“I, Erin O’Toole, promise that, if elected Prime Minister of Canada, I will: Immediately repeal the Trudeau carbon tax; and, reject any future national carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme.” — A Canadian Taxpayers Federation pledgesigned by Erin O’Toole when soliciting support for his bid to lead the Conservative party.
Last seen falling off his horse on the road to Green Damascus, Erin O’Toole is thought by many to be the leader of a party known as Conservative.
The principle behind a carbon tax is to make people use less fossil fuel energy by making it more expensive to buy it.
This applies whether it’s gasoline to power our cars, or natural gas to heat our homes.
OTTAWA–There was no hint when Conservative caucus met Wednesday that Erin O’Toole was about to reverse party orthodoxy and propose a carbon levy.
Sources who spoke to the Star said Conservative MPs were blindsided by O’Toole’s announcement Thursday that his climate change plan included a consumer carbon price of $20 per tonne, rising to $50 per tonne in 2030.
It was a stunning reversal for the Conservative leader, who pledged to scrap the Liberal government’s carbon levy — which Conservatives have routinely labelled a “carbon tax” — throughout the party’s leadership contest last year.
But in speaking to Conservative MPs, and later at an Ottawa news conference, O’Toole steadfastly denied that his proposed price on carbon amounted to a “carbon tax.”
Last summer, @erinotoole told us he would repeal carbon taxes. Today, he’s breaking that promise. #canpoli #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/oXiZfnjjHp
— Taxpayer.com (@taxpayerDOTcom) April 15, 2021
Asked to rank their impression of federal leaders on a scale from zero to 10 — with zero being “not at all impressed” and 10 being “very impressed” — O’Toole scored the lowest of the three major party leaders at the high end of the scale.
Just 11 per cent of respondents said they were highly impressed by O’Toole (a rating of seven to 10).
By comparison, 16 per cent said the same for NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and 17 per cent for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
There’s bad news then there’s Erin O’Toole.
Erin O’Toole’s big problem with right-wing media could hurt his election chances
“Let’s face it, federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole is a dud and a dud is never going to defeat Justin Trudeau.”
Ouch!
That stinging criticism of the beleaguered Tory leader came not from a progressive columnist at the Toronto Star or a left-leaning commentator on a CBC political panel.
Rather, it’s from Lorne Gunter, a senior political columnist at the conservative-leaning Edmonton Sun, whose opinion pieces also appear in right-wing papers such as the Toronto Sun.
After years of criticizing the Liberal carbon tax, the Conservative party is proposing a climate plan that also puts a price on carbon for consumers, according to a copy of the party’s climate change plan obtained by CBC News.
But instead of the Liberal carbon tax-and-rebate system, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole is proposing to charge a levy on fuel purchases and use the money to fund personalized savings accounts, which Canadians can use for environmentally friendly purchases.
“We recognize that the most efficient way to reduce our emissions is to use pricing mechanisms,” notes the plan.
It is almost unimaginable, given the horrifying shambles that the present federal government has made of almost everything, that it is potentially on the brink of a premature election, confident that it can regain a majority. The only explanation for this is the traditional unfeasibility of the federal Conservative party. Once the Liberals adopted the policy of alternating English and French-Canadian leaders, and the Conservatives obligingly recruited some prominent English-speaking Liberal politicians to mobilize the anglophone majority in the country to impose conscription on French-Canadians who had no particular reason to feel any filial loyalty to the British or the French in the hecatomb of the First World War, the preeminence of the Liberals was assured. The only federal Conservative leader since that time who was knowledgeable enough of Quebec, and of national political currents generally, to compete on an equal footing with the Liberals was Brian Mulroney. And except for Jean Chrétien, who had the benefit of running against a completely fragmented opposition, he was the only prime minister to win two consecutive majority elections since Louis St. Laurent in 1953.
OTTAWA — Erin O’Toole assured Conservative supporters that he never hid who he was in his bid to secure the party leadership, telling a high-profile conference on Saturday that the “true blue” campaign he ran to secure the party helm does reflect his true colours.
O’Toole fielded questions about his authenticity during an evening question-and-answer session that closed out a conference hosted by the Canada Strong and Free Network, formerly the Manning Centre.
He’s being branded as “Liberal-lite” in some quarters, the same descriptor O’Toole once leveled at former rival and ex-parliamentarian Peter MacKay during last year’s leadership race.
Many who watched the recent Conservative Party convention found themselves in disbelief. I am not an exception to this. I watched as Erin O’Toole firmly laid the foundation for policies few in the West support. Chiefly among them, a further alienated Western Canada.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said today a Conservative government would call a public inquiry to examine the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
At a press conference in Ottawa this morning, O’Toole said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government was caught “unprepared” by COVID-19 and that its reaction to the pandemic’s spread has been “slow and confused.”
And?
It may seem counter-intuitive, but Canada’s Conservative Party is seeking short-term success in a way that ironically makes that success far more elusive.
Let’s face it, federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole is a dud and a dud is never going to defeat Justin Trudeau.
A year ago, when the dawning of the pandemic forced the Tories to take their leadership campaign online and push back their leadership vote, I was struggling to choose a candidate to endorse: O’Toole or his principal rival, Peter MacKay?
I’m not really getting those ‘Just Erin’ ads the Conservatives are using to introduce Canadians to Erin O’Toole
I have to say I’m not really getting those “Just Erin” ads that the Conservatives are using to introduce Canadians to Erin O’Toole, who has been their leader for eight months now, following an eight-month leadership campaign, following a long leadership campaign before that.
The full story board is that, unlike a well-known prime minister who will remain nameless, he’s not a celebrity. He’s “Just Erin.” And some of the ads are just that: “Just Erin.”
I didn’t even know they were running ads.
A March 17 poll by the Angus Reid Institute should put a smile on the faces of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberals.
Although 49 per cent of those surveyed say it’s time for a change in government, the Liberals still hold a significant four-point lead over the Conservatives (35 per cent to 31 per cent) when it comes to voter intentions.
From Abacus Data released today…
CURRENT VOTING INTENTION
If an election were held now, the Liberals would win 38% of the vote (up 5 from our last wave), the Conservatives 30%, the NDP 17% (down 2), the Green Party 6% (down 2) and the BQ at 30% in Quebec (up 3). This is the largest lead for the Liberals in our tracking since mid-November 2020.
It might seem so obvious a point that one might overlook it when evaluating what we already know about the climate change plan the Conservatives will campaign on in the next general election but here it is anyway: Conservatives must win votes from people who did not vote for them in 2019 or in 2015.
And poll after poll after poll has indicated that one of the primary reasons voters chose another party over the Conservatives was climate change. Non-Conservative voters do not believe Conservatives are serious about climate change or, only slightly less worse, that the party’s plans to do anything about it were or are credible.
What Erin O’Toole and the federal Conservatives need is a platform like Mike Harris’ 1995 Common Sense Revolution in Ontario. Solid, sensible, small-c conservative policies presented in a way that is clear to voters.
What they don’t need is O’Toole pandering to elite consensus on issues such as climate change, then trying to force his party to go along because the CBC and Toronto Star say that’s the path to victory.
But that’s exactly the path they’ve chosen.
