009, Guergis’ husband was arrested for impaired driving, speeding and possession of cocaine. Allegations soon emerged that Guergis and her husband were socializing with a businessman of ill repute. A private detective, Derrick Snowdy, began shopping around a story of lurid allegations of political corruption about Guergis, suggesting she and her husband were being used by the businessman.
Harper quickly removed Guergis from cabinet and threw her out of caucus. He also called in the RCMP to investigate.
In the end, the cocaine possession and drunk driving charges against her husband were dropped. After a thorough investigation, the RCMP found no evidence supporting any of the corruption allegations against Guergis or her husband. In 2010, Snowdy admitted to a parliamentary committee “I have nothing — I have no evidence, or no information, with respect to conduct of Ms. Guergis in my possession or knowledge.”
By then it didn’t matter — her political career was over.
Mike Duffy thrown to the wolves to protect Harper
A similar pattern occurred when allegations of expense account abuses were levelled at Tory senators Duffy, Wallin and Patrick Brazeau. In the case of Duffy, he was pressured and threatened by Harper’s staff to admit he’d abused his expenses, despite Duffy protesting his innocence and the lack of any damaging evidence against him. Harper was simply trying to staunch the flood of bad press. Duffy was then charged with 31 counts of fraud, breach of trust and bribery charges — all of which the court found were baseless, acquitting him. The judge noted the PMO’s damage control plan “was not for the benefit of Senator Duffy but rather, it was for the benefit of the government and the PMO.”
Dean Del Mastro, former Tory MP and Harper's parliamentary secretary. Image from CBC video on YouTube dated June 25, 2015
Another loyal foot soldier who feels betrayed is Dean Del Mastro, the Tory MP from Peterborough, Ont., and Harper’s former parliamentary secretary. In 2014, he was charged with overspending during the 2008 election, accused of writing a personal cheque of $21,000 to cover an expense — which was over the limit — and then submitting an invoice for a much smaller amount. To this day, Del Mastro protests his innocence.
Del Mastro says he was offered a deal early on — to pay a $2,000 fine and plead guilty to a lesser charge. Del Mastro says when the PMO was told of the offer, he was informed if he accepted it, there would be no guarantee he would be allowed back into caucus. Del Mastro says Harper and the PMO wanted him to fight the charges as a way to distract the media from the on-going Duffy affair. “Any headline that was printed took the focus off the prime minister and put it on to me,” Del Mastro explains. If he had been allowed to stay in caucus, he says, he would have taken the deal.
Instead, he fought the charges — to disastrous effect. Del Mastro lost his seat, was sent to jail for 30 days and four months of house arrest, and was hit with a nearly $750,000 legal bill.
“Before I was put in shackles it was not just the media that was after me, it was Stephen’s own people that were actively jamming things in my back as Stephen drove the bus over me repeatedly,” Del Mastro says. “It was pretty lonely... For my family, it was devastating.”
Harper continues to meddle in the party after he loses
After his 2015 loss, Harper lingered in Ottawa before moving to Calgary where he opened Harper & Associates Consulting. He and his wife began building a large house in Alberta’s foothills.
But he couldn’t stay away from politics. In 2016, he joined the board of the powerful and secretive Conservative Fund, which raises money for the party (including $30.8 million last year alone). And in 2018, he was elected chairman of the International Democrat Union (IDU), a global alliance of conservative and centre-right parties.
He was also carrying grudges. In a 2018 interview that recently came to light, Harper claimed that “a major reason I am not the prime minister of Canada” was the lack of a right-wing Fox News-like news outlet in Canada and because the rest of the media were too liberal and “would not cover my announcements, they would not cover any gaffe of my opponent, they scrubbed it out. They actually met every day to coordinate their coverage, they would not run any ad I had showing footage depicting my opponent in an unfavourable light… We literally were censored out of the coverage.”
Reporters and pundits across the political spectrum mocked Harper’s claim, as did some of his former staffers.
Fourteen candidates ran for the leadership in 2017 — none of whom were stars. It was also evident that moderates who might appeal to urban voters were out of favour. When leadership contender Michael Chong came out in support of a carbon tax during one debate in Edmonton, he was vociferously booed. Chong came in fifth. “(The party) needs to grow. It clearly needs to make inroads with millennials,” Chong told me. “That’s why we need to have strong policies on climate change going into the next election.”
