Erin O’Toole is the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, having won the party’s leadership contest over fellow candidates Peter MacKay, Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan.
O’Toole’s third ballot victory was announced early Monday morning, several hours after Sunday evening as originally planned. There were several delays in a contest decided by mailed in ballots, thousands of ballots damaged by machines used to open ballot envelopes, leading to a prolonged ballot count by party officials.
“I wasn’t surprised Erin O’Toole won,” said Sonny Spina, past Conservative Party candidate and a Conservative Party of Canada Sault Ste. Marie Electoral District Association (EDA) director, speaking to SooToday Monday.
“I had a chance to speak with Erin O’Toole the first time he ran for leader and I knew back then he would be leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.”
O’Toole, however, placed third in that race, behind Maxime Bernier and winner Andrew Scheer.
“With the benefit of time, the rest of the party saw Erin O’Toole is the right leader to move the party forward, to unify the party,” Spina said, crediting MacKay, Lewis and Sloan for participating in the 2020 leadership contest.
“Erin O’Toole is a very strong friend of northern Ontario and he has seen the potential and the unique challenges we face for many years. He’s had a number of visits to Sault Ste. Marie. He sees how important Sault Ste. Marie and northern Ontario is to the rest of Canada.”
O’Toole visited the Sault for the official opening of Spina’s campaign headquarters during the 2019 federal election campaign.
O’Toole, 47, is a Montreal native, educated at Kingston’s Royal Military College, having served as a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) helicopter navigator before leaving the military to start a law career in 2003.
First elected to parliament as MP for Durham in 2012, he served as Minister of Veterans Affairs in 2015 within then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative cabinet.
“Erin has an incredible service record... he has a great understanding of everyday Canadians and what they need, and he also has an understanding of how important it is for us to be unified as a country,” Spina said.
“Right now our country is divided... and Erin O’Toole is the right man to lead Canada, to unify Canada and bring us forward, through what can only be described as the most difficult and hardest economic times we’ve faced since the Great Depression,” Spina said, pointing to the seperatist ‘Wexit’ movement in western Canada and the revival of the Bloc Quebecois.
As Conservative leader, O’Toole may be leading the party in an election campaign as soon as this fall.
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet has stated an election should be forced this fall against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government because of the WE Charity scandal facing the Liberals.
No doubt the size of Canada’s deficit and federal debt will be a topic of discussion before and during any election campaign.
A federal government pre-pandemic economic update in December 2019 stated the 2020-2021 deficit would be over $28 billion.
That figure, on its own, raised some eyebrows.
After spending on pandemic relief measures, that deficit is expected to be over $343 billion for 2020-2021, the federal debt $1.2 trillion.
“(During the leadership campaign) we were able to talk about ideas for a strong future for Canada, and one of the things that came up was the simple fact the Trudeau Liberals spent the cupboards bare when times were good (pre-COVID), and now that times are bad they’ve continued that at an accelerated rate,” Spina said.
“We know that level of spending only comes with two different outcomes and costs. The first is drastic, drastic cuts to services and the second is incredible increases in taxes and we don’t want to see either.”
Keeping government spending down while trying to support Canadians who have suffered the loss of a job during a time of national crisis is no easy task, but Spina said “we want to see a government that can rein in some of that spending, control some of that spending, and we can find the money by simply not giving insiders millions and millions of dollars.”
“Money is being given to Liberal friends and Liberal supporters...we see that happening in the WE scandal. A Conservative government is certainly going to end that corruption and make life affordable for everyday Canadians,” Spina said.
Spina said a full list of details of O’Toole’s policies will be released soon, stating “the one thing I am sure of is that it’s going to include northern Ontario.”
“After the 2019 election we had Agero close up their office here in the Sault and that all went to the U.S. One of the things Erin recognizes is the link between northern Ontario and what we do here and the rest of Canada. He recognizes the value of the pipe that’s being built at Tenaris and being sent to western Canada to be used in the oil fields out there. There’s value in connecting northern Ontario to the rest of Canada and Erin O’Toole see that.”
“It’s really going to be exciting to see what his plan is moving forward. I know it’s going to make individuals in our community who maybe traditionally have voted for other parties to take a strong look at the Conservative Party of Canada,” Spina said, many party members having stated it's time to broaden the party’s base.
