O’Toole’s in a fight to keep control of a party bent on fighting itself

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When Gump Worsley was goalie for the New York Rangers back in the 1950s, a reporter asked him which team gave him the most trouble. “The New York Rangers,” he replied. Now Erin O’Toole knows what that’s like.

There is no doubt which team gives the Conservative Leader the most grief. It’s the Conservative Party.

Mr. O’Toole would have hoped the first party policy conference of his tenure would be a springboard toward an election platform and an opportunity to establish his political identity. Instead, he will be trying to cling to control when the virtual gathering is held in two weeks.

Two anti-abortion groups, Campaign Life Coalition and Right Now, say they have elected large numbers of delegates. Former leadership candidate Derek Sloan, a social conservative MP ousted from the Conservative caucus by Mr. O’Toole, has recruited delegates. Prominent Tories, including some close to Mr. O’Toole, lost bids to be elected as delegates. It looks like there will be a tussle over control of the party machinery.

The reasons for the revolt are obvious. Mr. O’Toole ran for the leadership from the right, wooing social conservatives, but moved swiftly to the centre when he won, declaring himself pro-choice and a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights.

He ran a leadership race against “cancel culture,” and promised social conservatives they would be welcome to speak up. He defended Mr. Sloan’s place in the party – then as leader, he kicked out Mr. Sloan, botching the job with mixed messages. In short, he did the opposite of what he promised.

Now folks are telling Mr. O’Toole he has to choose between accommodating social conservatives and presenting a mainstream image to Canadians to win a general election. The trouble is that at this point, he can’t pick just one. He leads the Conservatives and they insist he do both.

This is where the Conservative Party is now, as an institution. It is still more consumed with fighting about conservatism than beating Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

It is Mr. O’Toole’s job to manage the party conflicts, of course. So far, he has failed. The last successful Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, succeeded in managing the party, and that was a key step to becoming prime minister.

But Mr. Harper had a big advantage. By the time he became leader, the party was begging for discipline, and unity – and desperate to beat the Liberals.

In the 1990s, Canada’s small-c conservatives had splintered into PCs and Reformers. A failed attempt at unity as the Canadian Alliance led to more splintering under Stockwell Day. After the Conservative Party was reconstituted in 2004, Mr. Harper was able to stifle off-message comments and debates, and many social-conservative MPs, in the name of professionalism. Conservatives were hungry to win. Now they are fighting amongst themselves.

That is a major threat to Mr. O’Toole’s leadership. He’s running a lacklustre second in the polls. He only won the leadership because of an organizational victory that relied on second-ballot support from social conservatives and packing nearly vacant Quebec ridings with gun activists. If he loses an organizational fight, his authority will be thin. In the meantime, the party’s brand will suffer.

Forget for a moment that an anti-abortion power grab might turn off some swing voters, or the fact that in the 2019 election campaign, Conservative support in Quebec imploded when then-leader Andrew Scheer couldn’t explain his personal opposition to abortion during a French-language debate.

The country is in a pandemic, a recession and deep debt, and Canadians are feeling vulnerable. Voters looking for an alternative to Mr. Trudeau will see Mr. O’Toole’s Conservatives are still fighting amongst themselves over abortion, Derek Sloan and cancel culture. Canadians will see Mr. O’Toole dealing with his party’s concerns rather than theirs.

It looks like Mr. O’Toole can’t avoid that now. He can try to shift back a little to more Conservative rhetoric, but he can only go so far now. His chief hope is mustering enough of his party to the message that there is a bigger mission – beating the Liberals – and he can somehow accomplish it. But it’s hard to look like you can beat the opponent when your own team is giving you so much trouble.

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