Hugh Segal believes the party doesn’t seem interested in pandering to voters outside of its base. “While they didn’t do all that badly in terms of seats and total vote (last year),” he says, “they still could not penetrate in any meaningful way the 905 (area code), the 416, the 613, the 902, the 514 — all those areas didn’t produce anything for them and that’s where, for better or for worse, the vast majority of Canadian voters live. And that became part of the problem.”
Or as another Tory insider told me about the current caucus: “It’s a rump of old whiteys, small-town mayors and that’s not a recipe for success in the future.”
Indeed, the party is so conservative that former prime minister Campbell was quoted in Maclean’s last year saying she couldn’t survive in today’s party because: “It’s too intolerant; it’s too right-wing.”
Tories seem to have written off Québec, despite it turning to right
Moreover, the party seems to have written off Québec altogether, despite the fact Québeckers are turning to the right. “In Québec at the moment there is a strong conservative movement which is not close to the Conservative Party,” says Université de Montréal political scientist Christian Nadeau. “I think the main reason (Quebeckers) don’t vote for the Conservative Party is that (the party is) too stupid to investigate what is going on here. They don’t care.”
Instead, the party chose Scheer, a social conservative and someone so unremarkable Harper hadn’t put him in any of his cabinets. As leader, Scheer regularly consulted with Harper and Kenney before making important decisions. He then ran on a platform that was a carbon copy of Harper’s from four years earlier.
“I think (the party) is out of step perhaps with the political times,” agrees Jim Armour, Harper’s former director of communications in the early 2000s and an Ottawa lobbyist. “In many ways what the Conservatives are going through now is what the Liberals went through when Paul Martin lost. They tended to fight the same campaign… So the Liberals continually ran the same campaign under Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. And the Conservatives essentially ran the same campaign with Andrew Scheer.”
Harper, meanwhile, is showing no signs of mellowing: On more than one occasion he’s showered praise on the authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — under whom anti-Semitism and anti-Roma bigotry has flourished (“The IDU and I are looking forward to working with you,” was one of Harper’s messages to Orban). He’s attacked Chancellor Angela Merkel for letting a million refugees into Germany, praised his “great friend” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently on trial for corruption, and defended President Donald Trump against attacks leveled at him by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Erin O'Toole, Tory MP and leadership contender, has tacked to the right to woo the base. CBC interview, February 11 2020
Meanwhile, the current crop of contenders for the Tory leadership is singing from Harper’s hymnbook. The scuttlebutt is Harper supports O’Toole, who launched his campaign by attacking MacKay as “Liberal-lite” and promising to take on “cancel culture and the radical left.” O’Toole even dropped his promise to cut subsidies to the oil industry. MacKay, meanwhile, felt pressured to apologize for the “stinking albatross” remark about Scheer and has flip-flopped on LGBQT rights — all to pander to the party’s base.
Many Tories I spoke with say to win the leadership you must woo the base before pivoting toward being more moderate once you win. Michael Chong seems to hold out this hope. When I pointed out to him the party’s position on climate change and carbon taxes has remained unchanged since Harper’s time, he conceded: “I agree the party had not been there on climate change. That’s one of the big reasons I believe we lost the last election… I agree we are not there on the environment yet, but that’s no reason to believe we will never get there.”
Others I spoke with suggest the Harper playbook merely needs to be fine-tuned by a more skillful leader. “I don’t think we need to be centrist to win,” one consultant working for O’Toole told me. “We just need to be competent and want to win. Andrew Scheer, quite frankly, is a loser and didn’t have the fire in his belly, didn’t have the winning instinct and didn’t do what he had to do to win.”
Others are skeptical. “We have stayed too narrow,” says former Harper cabinet minister Chris Alexander. “We have remained a kind of party in the midst of a hangover after a fairly crushing defeat in 2015. And while there have been a few half-serious attempts to push things to open the door and in a new direction, they haven’t yet borne fruit. So I don’t think it’s a party that fully reflects — in its membership, its idea or its debate — the national conversation that Canadians want to have. And that’s what you need to be to win.”


