Campaign Life Coalition, Canada: Social Conservatives Only

 

Dear Arthur, With the political demise of Erin O’Toole, the flip-flopping, authoritarian Conservative Party Leader, there is a renewed sense of hope among Conservative Party members about who might replace him. For the first time in a long time, Conservatives are genuinely excited. At the moment, MP Pierre Poilievre is the perceived front-runner in the upcoming Leadership contest to replace the pro-abortion O’Toole, and the only one who has officially jumped into the race. Campaign Life Coalition has been receiving a steady stream of inquiries from our pro-life supporters about Poilievre, the MP for Carleton. Hopeful excitement is expressed by many, especially in light of his recent support for the freedom truckers and their demand to end all mandates related to the abortion-tainted COVID injections. “Can we get behind Poilievre?” “Where does he stand on life issues?”, they ask. There’s no doubt that on financial matters, Poilievre is a skilled eviscerator of Liberals. In Question Period, he has made Justin Trudeau and his Finance Minister look like fools on economic questions. On that basis, he’d make a good Finance Minister in a Conservative government. However, we cannot endorse him for Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) because Poilievre is pro-abortion. Above: Pierre Poilievre, MP for Kanata-Carleton (Source: Facebook) Tragically, he abandoned his past pro-life beliefs during the previous leadership race when he was considering running, deciding that the “pro-life” label was no longer useful. In January 2020, he promised the Quebec newspaper, La Presse, that under his leadership, no pro-life legislation would ever be introduced by a Poilievre government. He even went further, reassuring the left-wing outlet that even a private members bill would never be adopted. In the same interview, he abandoned his long-time support for the natural definition of marriage and family, telling La Presse: “I support gay marriages. Period. I voted against 15 years ago. But I learned a lot, like millions and millions of people across Canada and around the world. I find that gay marriage is a success.” MP Poilievre has since followed through on his comforting reassurances to the media, with concrete actions. On June 2, 2021, he voted against MP Cathay Wagantall’s common-sense private members bill (C-233) to criminalize sex-selective abortions. Then, on June 22, 2021, he voted in favour of Bill C-6, a so-called “conversion therapy” ban to advance LGBT ideology and criminalize Christians who adhere to biblical sexuality – even jailing parents up to five years if they dare to affirm their gender-confused children in the biological bodies in which they were born! To view Campaign Life’s official rating for Pierre Poilievre as an MP, click here. Campaign Life Coalition will only endorse leadership candidates who are pro-life. If a pro-abortion candidate like Poilievre offers meaningful policy commitments to social conservatives, (e.g. free votes on matters of conscience, ending Canadian taxpayer funding of overseas abortions), we’ll give them due credit. However, we won't be able to green light them. And neither should pro-life CPC members, nor pro-life MPs, give their endorsement to pro-abortion candidates. Who can pro-lifers support? So far, Poilievre is the only candidate to officially declare his intention to run, but we expect there’ll be others. We’re hoping that pro-life MP Dr. Leslyn Lewis will also throw her hat in the ring. Lewis won the popular vote in the previous leadership race, getting more votes on the second ballot than even Erin O’Toole, but losing in the end because of his stronger performance in points-rich Quebec ridings. She polls well - even today - among Conservative members, even though she has not yet declared. Above: Leslyn Lewis, MP for Haldimand—Norfolk (Source: Wikipedia) Since the previous leadership contest, Dr. Lewis has continued to be an advocate for the sanctity of life. She spoke out strongly against Justin Trudeau’s plan to strip pro-life crisis pregnancy centres of their charitable tax status, and attended a rally organized by Campaign Life Coalition on November 24th to save those life-giving centres from Trudeau’s wrath. Leslyn Lewis is a candidate we would happily endorse. Campaign Life Coalition is also encouraging other pro-lifers to consider running, but we cannot reveal their names at this time. We do hope there will end up being at least two candidates who can appeal to values voters like you and me. Anticipating the emergence of supportable candidates, CLC is encouraging you to join or renew your membership in the Conservative Party by clicking here. Who else is running? Others who’ve indicated they’re considering it include Quebec cinema mogul, Vincenzo Guzzo, and journalist Tasha Kheiriddin. Guzzo owns the Cinemas Guzzo chain along with other businesses and joined the Dragon’s Den TV show in season 13 and 14. He recently tweeted that there’s a 70% chance he'll seek the CPC Leadership. Above: Vincenzo Guzzo (Source: Wikipedia) While Guzzo’s stance on the right to life is not yet known, it’s notable that in 2019 his was the only cinema chain in Canada that didn't censor the pro-life motion picture, Unplanned, from being screened. Unplanned tells the story of Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood abortion facility manager turned pro-life activist. Guzzo took a principled position that it was wrong to censor the film just because some might disagree with pro-life views. In contrast, Cineplex and Landmark Cinemas put up major roadblocks to block the movie. Tasha Kheiriddin has been a columnist for numerous outlets including the National Post and Global News, and revealed she's also considering a