(LifeSiteNews) — A long-term Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) Senator said party leader Erin O’Toole’s shift to the left resulted in poor election results, meaning it’s now “necessary” to review him as the leader.
“Voting in favour of a review vote is not pleasant, but it is necessary. The status quo under the present circumstances is a mistake and a gift to the Liberals that this party and this country cannot afford,” wrote Nova Scotia Senator Michael MacDonald in an email sent to all CPC MPs Monday, as reported by the Globe and Mail.
On Tuesday, the CPC caucus meets for the first time since the election held on September 20. On the agenda for the meeting is a vote on whether or not the party should retain the right under provisions of the Reform Act of 2014 to remove and replace its party leader.
In his email to CPC caucus members, MacDonald wrote that a vote “against the right to hold a leadership review” of O’Toole is “folly.”
He also said that O’Toole’s failed strategy of moving the party to the left is to blame for the party doing worse in the 2021 federal election.
“The only conclusion that can be drawn from these numbers is that the leader’s conscious decision to move the Conservative Party to the left has been a strategic failure as we not only failed to make a breakthrough in the GTA as promised, we actually lost seats,” wrote MacDonald.
The Reform Act stipulates that new party caucuses can vote at their first meeting on whether or not to retain the power to remove their leader, as well as caucus members. At least 20 percent of party members must first agree to trigger a review. A majority MP vote is then required.
The 2021 federal election saw Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau re-elected with a minority government. The Conservative Party under O’Toole won only 119 seats, two less than in 2019.
Of the CPC MPs elected, 38 were pro-life candidates.
MacDonald has been a CPC senator since 2009. His email calling for the party to review O’Toole as its leader are the strongest words yet spoken (in an open setting) by a party caucus member.
According to the Globe and Mail report, MacDonald said O’Toole worsened the problem of shifting the party to the left by “often answering questions with long talking points and evading the questions that left people wondering about him.”
The Globe and Mail said that they confirmed with MacDonald that his email was authentic, to which he replied that “the letter is straight-forward and needs little interpretation. It speaks for itself.”
Only MPs are allowed to vote on the leadership of the party members.
Before the caucus meeting, O’Toole claimed that he has the support of the CPC caucus, telling reporters that he has “spoken to most of the caucus, and yes I do (have their support).”
While on the campaign trail of the 2021 federal election, O’Toole reaffirmed his stance on abortion, saying he was “pro-choice,” which put off a lot of traditional socially conservative voters.
He also promised to enact a carbon tax price scheme of this own, while not calling it that. Many conservative voters felt betrayed.
A petition to remove O’Toole as leader of the CPC is rapidly gaining steam at roughly 5,000 signatures. The petition was started by Bert Chen, who holds a seat on the Conservative Party of Canada’s (CPC) national council in Ontario.
Recently, CPC MP Chris Warkentin criticized O’Toole’s shift of the party to the left and blamed it for causing the Liberal party to gain favor and win the election.
Warkentin told his local newspaper, the Town & Country News, that it was after O’Toole started to “waffle on some of the policies that we had brought forward and hadn’t been clear” that “Canadians became uncertain and unwilling to continue to look to our party as an alternative.”