nationalobserver--2020-06-25--Green Party leadership hopeful says his opponent was 'angry that a white person came up with an idea

Green Party leadership hopeful says his opponent was 'angry that a white person came up with an idea'

The Green Party of Canada says it stands behind its leadership race vetting process after one contender responded to accusations he was promoting a racist policy by arguing his opponent was just angry he had come up with the idea as a white person .
Meryam Haddad told National Observer that if the Green Party truly respects its members , it must discipline Dylan Perceval-Maxwell for a policy he proposed during Tuesday ’ s leadership debate that she had called out as racist and offensive , as well as for his reaction afterward that she believes made things worse .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Canada must take action against what he said , to be honest .
I do not understand how he passed the vetting , ” Haddad said in an interview .
`` It 's the party 's job to make sure that such comments are not made , and if they want to respect members who are people of colour , and Black people , Indigenous people , they have to react to such comments.
” During the debate , hosted by the TVO network , candidates were asked to weigh in on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When it was Perceval-Maxwell ’ s turn , he proposed that police should “ give $ 20 to every person of colour they stop ” as a way of discouraging racial profiling .
• How Stephen Harper is destroying the Conservative party A few minutes later , when given the opportunity to offer some last words , Haddad , a refugee lawyer , called Perceval-Maxwell 's proposal “ super racist ” and said that “ as a person of colour , I find it very , very offensive.
” Asked Wednesday to respond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said he was “ truly sorry that she feels this way ” and that he would be open to directing the $ 20 to “ some other good cause ” or to ensuring it comes out of the officer ’ s salary .
But he added he didn ’ t think Haddad “ even listened to the important part of my proposal , ” which he felt was about giving police an “ incentive not to pull over people of colour.
” “ She was too angry that a white person came up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she thought was belittling the situation , ” he said .
“ The racial discrimination experienced by people of colour by the police is a very serious issue and deserves action , not just talk.
” Haddad said that comment made the situation “ even worse.
” She called Perceval-Maxwell ’ s $ 20 concept “ wacky , ” in addition to being offensive .
“ Now today , he added that I 'm in some way jealous that a white person found the solution to racial profiling and systemic racism ?
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it stands behind its leadership race vetting process after @ dylanmaxwell7 responded to accusations he was promoting a racist policy by arguing @ MeryamHd2020 was `` too angry that a white person came up with an idea . ''
“ It 's not positive at all that we have a candidate making such remarks on TVO , or to any media , or in general .
They ( the Green Party ) have to react to it . ''
Clockwise from top left : TVO host Steve Paikin , and Green Party leadership @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Andrew West , Dylan Perceval-Maxwell and Dimitri Lascaris on June 23 , 2020 .
TVO screenshot Party says it ca n't respond due to 'insufficient detail ' Green Party press secretary Rosie Emery said the party expects contestants to address issues that arise in debate during leadership contests , as Haddad had done already .
“ This is the first time we 've heard of Mr. Perceval-Maxwell 's proposal , and there is insufficient detail to respond to it in earnest , ” said Emery .
“ At this point , we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the preconditions necessary for initiating any disciplinary action against Mr. Perceval-Maxwell have not been met.
” Emery also said the party stands behind its vetting process .
“ There is nothing we found about the contestants that was not already a part of their public record , ” she said .
“ We are committed to participatory democracy .
We trust our members to make the best decision on our future leader.
” The Green Party has made its position clear on the issue of systemic racism in the RCMP , she added @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has called the RCMP `` a racist institution '' and anti-Indigenous , and the party says it has called multiple times for public inquiries into the Mounties .
“ The party is committed to being actively anti-discriminatory , and we are taking exceptional measures to ensure equity and celebrate the diversity of our leadership contestants , ” said Emery .
'All police must be disarmed and dismantled ' Perceval-Maxwell insisted his solution would succeed .
“ I challenge anyone to come up with an argument of why it would not work , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think about every idea without prejudging ... this idea would be quick to implement and would not cost much , as the money could go back to taxpayers.
” Haddad said it was better to conceive of defunding the police as part of a Green New Deal , which she sees as including not only climate action , but also racial equality , decolonization , workers rights and other elements of social justice .
