Guelph could go Conservative once again. That’s the message federal leadership hopeful Erin O’Toole brought to the Royal City during a meet and greet with party faithful on Friday.
O’Toole and his fellow party members vying for the leadership have mostly had their in-person appearances to a halt during COVID-19, but now in the final stretch of the campaign have begun travelling from community to community for support.
On Friday, O’Toole spent just over an hour with a crowd of 15 people in the parking lot for Guelph Medical Imaging on Cardigan Street.
O’Toole has represented the riding of Durham since he was first elected in a 2012 by-election.
If he wins the leadership race and next federal election he will be the first Prime Minister to come from a riding in the Greater Toronto Area. First he needs to outlast fellow leadership candidates Peter MacKay, Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan.
This is O’Toole’s second run at the federal Conservative leadership. In 2017 he placed third behind Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier.
“I learned so much last time about myself, the party and the country,” said O’Toole.
He put together his same team from his previous leadership bid and hit the road in late 2019, before COVID-19 Brough in-person appearances to a halt.
Data released this week by Elections Canada show O’Toole and his team was able to outperform fellow leadership candidate Peter MacKay in the second quarter of the campaign.
O’Toole Brough in $1.24 million in leadership donations between April and June, while MacKay brought in $1.16 million during the same period.
“I can’t do wine and cheese receptions, I can’t do rubber chicken dinners — it was mainly through word of mouth, social media, Zoom and emails,” said O’Toole. “I think we have momentum heading into the final stretch, which is where you want to peak.”
MacKay was first elected to the House of Commons in 1997. O’Toole said he doesn’t carry the same political baggage as his opponent.
“Part of my benefit of not being a career politician is I don’t have speeches I made 20 years ago or votes that I have to say ‘oh, but now I mean this.’”
O’Toole describes his campaign as being ‘right-of-centre.’
His platform includes using the Notwithstanding Clause to impose mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes and trafficking of illegal handguns, among other offences. He says Canada needs to stand up against threats posed by China and wants to cut funding to the CBC.
O'Toole's campaign slogan is 'Let's take back Canada,' which is aimed squarely at Justin Trudeau.
“It’s about taking back Canada,” said O’Toole. “They hate it when I say that, but Trudeau has taken us in a way that has made us more divided, less prosperous and less respected around the world.”
One part of O’Toole’s platform that he said will help him to win the next election is his environmental platform.
A lack of an environmental platform hurt the party in 2019, said O’Toole.
“We have to show swing voters that the Conservatives oppose the carbon tax, but there are measures we are going to do to reduce emissions without blowing up the economy,” said O’Toole.
He also plans to repeal recent Liberal ban on ‘assault-style’ weapons that was put in place after the fatal shootings in Nova Scotia. He wants to bring together sport shooters, hunters and members of the public to bring forward something that makes sense.
“People need to know we have a very different system than in the United States,” said O’Toole.
It was the Trudeau’s government’s lax approach on border security that allowed the guns used in the shootings, said O’Toole. He said it’s important to educate the ‘soccer mom’ in his riding who may not have exposure to legal gun owners.
“When she hears Bill Blair, a former police chief, say military assault weapons, she thinks that M-16s are for sale in Canada, when that is a lie,” said O’Toole. “They use words to actually deceive. Why do you think people are cynical about politicians? They are liars. Bill Blair is a liar.”
He added: “(Blair) knows I respect his time in uniform, but when you use words lie that they are charged political words. I am happy to have the debate on how to close the problem at the border, don’t keep demonizing law-abiding people.”
Asked about the Guelph riding and other ridings considered not winnable by some Conservative supporters, O’Toole said he doesn’t subscribe to that thinking. Bill Winegard was the last Progressive Conservative member for the riding, then known as Guelph—Wellington, when he left office in 1993.
The recent rise of popularity of the Green Party in Guelph could offer an opportunity to Conservatives in the next election, said O’Toole.
In the last election the Liberals lost almost 4,000 votes versus the previous election, while the Greens surged over 11,000 votes in the same period.
“We have won Guelph in the past and with this interesting mix of a vote split here, if we deliver a good candidate and a good message, I think we can win here,” said O’Toole. “We are going to win Guelph. That’s my message.”
