Andrew Scheer stood in front of a room full of Alberta Conservatives who were given blue “Andrew Scheer” signs to wave jubilantly as often as they pleased. With new critics of his leadership emerging almost daily—social moderates, social conservatives, Quebecers, Ontarians, assorted party veterans—the current Conservative leader delivered a well-scripted line about how uninterested he was “in what the talking heads, the naysayers and the people who make their money by stirring up division in our party have to say.”
Rather, as the runner-up party assesses itself, Scheer wants to hear from the “Conservatives like you,” he told the convention hall—people who knock on doors, are on the ground, and work hard.
Scheer, no doubt a busy man, did not stick around after his Friday night speech at Alberta’s United Conservative Party weekend convention to find out what the grassroots wanted. This Maclean’s writer did. It turns out that an awful lot of Alberta Conservatives want a new leader. Others would rather Scheer stay on, and they dread the ordeal of another democratic headhunting endeavour. At best, this group is mixed on Scheer’s future. And if he can’t solidly win the room among active Alberta Conservatives, in a province that voted 69 per cent for his party in October and whose oil industry he’s continually championed, one might ask: what room can Andrew Scheer win?
In Jason Kenney’s Alberta, a couple things have galvanized Tories: a hatred of Justin Trudeau, and winning. The same holds true in most of Canada—the lead conservative party has won all recent provincial contests from New Brunswick on west to the Continental Divide. They wanted to win; they expected to win. Scheer told them they would win. They did not win. They suspect they know a key reason why.
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See Also:
(1) Question Scheer, yes, but don’t forget Trudeau
(2) Minister says CBE blindsided her on layoffs; might reverse them
(3) Trans Mountain construction set to begin, with ‘pipe in the ground before Christmas’
(4) Scheer shuns Conservative Party’s first openly-gay MP
(5) Government milk policy costs consumers dearly