The RCMP are “ at the opposite of what our communities need , ” she said .
`` The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and dismantled .
This is in the long run , of course .
I 'm not saying we can shut down all policing institutions tomorrow .
But it 's the long game , that we are committed to societal restructuring , ” said Haddad .
“ Affordable housing , education , universal pharmacare , mental health services — if we address these root issues , the crime rate and criminalization just goes significantly down .
It 's all about reimagining community safety in a way that ’ s not punitive and really focused @ @ @ @ @

The Green Party of Canada says it stands behind its leadership race vetting process after one contender responded to accusations he was promoting a racist policy by arguing his opponent was just angry he had come up with the idea as a white person. Meryam Haddad told National Observer that if the Green Party truly respects its members, it must discipline Dylan Perceval-Maxwell for a policy he proposed during Tuesday’s leadership debate that she had called out as racist and offensive, as well as for his reaction afterward that she believes made things worse. “I think the Green Party of Canada must take action against what he said, to be honest. I do not understand how he passed the vetting,” Haddad said in an interview. "It's the party's job to make sure that such comments are not made, and if they want to respect members who are people of colour, and Black people, Indigenous people, they have to react to such comments.” During the debate, hosted by the TVO network, candidates were asked to weigh in on the call to “defund the police.” When it was Perceval-Maxwell’s turn, he proposed that police should “give $20 to every person of colour they stop” as a way of discouraging racial profiling.
A few minutes later, when given the opportunity to offer some last words, Haddad, a refugee lawyer, called Perceval-Maxwell's proposal “super racist” and said that “as a person of colour, I find it very, very offensive.” Asked Wednesday to respond, Perceval-Maxwell, an environmental activist, said he was “truly sorry that she feels this way” and that he would be open to directing the $20 to “some other good cause” or to ensuring it comes out of the officer’s salary. Billion-dollar land deals in Ontario raise corruption suspicions But he added he didn’t think Haddad “even listened to the important part of my proposal,” which he felt was about giving police an “incentive not to pull over people of colour.”
“She was too angry that a white person came up with an idea, which I think she thought was belittling the situation,” he said. “The racial discrimination experienced by people of colour by the police is a very serious issue and deserves action, not just talk.” The @CanadianGreens says it stands behind its leadership race vetting process after @dylanmaxwell7 responded to accusations he was promoting a racist policy by arguing @MeryamHd2020 was "too angry that a white person came up with an idea." Haddad said that comment made the situation “even worse.” She called Perceval-Maxwell’s $20 concept “wacky,” in addition to being offensive. “Now today, he added that I'm in some way jealous that a white person found the solution to racial profiling and systemic racism?” she wondered. “It's not positive at all that we have a candidate making such remarks on TVO, or to any media, or in general. They (the Green Party) have to react to it." Clockwise from top left: TVO host Steve Paikin, and Green Party leadership candidates Meryam Haddad, Courtney Howard, Andrew West, Dylan Perceval-Maxwell and Dimitri Lascaris on June 23, 2020. TVO screenshot
Party says it can't respond due to 'insufficient detail' Green Party press secretary Rosie Emery said the party expects contestants to address issues that arise in debate during leadership contests, as Haddad had done already. “This is the first time we've heard of Mr. Perceval-Maxwell's proposal, and there is insufficient detail to respond to it in earnest,” said Emery.


nationalobserver--2020-06-25--Vancouver Island's Q̓ʷalayu House will keep families close when care is far from home

Vancouver Island father Nick Chowdhury is grateful and excited that families who must travel to Campbell River to get essential medical care for their children will soon be welcomed at a home away from home .
Q̓ʷalayu House , which will be adjacent to the North Island Hospital , breaks ground Thursday , and will shelter expectant mothers and members of their family from the northern region of Vancouver Island .
Chowdhury , co-chair of the Strathcona Community Health Network and a former representative of the First Nations Health Council , has long advocated for measures to improve access to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the region .
Most expectant mothers from North Island communities have to travel long distances , often weeks in advance , to have their babies in the hospital in Campbell River , said Chowdhury , who is also a member of the Da ’ naxda ’ xw First Nation .
