OTTAWA, May 18, 2001 (LSN.ca) – Bob Dechert, a member of the Canadian Alliance national council and former Ontario Conservative, has revealed that the recent mutiny within the Canadian Alliance party has been orchestrated by Rick Anderson. Dechert told the Ottawa Citizen that he was approached by Anderson four weeks ago to join “a dirty little scheme” to oust leader Stockwell Day. The Anderson plot involved a continuing chain of defections and embarrassments for Mr. Day until Parliament recesses at the end of June.
Dechert told the Citizen: “He (Anderson) made it very clear that he had come to the conclusion, as had others, that they couldn’t win a leadership review vote against Stockwell Day, that it wouldn’t be worth waiting until April of next year, because even at that time he (Day) would be able to muster enough support to remain as leader . . . They realized the only way they would be able to remove him as leader would be to publicly embarrass him into resigning and the way they were going to do that was to roll out a plan of continuing crisis.”“They’re blowing (the party) up in a fit of insane jealousy that they’re not in a leadership position in the party anymore,” Mr. Dechert said. “Day did better at the game they designed and that’s terribly embarrassing.” He said, “I expect that we’ll see some kind of announcement virtually on a daily basis or every other day to continue the process.”
For more see the Ottawa Citizen at: https://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010518/5013083.html