Western Standard Editorial Board.Edmonton native Rick Peterson wants the top Tory job when Conservative Party of Canada members select a new leader in Toronto on June 27, 2020. The last time the Tory faithful met in Toronto to select a leader, Peter came in an underwhelming 12th place out of a field of 14 candidates. It hardly puts him in pole position as the heir apparent, but in his meeting with the Western Standard Editorial Board, he made the case that he is the outsider candidate that came come up the centre-right..Central to his plan is to be recognized by CPC members as the outsider candidate, champion of the true-blue right, and heir – curiously enough – to Maxime Bernier’s 2017 insurgency campaign. Asked who he would have voted for as his second choice in 2017, Peterson told the WS, “Maxime Bernier. Absolutely.”.It’s a rather impolitic statement for someone seeking the leadership of a party that is still nominally led by Andrew Scheer, who narrowly bested the now rogue Bernier. But it’s probably the truth, and potentially good politics. While Bernier may be persona non grata among Tory partisans, he came within a hair of winning in 2017, and only a minority of those supporters defected to the upstart People’s Party. Peterson thinks he is the man to win this cohort over in the face of what he considers a field of liberal-leaning, establishment candidates.. Conservative Leadership Debate 20172017 Conservative Leadership Debate (source: CBC) .To do this, Peterson is cribbing some of Bernier’s signature policies; most notably, scrapping Canada’s Soviet-style supply management regime. Supply management may now be a litmus test policy of conservatives and libertarians willing to stand on principle, versus the milquetoast variety; but if Peterson’s campaign manages to gain traction, it will attract more than just supporters. As it demonstrated in 2017, the supply management lobby has established itself as a well organized and powerful force in stopping any candidate that breaks with the orthodoxy..Peterson is less strident in following the Mad Max playbook on other issues though, like Equalization and allowing MPs to raise controversial issues like abortion..To date, Peterson is the only candidate (that we are as yet aware) to raise Equalization, but he won’t be putting forward any concrete proposals for its reform or abolition. Peterson says that the party “didn’t get it done under Harper”, echoing the sentiment of many Westerners that expected a Western prime minister to address such a key Western issue. He says that it would be a top issue under his leadership, but shies away from any proposal about what to do with it. It’s not much, but to date it’s more than the other candidates have put forward..Prospective leadership candidate Richard Décarie earned the scorn of his party several weeks ago when he stated that being gay was a choice, and that “LGBTQ is a Liberal term.” While few had ever heard of the man until his appearance on national television, a debate has raged ever since as to if he should be barred from running. Peterson says that if he was on the committee charged with green lighting leadership candidates, that he would give Décarie the red.. EDITORIAL: Canada’s leaders fail as blockades spread lawlessness .However intolerant Décarie’s remarks may have been, advocating for disqualifying him from letting the members decide for themselves at the ballot box is a bit top-down and old school for an outsider candidate..Peterson does go against the grain in supporting the original Reform Act proposed by former fellow leadership candidate, Michael Chong. Chong’s bill would have handed significantly more power back to MPs. Not surprisingly, the leaders of all parties at the time demanded that it be significantly watered down so as to preserve their own powers over caucus..But support for greater independence of MPs clashes with his stand on what they might do with it. Like Bernier, Peterson is pro-choice and supports gay rights, but parts ways on what dissenting MPs can do. Asked about what he would do about MPs under his leadership bringing forward private members bills dealing with abortion, Peterson told the WS: “It would tell me that they are looking forward to a long career on the backbench of the opposition.” A not-so-subtle sign that MPs that break the party line on social issues will face a prolonged stay in the doghouse, but not much of a departure from caucus policy under Scheer and Harper, both of whom were personally pro-life..Asked if he would march in gay pride parades, Peterson told the WS that he already has, but made less of an issue out of it than his competitors have. For him, the debate around LGTBQ issues is a thing of the past. His own campaign manager, Lorne Mayencourt is a leader in Vancouver’s gay community. “I don’t make a big deal about it, because it’s not a big deal.”.Opening the door to discussing Equalization should earn Peterson some credibility in the West, but he isn’t willing to go down the foreboding road of constitutional reform. Peterson wants provinces to have the right to elect their own Senators, but every prime minister since Sir John A. MacDonald has promised to appoint better Senators. In the post-Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords era, Peterson isn’t alone in having constitutional PTSD..All of the candidates are likely to come out guns blazing as pro-energy and pro-pipeline, but Peterson hopes that his credibility on the file will stand out from the rest. After losing the 2017 leadership race, Peterson started the ‘Suits and Boots’ campaign, touring the country in support of the energy industry and pipeline construction..Like Scheer, Peterson opposes a carbon tax on consumers, but supports one for heavy industry along the lines of the Alberta UCP’s model. Like Scheer and Kenney, he doesn’t call this a “carbon tax”, but a “price on carbon emissions”. And like Scheer and Kenney, calls the Liberal”price on carbon emissions,” a “carbon tax”. It’s hardly strident opposition to all carbon taxes, but it’s become par for the course within Canada’s mainstream conservative parties..While 2017 saw a large, wide-open field of candidates for the top job, 2020 is likely to see only a handful. The party brass have imposed a massive $300,000 entry fee, and a requirement for 3,000 signatures from party members in 30 different constituencies, across seven different provinces. It’s a high financial and organizational bar that only Peter Mackay has as yet managed to meet. Peterson says that the party’s executive did so intentionally to limit the race to insider, establishment candidates.. Trudeau on WE scandal: Case closed .Last time around, Peterson scored 12th of 14, and just 0.65 per cent of the vote on the first ballot. His chances are a long shot, but without a major candidate from the West or a standard bearer of the right, there is an opening that did not exist for him last time..Right now, the race is Peter Mackay’s to lose. Unless another big candidate makes a surprise entry, or Peterson and the other candidates can catch fire, there isn’t much to watch..Western StandardEditorial Board