It can be a strain to arrange transportation , and may be too expensive or inconvenient to bring other children or family members along , heightening what may be an anxious time for mothers , he added .
• How Stephen Harper is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leadership hopeful says his opponent was 'angry that a white person came up with an idea ' “ It ’ s a struggle and a challenge to have to travel , and it ’ s important to have family around to help to get through this time when ( mothers ) are away from home , ” said Chowdhury .
His wife , Alyna , experienced complications during her pregnancy with their third child , and had to make trips to Vancouver and Victoria from their Comox Valley home to get medical care @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away from home in Campbell River for North Island families with children who need to leave their communities for medical treatment .
Photo : Courtesy Children 's Health Foundation of Vancouver Island .
But in Victoria , she stayed in Jeneece Place and this home away from home meant Nick and their children , Alicyn and Trent , could remain to visit and support Alyna .
This became even more critical when baby Nate arrived nine weeks early , weighing a little more than three pounds , said Chowdhury .
“ It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to travel , and it ’ s important to have family around , '' father Nick Chowdhury on the benefits of Q̓ʷalayu House in Campbell River that will shelter families leaving home to get medical care for their children .
Nate would remain in Victoria General Hospital for another couple months , but staying at Jeneece Place allowed the family to be together .
Beyond that , the family benefited from the warmth , caring , and support provided by the volunteers and other families at Jeneece Place , Chowdhury said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the hospital for a meal with his other two kids in tow .
“ But oftentimes , there ’ d be a volunteer from the community offering to help prepare meals , or they ’ d come in a drop off a batch of homemade muffins.
” In addition to the generosity and understanding from volunteers , other families at the residence provided emotional support and made them feel welcome when they arrived , said Chowdhury .
“ It felt natural to be helped by someone , and I found myself doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jeneece Place , ” he said .
The Children ’ s Health Foundation of Vancouver Island , which owns and operates Jeneece Place , intends to replicate its success in Campbell River , said CEO Veronica Carroll .
“ We ’ ve taken a look at what worked really well at Jeneece Place , and we ’ ve accessed how we can best support families in the North Island who are travelling very , very long distances to come to the Campbell River hospital , ” said Carroll .
The foundation engaged with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Island Health and the First Nations Health Authority , to help determine how best to serve the region ’ s needs , she added .
In addition to meeting maternity needs , Q̓ʷalayu House will also support families with children or youth that need to travel to the city for medical care , she said .
The residence , which will have 10 rooms and three large kitchens , is expected to be finished in July or August of next year , Carroll said .
There will be lots of ways for organizations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Q̓ʷalayu House to make it a success during or after construction , she said .
Jeneece Place has shown what a safe and welcoming refuge can provide families , which also allows them to focus their energy on their medical needs , Carroll added .
“ I think it ’ s going to change health outcomes for kids born in the North Island region for generations to come .
”

Vancouver Island father Nick Chowdhury is grateful and excited that families who must travel to Campbell River to get essential medical care for their children will soon be welcomed at a home away from home. Q̓ʷalayu House, which will be adjacent to the North Island Hospital, breaks ground Thursday, and will shelter expectant mothers and members of their family from the northern region of Vancouver Island. Chowdhury, co-chair of the Strathcona Community Health Network and a former representative of the First Nations Health Council, has long advocated for measures to improve access to health services for families and children in the region. Most expectant mothers from North Island communities have to travel long distances, often weeks in advance, to have their babies in the hospital in Campbell River, said Chowdhury, who is also a member of the Da’naxda’xw First Nation. It can be a strain to arrange transportation, and may be too expensive or inconvenient to bring other children or family members along, heightening what may be an anxious time for mothers, he added.
“It’s a struggle and a challenge to have to travel, and it’s important to have family around to help to get through this time when (mothers) are away from home,” said Chowdhury. And Chowdhury speaks from experience. Billion-dollar land deals in Ontario raise corruption suspicions His wife, Alyna, experienced complications during her pregnancy with their third child, and had to make trips to Vancouver and Victoria from their Comox Valley home to get medical care.
