OTTAWA-
Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole will deliver a salute at the party leadership event where his successor will be named, but he will not be on stage.
Party President Rob Batherson said at the September 10 leadership event in Ottawa that a tribute was planned for him and Candice Bergen, the longtime Manitoba MP who became acting leader of the left after O’Toole’s resignation.
O’Toole was asked to speak, but Batherson said O’Toole had a pre-commitment so he will deliver his greetings via video.
“Mr. O’Toole has agreed to participate with a role in the official program,” spokeswoman Clarissa Schurter wrote in a brief statement.
O’Toole’s ousting as party leader last winter kicked off the party’s third leadership contest since the party lost the 2015 election.
He is still the MP for the Ontario riding of Durham – a seat he has held since 2012 – but has kept a low profile since a majority of his caucus voted to impeach him last February after months of tension.
Many caucus members were unhappy with O’Toole’s handling of COVID-19 vaccination mandates and efforts to moderate some conservative policies such as climate change.
On his MP website, O’Toole says his time as party leader came during the worst of the COVID-19 lockdowns, but he still “successfully modernized party operations and party politics. and won the popular vote in the 2021 election.
The Conservatives won 34% of the vote in that election, compared to the Liberals’ 33%, but a high concentration of those votes in western ridings meant the Liberals won 160 seats and the Conservatives 119. is two less. that the Conservatives had won two years earlier under Andrew Scheer.
Since stepping down from the leader’s chair, he has rebooted a podcast he started in 2016, on which he invites guests to talk about political issues like China, climate and mental health.
Peter MacKay, a former cabinet minister who finished second to O’Toole in the 2020 leadership race, will be the special guest at this year’s announcement event.
The party reported earlier in the week that more than half of the 678,000 ballots it sent out to members had been returned. Veteran Tory MP Pierre Poilievre is widely seen as the frontrunner in the race, having sold nearly 312,000 memberships.
He faces fellow MPs Leslyn Lewis and Scott Aitchison, as well as former Quebec premier Jean Charest and Roman Baber, former Ontario lawmaker Premier Doug Ford, kicked out of caucus for opposing blockades.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on September 2, 2022.