Stephen Harper’s tenure as Canada’s sixth-longest serving prime minister came to an abrupt end Monday night as his party was reduced to opposition status and he prepared to step down as its chief.
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But the most disturbing aspect of Monday night’s results came from a comment by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.
Sources say Harper’s strategists urged using British Prime Minister David Cameron’s successful “lame-duck” move to salvage a Conservative government, but realized it was too late for such a Hail Mary pass.
Analysts see the election as in large measure a referendum on Canadian foreign policy, with outgoing PM Stephen Harper representing a more aggressive Canadian policy, eagerly participating in US-led adventures the world over, while Trudeau favors a return to a more humanitarian focus. “It becomes a question about the leader’s style and what the leader can do with the party, the candidates she can bring to bear”.
Walsh said Harper asked that “a process to both select an interim leader and initiate the leadership selection process in our party begin immediately”.
Walsh is also tasking the party’s executive director, Dustin van Vugt, to initiate a “transparent process to review the 2015 campaign”. “We gave everything we have to give and we have no regrets whatsoever”, he said.
Eventually, their hostility spilled over into bad blood between Byrne and Novak, who is the person Harper trusts the most.
“You don’t run a campaign by surrounding yourself by sycophants, interns and family members”, grumbled another.
There are different ideas of why the campaign did not succeed. Conservative voters “were sick of the PM and had a hard time voting for him”.
Liepert, who was interviewed on CBC’s “As It Happens” on Wednesday, said the Tories had strayed off message, and put the blame squarely on the party’s campaign manager, Jenni Byrne.
“They underestimated people’s feelings about the PM, that there was a stronger desire for change than they realized”. Cabinet ministers from across the country lost their seats including heavyweights such as Immigration Minister Chris Alexander and Finance Minister Joe Oliver. Political commentator and Chronicle Herald columnist Dan Leger said the Tories had it coming since day one.
“It was the most classless conversation I’ve ever had in my life”. The Liberals ate into a few of that territory with voters who liked the promise of infrastructure spending.
The names of potential leadership contenders began swirling around Conservative circles within hours of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal win, including that of another man who grew up at 24 Sussex Drive – Mark Mulroney.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair speaks to supporters in Montreal.
“We do best when … we talk about the issues in a positive way, that sunny kind of conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher”, Kmiec said. To the extent we fell short of the mark, I’m accountable, the buck stops with me, I take responsibility for that.
On the other side, there are those who believe the party’s losses can be attributed to poor preparation and not taking advantage of its wealth of previous experience.
That would include the training of local volunteers, the recruitment of candidates, convincing incumbents to run again, vetting candidates, and targeting key ridings. The conclusion is that the party didn’t take enough advantage of natural advantages of being in power, of having a huge war chest and its wealth of experience from previous campaigns.
“This doesn’t make me happy at all. They called this long campaign but they didn’t have much to say, except ‘Things have been pretty good in the past, re-elect us'”.
It looks more like its Reform-Canadian Alliance antecedent than at any time since it became the Conservative party.
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After Harper left the stage, he gathered his entire campaign team and thanked them, repeating what he’d said on national television minutes ago.