Q̓ʷalayu House will be a home away from home in Campbell River for North Island families with children who need to leave their communities for medical treatment. Photo: Courtesy Children's Health Foundation of Vancouver Island. But in Victoria, she stayed in Jeneece Place and this home away from home meant Nick and their children, Alicyn and Trent, could remain to visit and support Alyna. “It’s a struggle and a challenge to have to travel, and it’s important to have family around," father Nick Chowdhury on the benefits of Q̓ʷalayu House in Campbell River that will shelter families leaving home to get medical care for their children. This became even more critical when baby Nate arrived nine weeks early, weighing a little more than three pounds, said Chowdhury. Nate would remain in Victoria General Hospital for another couple months, but staying at Jeneece Place allowed the family to be together. Beyond that, the family benefited from the warmth, caring, and support provided by the volunteers and other families at Jeneece Place, Chowdhury said.
He regularly found himself rushing out late from the hospital for a meal with his other two kids in tow. “But oftentimes, there’d be a volunteer from the community offering to help prepare meals, or they’d come in a drop off a batch of homemade muffins.” In addition to the generosity and understanding from volunteers, other families at the residence provided emotional support and made them feel welcome when they arrived, said Chowdhury.


nationalobserver--2020-06-25--Ford government plans would strip endangered species protections in the Golden Horseshoe, critics sa

Ford government plans would strip endangered species protections in the Golden Horseshoe, critics say

Ontario ’ s Progressive Conservative government is proposing to strip endangered species protections in the province ’ s Golden Horseshoe , making it easier to build quarries in protected habitats .
The change is nestled among a list of proposed revisions to the province ’ s plan for how the fast-growing region along the western shores of Lake Ontario will change through 2051 .
It also fulfils an ask from the stone , sand and gravel industry , which has pushed to expand operations to endangered species habitat .
“ Why would you do this , other than to make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NDP climate critic Peter Tabuns in an interview with National Observer .
“ It ’ s going to be far more difficult to protect endangered species in southern Ontario.
” The proposed changes to “ A Place to Grow : Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe , ” published June 16 , would apply to a vast section of southern Ontario stretching from the Greater Toronto Area through Hamilton and Niagara .
They ’ re aimed at opening up more land for companies to mine for aggregate : crushed stone , gravel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of the concrete that drives construction in the population-heavy region .
• How Stephen Harper is destroying the Conservative party • Green Party leadership hopeful says his opponent was 'angry that a white person came up with an idea ' The proposal is open for public feedback until July 31 .
If passed , the revisions would remove an existing prohibition on new quarries in the habitats of endangered or threatened species .
Another tweak would remove some protections for waterways , deleting them from the growth plan ’ s definition of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A quarry is a significant disruption on any landscape , with everything on the surface dug up and replaced with a large , deep pit .
Removing the rock is a loud and dusty process , and quarries also bring a steady stream of trucks that carry the product away on newly built access roads .
Many can be remediated after extraction is done — a former quarry in Elora , Ont .
is now a popular swimming hole , for example .
But building them in areas where endangered and threatened species @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for present species , said Tim Gray , executive director of green non-profit Environmental Defence .
One such creature whose habitat could be threatened is the endangered Jefferson Salamander , Gray added .
Though its range extends across parts of the Northeastern United States , the greyish-brown , blue-flecked amphibian ’ s only Canadian habitat is the Niagara Escarpment .
The craggy limestone formation , which cuts through Southern Ontario , also happens to be a hot spot for aggregate extraction .
The Ontario Stone , Sand and Gravel Association , a non-profit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in favour of such changes for years .
Excluding endangered species habitat would make it nearly impossible to expand operations in the Golden Horseshoe , close to where the material is needed , the association said in 2018 .
“ The proposed amendments to the growth plan will ensure that mineral aggregate operations are treated the same as all other forms of development , ” the association ’ s executive director , Norm Cheesman , said in an email .
The Ontario government wants to make it easier to build quarries in endangered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exempt logging companies from endangered species rules , the effect could be devastating , critics say .
# onpoli The offices of Environment Minister Jeff Yurek and Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark both redirected questions to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing .
In an emailed statement , ministry spokesperson Praveen Senthinathan said new quarries would still have to pass muster under the Endangered Species Act — a piece of legislation the Progressive Conservative government gutted last year .
