Andrew Scheer has made it clear he knows what is going on. He is going on.
There were no hints in his post-election concession speech, or at any time since, that he is thinking about stepping down as Conservative leader.
On the contrary, he sounded in bullish form, noting that his predecessor, Stephen Harper, reduced Paul Martin’s majority to a minority in 2004 and then went on to lead a Conservative government for a decade. “This is how it starts, this is the first step,” he said.
Fifteen years ago, Harper was notably less buoyant the morning after his own defeat. “I’m going to take a little bit of time with my family, obviously I’m already talking to people across the country,” he told reporters, when asked if he planned to continue as leader.
His campaign manager, Tom Flanagan, said he thought this was simply a ploy to test sentiment in the party and flush out any challengers. But Harper was devastated by the defeat and knew he faced a leadership review the following spring at the party’s policy convention.
Scheer faces a similar review – delegates at the biennial meeting in Toronto in April will be asked to vote in a secret ballot if they wish to engage in a leadership selection process. Technically, if more than 50 per cent vote in the affirmative, the party will launch a leadership race and Scheer will have to compete for his own job.
But if he garners support from only half the party membership he will be deemed to be an emperor in the altogether, lacking the legitimacy to lead the party into the next election.
The number needed to confer legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder, but it’s not 50.
In 1983, then Conservative leader Joe Clark declared an endorsement by 66 per cent of delegates was not enough and called a leadership convention that he ended up losing to Brian Mulroney. Clark believed that anything less than 75 per cent support was not a clear enough mandate.
In spring 2005, Harper wanted at least 80 per cent to deter future challenges. “We thought 80 per cent was enough to silence the boo-birds,” said Flanagan. The future prime minister ended up winning 84 per cent.
Is Scheer in line to win the support of three quarters of the delegates in Toronto? Judging by the sniping aimed at him publicly and privately since his election defeat, that must be in doubt.
There is deep disquiet about the performance of the leader and his team. How did he end up looking evasive on multiple fronts in a campaign that was supposed to be about Justin Trudeau’s authenticity? What happened to the ethnic outreach strategy in the suburbs that had proven so successful in 2011? Why was the leader campaigning in Winnipeg during a state of emergency?
Harper’s former campaign manager Flanagan has seen this movie before and says many of the shortcomings the Scheer campaign experienced in 2019 can be fixed in time for the next election. “I’ve seen leaders make big changes in response to first time failures,” said the University of Calgary academic.
Flanagan said there are strong parallels between 2004 and 2019.
He said the first thing to do is to figure out what could have been done better.
“People have a partial view. The Toronto view is often that the campaign was not socially liberal enough. But you have to have a national perspective and not jeopardize your core support,” he said.
As the leader of a party with coast-to-coast representation, Scheer has to take a sweeping view. But he clearly has to address the specific problems that kept him from becoming prime minister – his party lost ground in 70 per cent of the 199 ridings in Ontario and Quebec; it didn’t win any of the 60 ridings with the highest population density in the country.
Whatever the post-mortem concludes, it is already apparent that Conservative policies did not resonate in urban ridings in central Canada.
In 2004, Flanagan and his team addressed technical shortcomings – advertising that was more flexible to campaign conditions; a platform approved by party members in advance of the election to address the “hidden agenda” charge; and, a more serious appeal to Quebecers.
It was like nobody did opposition research on him. Leaders don’t like it but you have to do it. They did a poor job on that
Policy was tailored to these goals – for example, the commitment to scrap corporate subsidies in 2004 would have hurt the aviation industry, and, in particular, Montreal-based Bombardier Inc. By 2006, the platform was changed and subsidies were retained.
Flanagan believes that some of the Scheer campaign’s problems can be addressed in a “lessons learned” exercise. “A lot of the stuff they did was because of inexperience. Hamish (Marshall, the campaign manager) is smart but it was his first federal campaign,” he said.
But the review has to extend to the leader, he said. “Scheer had great difficulty anticipating questions and having answers ready. In the end, people didn’t trust Scheer because he didn’t seem comfortable,” he said.
Issues like the leader’s dual nationality, his professional qualifications and his views on issues of conscience dogged him throughout the campaign, providing what Flanagan called “needless distractions”.
“It was like nobody did opposition research on him. Leaders don’t like it but you have to do it. They did a poor job on that,” he said.
Candidates can also reverse, or at least soften, previously held positions. Flanagan cited Harper’s comments on the “culture of defeat” in Atlantic Canada that hurt his prospects in 2004. In the 2005 campaign, he apologized. “Maybe it was bogus but he did it,” said Flanagan. He suggested a similarly humble approach from Scheer on gay marriage would be a good idea. “None of this is impossible,” he said.
What is apparent is that a leadership contest during a minority parliament would be fraught and divisive.
“It would create its own set of problems,” said Flanagan. “Sometimes you have to do it but you shouldn’t undertake it lightly.”
Even after the post-2004 adjustments of Harper, doubts about him persisted into the 2005 campaign. Paul Martin said memorably that Harper would never be prime minister – and many Conservatives agreed in private.
Scheer is likely to face more internal dissent than Harper, according to Flanagan. “People were afraid of Stephen. I don’t think that people are afraid of Andrew,” he said.
Yet, if Scheer is to have another tilt with Trudeau, the adversity he’s set to face may prove an education.
“It takes tremendous strength of character to persist in the face of that kind of criticism,” said Flanagan. “Politics is very unforgiving. But that’s how you get better.”
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
