It is entirely possible that Chinese interference in past Canadian elections skewed results. It is therefore also entirely possible that when former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole claims that foreign — read Chinese — electoral interference cost his party nine seats during the 2021 election, he is correct. For now, we cannot be certain of either. It is the purpose of the Foreign Interference Commission chaired by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, a judge of the Quebec Court of Appeal, to offer a definitive opinion.However, whether Chinese election interference also cost O'Toole the leadership of his party, as he has suggested recently, is highly doubtful. As with Jason Kenney's loss of leadership in Alberta, there were other factors. O’Toole makes his claim of damage from interference based on internal party polling that, while not predicting a Conservative majority, foresaw a better outcome than the 121 seats the party actually won. Internal polling is often comfortably predictive: Not that nine more seats would have made him prime minister, but if O’Toole says it should have been more like 130, I am inclined to take his word for it. Where it’s impossible to follow him is his claim that this defeat led to his ultimate ouster as Conservative leader. It was one thing, certainly. But, it was by no means the whole thing. Like Kenney, his larger problem was a retreat from actual conservatism.In seeking the Conservative leadership, O'Toole presented a more-or-less stock Conservative out of central casting, with a suite of policies that conservatives could approve. The trouble was that at the first sign that the media might not approve, he tossed them overboard, one by one.For example, after the Trudeau Liberals banned about 1,500 types of firearms — some in an abundance of ignorance as to what they were actually proscribing — O'Toole promised to support Canadian gun-owners by repealing the ban. That was a clear, strong conservative message you could vote for.Then in the 2021 election, he walked that back, promising only to review the ban. The intense anger of gun owners betrayed is better imagined than described. Carbon tax? O'Toole was strongly against it. Until he campaigned in favour of it. Deficits? Although they are anathema to conservatives, O'Toole embraced them too. And having advocated (with genuine conviction, I believe) for the rights of health professionals to refuse services they found morally objectionable — mostly abortion or assisted suicide — he failed to support that either.Moral of story: If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle? Certainly not Canada's conservatives, who instead sought a leadership review, got one and voted in Pierre Poilievre by a handsome margin in the expectation of clear policy, consistently applied.In all of this, there are echoes of the Jason Kenney story. In Alberta, Kenney ran a wildly successful campaign to first create and then lead the United Conservative Party. In church basements and community halls all over Alberta and often from the box of a blue Dodge Ram, he offered a genuinely conservative option with passion and conviction. Conservatives rallied and in 2019 he was swept to power amid promises to seek a referendum on equalization and put Ottawa back in the federal box where it belonged.The referendum happened. Albertans voted to have their government take on Alberta. Then, it all went quiet. Worse for Kenney, less than a year after the election that brought him to office, COVID-19 arrived and presented him with situations that, to put it kindly, a principled conservative committed to personal liberty might have handled with a lighter hand. It did not help when he and several other cabinet ministers were photographed sharing a meal at the infamous 'Sky Palace,' in apparent contradiction of the public health protocols they had themselves forced on the rest of us. People grumbled. The premier grumbled back. In private remarks to staff he complained his opponents were 'kooky people,' compared them to insects attracted to light and that the party was 'under siege' as 'lunatics,' tried to 'take over the asylum.' He called now-Premier Danielle Smith's ideas 'nuts.'It is painful to write this. My wife and I attended O'Toole's swearing in after his win in the Durham byelection. It was immediately evident that he was a decent man who meant to do well. He said all the right things and seemed to believe them. A friend of mine later confirmed through discreet enquiries to his old air force comrades, that O'Toole was remembered as a good officer. I was sold. Jason Kenney also is brilliant. His grasp of history and philosophy as revealed many times in events at Ottawa's toney Rideau Club reduces the average college lecturer to jealous tears. And, as mentioned above, he is a tireless and effective campaigner. But if you listen to advice that's too clever by half, which is where I think O'Toole jumped the track, or if you think your party is Hicksville, and become a conservative that only an eastern Canadian can love, it is not that the party left you. It is that you left the party.The recurring dilemma for all politicians is that to get elected, they must play to their supporters. But, if elected, they feel they must play to the middle or risk being one-term wonders. Only the incumbent prime minister is an exception. Having quite properly given up all hope of being re-elected next year he governs according to the passions of his heart, no matter how unpopular they are, or ill-conceived they were to begin with.The dilemma for conservatives is especially acute. Liberals have a press corps ready to run interference for them, conservatives don't. The supposedly smart advice to water down their wine is therefore always the easiest for 'smart' staffers to offer and for politicians who don't know any better, to accept.The dilemma will be no different for Poilievre, of course. Even now, the soft-centred pink part of the party is, having rolled out a glowing retrospective to Mike Harris, initiated a campaign to rehabilitate those in the party who reflexively recoil from conviction in policy or firmness in purpose. It is far too early to speculate about next year's election. (If it even happens next year.)However, Poilievre is defining Canadian conservatism rather than inheriting somebody else's idea of what it should be. He has always known what he thinks. He is also far less likely to seek the untempered notions of people half his age who on the strength of one reading of The New Prince, think themselves expert strategists. Above all, it is hard to imagine him sloughing off half his base as unworthy of him.O'Toole, Kenney and Poilievre all know each other, although I doubt there's much encouragement directed Poilievre's way, from either of them.They do at least unwittingly two models to study, on what a conservative leader should not do. And even a base example is useful, if it dissuades others from following it.