The change also wouldn ’ t affect the Greenbelt , a swath of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Horseshoe that Premier Doug Ford has repeatedly pledged not to develop .
“ The aggregates industry is critical to building the schools , homes , hospitals and bridges we rely on , ” Senthinathan said .
“ It is the foundation of industries that strengthen our economy and create high-quality , well-paying jobs .
Our proposed changes will make it faster to bring aggregates closer to where they are needed , reducing the greenhouse gas emissions required to transport them.
” Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the change would put forests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ climate crisis at risk , along with the vanishing species that live there .
It could also harm wetlands , which absorb excess water and lessen the effects of flooding that is expected to become more frequent as the climate crisis accelerates .
“ It ’ s clear that the premier considers environmental regulations that protect public health and communities to be red tape , ” he said .
“ I ’ m sorry , but it ’ s not red tape to protect communities from flooding.
” Senthinathan emphasized that the proposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t alter existing protections under the Endangered Species Act .
But the Ford government has already weakened the protections provided by that legislation , and is working to give the forestry industry a permanent exemption from it .
Last year , the government made a litany of changes to the act that rolled back measures conserving endangered species .
One measure allows developers to pay fees towards endangered species recovery rather than comply with environmental rules , a strategy opponents call `` pay-to-slay . ''
Days after the revisions were introduced , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experiencing its largest mass extinction since the age of the dinosaurs .
Given how much the Endangered Species Act has been weakened , “ it ’ s not very effective at assuaging people ’ s concerns ” about quarries going into threatened habitat , Gray said .
“ It ’ s clear that endangered species , ( the government sees ) them as a hindrance to the development desires of their friends.
” Last month , Ontario also moved to extend measures that exempt the forestry industry from the Endangered Species Act .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on legislation to make the exemption permanent to streamline requirements , a process that has been delayed by COVID-19 .
The province has said forestry companies would instead have to follow guidelines under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act .
Though that act does contain measures aimed at minimizing impact on endangered species , it isn ’ t equivalent — it lacks rules that would force industry to reassess its plans if it finds unexpected threatened or endangered species after they start logging , said Reykia Flick , a nature and food campaigner with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concern with making bureaucracy simpler , but in this case , it ’ s changing the substance of how the logging industry is actually impacting endangered species , ” she said .
The Crown Forest Sustainability Act also doesn ’ t include measures to support the recovery of endangered species , said Julee Boan , the boreal program manager at Ontario Nature .
Without that , she added , endangered and threatened populations will still continue to decline , albeit more slowly .
“ For most of these species , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
`` It ’ s like paying the interest and never touching the debt . ''
Ontario Premier Doug Ford ( left ) and Environment Minister Jeff Yurek at pictured in 2018 .
File photo by Alex Tétreault Consultations on the forestry changes ended last week .
If passed , they could harm woodland caribou , which are categorized as threatened in Ontario , Flick said .
There should be enough room for logging and endangered species , Boan said .
In a draft update to its overall forestry strategy released late last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s using about half of the wood it could “ sustainably harvest.
” But the province also wants to double its wood production by 2030 , the same document says , adding that the lumber “ could be available for attracting investments ” in Canada and abroad .
“ The whole approach the Ford government is taking is extraction at all costs , ” Flick said .
Though it ’ s technically possible to recover species after they decline , those efforts become more costly and disruptive as threatened populations dwindle , Boan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actions required now in terms of implementing recovery strategies , it will save us from those tougher decisions , '' she said .
Schreiner said the combined effects of the forestry changes and the revisions to the growth plan would have a `` devastating effect . ''
“ This government seems to have a war on wildlife , ” Schreiner said .
Spokespeople for Clark and Yurek didn ’ t answer questions about how the government prioritizes industry and endangered species .
Senthinathan said the government ’ s policies balance “ water , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ values.
” A woodland caribou calf pictured in Quebec in 2017 .
Photo by Alain caron 2020/Wikimedia Commons In Ontario , the government must post actions it takes on the province ’ s Environmental Registry , where residents can weigh in on proposed changes .
Last year , Lysyk rebuked the government for posting bulletins on the registry that did “ not adequately describe important aspects ” of proposals .
