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O’Toole Wins Conservative Leadership Race

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Erin O’Toole has won the race to become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

The Ontario MP won on the third ballot during Sunday’s leadership convention in Ottawa.

“I want you to know from the start that I’m here to fight for you and your family,” said O’Toole during his acceptance speech early Monday.

O’Toole received 57.02 per cent of the vote on the third ballot compared to 42.98 per cent for Peter MacKay.

Derek Sloan was eliminated on the first ballot while Leslyn Lewis dropped off after the second ballot.

O’Toole thanked his leadership contenders, his campaign team, and the tens of thousands of Conservatives who voted for him.

“You put your faith in me to lead this historic party and I’m honoured and humbled. I promise you I will not let you down,” he said.

“Today, you have given me a clear mission to unite our party, to champion our Conservative principles, to show Canadians what we know so well: that Justin Trudeau and his team are failing our great country.”

The results were delayed by several hours after the machine used to open the ballot envelopes malfunctioned, damaging several thousand ballots. The final results were not announced until around 1 a.m. ET on Monday.

Outgoing leader Andrew Scheer addressed party members earlier in the evening. He urged Conservatives to come together and focus on the things which unite them.

“After tonight, let’s all rally behind the new leader and do everything we can to make sure that the next leader of the Conservative party becomes the next prime minister of this great country,” said Scheer.

With the leadership campaign now behind him, O’Toole said now is the time for the real work to begin.

“We could be into an election campaign as soon as this fall. But as more than 260,000 passionate Conservatives have already shown in this record-breaking leadership amidst a pandemic, the Conservative party will be ready for the next election and we will win the next election,” he said.

Nearly 175,000 of the almost 270,000 eligible party members cast a ballot in the leadership convention.

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Rally Greets Peter MacKay In Thunder Bay

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Not the warmest greeting for a Conservative leadership candidate as over 140 people took part in a rally outside Peter MacKay’s meet and greet at the Finlandia Club in Thunder Bay Thursday.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler says MacKay shouldn’t have tweeted encouragement to people who took down a rail blockade.

“I think we need to send a message to Peter MacKay that his hateful rhetoric is harmful. It’s irresponsible and it’s something that we all need to stand up against.”

A now-deleted tweet read “Glad to see a couple Albertans with a pickup truck can do more for our economy in an afternoon than Justin Trudeau could do in four years.”

When asked if he would apologize for his tweets, MacKay told reporters absolutely not.

“What I did was recognize that people took it upon themselves to move material that was blocking a railway. This was not a counter protest, it was not anything other than people doing something that I feel was the responsible thing to do”.

MacKay said he offered to meet with some of the leaders prior to the rally but it didn’t work out.

He had this message for those who rallied outside his event:

“I would like them to express themselves, they are welcome to do that, but impeding people’s access to important goods like propane, medicine, food, and blocking other people’s ability to get to work and travel. That’s not part of what I consider to be a peaceful expression and that’s why police are being called on to do their job.”

MacKay added he has a good working relationship with Indigenous leaders including his past experience as an MP in Nova Scotia and he’s met with leaders since he’s been on this campaign for the leadership race.

Meantime, MacKay says he wants to focus on running a positive campaign for the Conservative leadership.

“It’s about ideas. It’s about policy. It’s about solutions. I want to talk about how we get the country working again. I want to talk about the opportunities that are being missed, particularly in our natural resource sector. I want to talk about Canada being in a competitive place for investment, for innovation.”