Former Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole blamed a resurgence of COVID-19 and the Chinese government for his loss in the 2021 election, arguing he was "winning the entire campaign until the final days."."We were winning the seat count until about two days out from the election. The winning of the popular vote, but not the seat count, was all due to the Omicron rise in Canada and Western Canada in particular. In Ontario, voters got spooked and we lost the vote. The PPC went up. I've relived that many, many, many times," he said..The 2021 election resulted in another Liberal minority government, with the party winning 160 seats compared to its previous 155. The Conservative party won 199 seats — the same as before the election. Similar to the 2019 election, the Conservatives won the popular vote in 2021, gaining 5,747,410 votes to the Liberals' 5,556,629..In an interview with the National Post's John Ivison, O'Toole said the Omicron variant's resurgence in the final week of the election made the Liberals stance on vaccination more enticing to Canadians. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on vaccine passports that would bar Canadians from public spaces and travel, O'Toole advocated for reasonable accommodation for the unvaccinated.."Reasonable accommodation is actually the legal standard in Canada. I didn't want to see people losing a job if they could be accommodated with rapid tests or other things," O'Toole said of his election strategy.."When Mr. Trudeau launched a campaign without a bill or without even a legal opinion on the Charter validity of his mandate. He basically pulled out the grenade and called an election.".O'Toole said he wanted to avoid a scenario where 80% of vaccinated Canadians would turn against the remaining unvaccinated, "but that's what happened a little bit.".O'Toole said the Freedom Convoy that protested in Ottawa against vaccine mandates "was started by Justin Trudeau."."When you start demonizing a group of Canadians, and there's millions of those people, they find each other through social media, and then there's a kinship in being outcasts in the eyes of the Liberal government. And that's not how you bring a country together.".O'Toole said his inability to criticize his "good friend" Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who took a hands-off approach to public health restrictions throughout the pandemic, also cost him the election.."All premiers tried to balance off civil liberties with public health measures. I didn't get to really decompress and unpack that. I was trying to encourage people to get vaccinated as leaders in their community without coercing or forcing them to.".O'Toole said he has faith in Pierre Poilievre as leader of the Conservative Party, and has been offering him advice when needed.."I think we need to take the temperature down on some of these divisions, and this will be the big challenge on both the left and right in the coming years.".O'Toole also said his harder line on China, and the Chinese Communist Party's subsequent election interference, likely cost him the election. O'Toole repeatedly accused Trudeau of being "weak on China," and committed to ramping up Canada's hostility towards the country if elected prime minister..O'Toole said the Conservatives lost "anywhere between seven and 12 seats" because of China, mainly in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia and Markham and Richmond Hill region of Ontario.."It was essentially voter suppression," O'Toole said. "There was not only misinformation on WeChat and a lot of the social media channels that are primarily used by Chinese Canadians, but the misinformation also set a tone that Beijing did not want to see a Conservative government.".After the 2021 election, the Conservative Party was briefed by Canada’s two main intelligence agencies about potential foreign interventions against their candidates during the election. A senior party source and independent disinformation researchers suspected the Chinese government targeted the party because of its stance on the Communist regime..O'Toole said several incumbent Conservative candidates with Chinese ancestry, such as Alice Wong and Bob Saroya, said they saw thousands of traditional Conservative voters in the Chinese Canadian community decide not to vote.."And I've heard from a few people they didn't want to appear on the voters list as having voted in case a Conservative was elected. Is that because they have family backing in in mainland China or even Hong Kong?," O'Toole asked..O'Toole said to win an election in certain areas of Canada, candidates are forced to "bend their foreign policy away from Canada's best interests" to a more neutral stance.."That's very dangerous ground," O'Toole said.