In 2018-19 , more than half the postings by certain ministries were lacking , Lysyk found .
The summary of the proposed growth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does not mention the changes for endangered species .
“ Given how much this will negatively impact endangered species habitat , those changes should have been put into the summary as a transparency measure , ” Schreiner said .
Senthinathan and spokespeople for Clark and Yurek did not answer questions about why that change wasn ’ t included .
Tabuns said the government should not be proposing such significant changes during COVID-19 , when the public ’ s attention is on the ongoing pandemic .
“ It 's really an extension of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tabuns said .
“ They know what they ’ re doing is damaging , and they know people will oppose it .
”

Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government is proposing to strip endangered species protections in the province’s Golden Horseshoe, making it easier to build quarries in protected habitats, critics say. The change is nestled among a list of proposed revisions to the province’s plan for how the fast-growing region along the western shores of Lake Ontario will change through 2051. It also fulfils an ask from the stone, sand and gravel industry, which has pushed to expand operations to endangered species habitat. “Why would you do this, other than to make someone very wealthy?” said Ontario NDP climate critic Peter Tabuns in an interview with National Observer. “It’s going to be far more difficult to protect endangered species in southern Ontario.” The proposed changes to “A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe,” published June 16, would apply to a vast section of southern Ontario stretching from the Greater Toronto Area through Hamilton and Niagara. They’re aimed at opening up more land for companies to mine for aggregate: crushed stone, gravel and sand that’s a vital part of the concrete that drives construction in the population-heavy region.
The proposal is open for public feedback until July 31. If passed, the revisions would remove an existing prohibition on new quarries in the habitats of endangered or threatened species. Another tweak would remove some protections for waterways, deleting them from the growth plan’s definition of what qualifies as an ecological function. A quarry is a significant disruption on any landscape, with everything on the surface dug up and replaced with a large, deep pit. Removing the rock is a loud and dusty process, and quarries also bring a steady stream of trucks that carry the product away on newly built access roads. Billion-dollar land deals in Ontario raise corruption suspicions Many can be remediated after extraction is done — a former quarry in Elora, Ont. is now a popular swimming hole, for example. But building them in areas where endangered and threatened species live would “destroy the habitat” for present species, said Tim Gray, executive director of green non-profit Environmental Defence.
One such creature whose habitat could be threatened is the endangered Jefferson Salamander, Gray added. Though its range extends across parts of the Northeastern United States, the greyish-brown, blue-flecked amphibian’s only Canadian habitat is the Niagara Escarpment. The craggy limestone formation, which cuts through Southern Ontario, also happens to be a hot spot for aggregate extraction. The Ontario government wants to make it easier to build quarries in endangered species habitat. Combined with plans to exempt logging companies from endangered species rules, the effect could be devastating, critics say. #onpoli The Ontario Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, a non-profit representing the aggregate industry, has argued in favour of such changes for years. Excluding endangered species habitat would make it nearly impossible to expand operations in the Golden Horseshoe, close to where the material is needed, the association said in 2018. “The proposed amendments to the growth plan will ensure that mineral aggregate operations are treated the same as all other forms of development,” the association’s executive director, Norm Cheesman, said in an email. The offices of Environment Minister Jeff Yurek and Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark both redirected questions to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. In an emailed statement, ministry spokesperson Praveen Senthinathan said new quarries would still have to pass muster under the Endangered Species Act — a piece of legislation the Progressive Conservative government gutted last year. The change also wouldn’t affect the Greenbelt, a swath of protected green space wrapping around the Golden Horseshoe that Premier Doug Ford has repeatedly pledged not to develop.
“The aggregates industry is critical to building the schools, homes, hospitals and bridges we rely on,” Senthinathan said. “It is the foundation of industries that strengthen our economy and create high-quality, well-paying jobs. Our proposed changes will make it faster to bring aggregates closer to where they are needed, reducing the greenhouse gas emissions required to transport them.” Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the change would put forests that absorb carbon and help fight the climate crisis at risk, along with the vanishing species that live there. It could also harm wetlands, which absorb excess water and lessen the effects of flooding that is expected to become more frequent as the climate crisis accelerates.