run. Above: Tasha Kheiriddin, columnist/commentator (Source: Twitter) Kheiriddin is basically pro-abortion, arguing that while she finds some limits on abortion reasonable, it would be “indefensible” to ban all abortions. In 2013, she co-authored a book titled Rescuing Canada’s Right which claimed that in order to be successful, the Conservative Party would need to rid itself of traditional social conservatism. (Of course, we disagree with her thesis -- the opposite is true!) Since then, she has strongly criticized the Trudeau Liberals for inserting a pro-abortion attestation for employers to qualify in the Canada Summer Jobs program. CLC is also hearing credible rumours that the disgraced, former PC Party of Ontario Leader, Patrick Brown, will run. Above: Patrick Brown, Brampton Mayor (Source: Facebook) So-cons in Ontario will remember Brown’s painful betrayal and his transformation into a full-fledged liberal after winning the leadership on the promise of repealing Kathleen Wynne’s radical sex curriculum, only to turn around and endorse the sex program for early grades. Brown would be a carbon copy of O'Toole if he were to win. Social liberalism is the best predictor for future betrayal on small-c conservative principles A truism that every CPC voter should consider, whether a fiscal conservative, a so-con, a democratic conservative, or a libertarian – is that history has proven that politicians who are not grounded in strong moral values cannot be trusted to keep any of their promises, even economic ones. Just look at the example of Erin O’Toole. The pro-abortion MP promised to repeal the carbon tax, but after a bit of media pressure, and in the hope of winning some progressives votes, he came out with his very own carbon tax. Doug Ford is another prime example. The pro-abort PC Leader campaigned with the slogan “Ontario. Open For Business”. And then proceeded to lockdown businesses for 2 years, destroying thousands of small and family businesses in the process. The fact of the matter is that if you want to elect someone who will keep their promises, someone with tried-and-true integrity, you need to cast your ballot for a strong social conservative. In a sense, they’ve already proven their mettle, passing through the gauntlet of pain. Such an individual has already suffered the trials of media persecution for their beliefs, and is practised in hanging onto their core principles, whether moral or economic ones. The same cannot be said about social liberals who repeatedly shift to the left as soon as mainstream media pressure becomes too hot.  Or, even sooner, once the votes of small-c conservatives have secured them the leadership crown and those "little people" are no longer considered to be as valuable in the general election. We witnessed this dynamic with Andrew Scheer, Doug Ford and O’Toole who all reversed or abandoned the very same leadership promises which helped secure their victories. The fiscal conservative, democratic conservative and libertarian factions of the party’s base need to recognize that this inherent danger exists with Poilievre’s social liberalism. Why? A man who compromises on moral values can be too easily pushed to compromise on economic and freedom principles, also. To look at it another way – if you’re willing to go along with the child murder of abortion, for political gain, how much more easily might you embrace leftist economic policy for a perceived political gain? On that note, why did it take two years for Poilievre to come out against tyrannical vaccine mandates and lockdowns? And only after the huge freedom convoy arrived on parliament's doorstep, showing it had the numbers to be a political powerhouse? Judging by the number of inquiries CLC is receiving from pro-lifers excited about Poilievre’s run, this is a warning that our own supporters must heed as well, along with pro-life Conservative MP’s, many of whom backed a pro-abortion candidate in the last leadership race despite the presences of viable so-cons. We encourage you to pray that Leslyn Lewis and other strong pro-lifers will enter the CPC Leadership race, giving us a choice we can believe in. In the meantime, don’t forget to become an eligible voter in the CPC leadership race by joining or renewing your membership. For life & family, Jack Fonseca Director of Political Operations Campaign Life Coalition P.S. For a web-based version of this email that you can share on social media, click here.

Canada 2021 Election Aftermath: "Conservatives" Lurched Left and Lost

 

For a web version of this email, click here. Dear Arthur, Although some mail-in ballots are still being counted and a few races are still in contention, it appears that the new parliament will look almost exactly like the old parliament. The Liberals will gain three seats, moving from 156 to 159, while the Conservatives will lose two seats, dropping from 121 to 119. The table below compares the seats from 2021 with 2019’s election. It can be argued that Justin Trudeau came out of this election with a damaged reputation because the public understands he called an unnecessary election - and wasted $600 million on it - for no other reason than to capitalize on polls which suggested that in a snap election, he’d win a majority. Which he failed to do. However, Erin O’Toole is the leader who suffered the greatest damage, by far. He blundered away what I believe should have been an easy victory that would have resulted in up to 156 Conservative seats compared to just 130 for the Liberals. Down below, I’ll provide the math to back up that claim, and demonstrate that O’Toole helped Trudeau win by driving enough of his base into the waiting arms of Maxime Bernier, while demotivating many others such that they stayed home on E-day. Failed strategy by a failed Leader O’Toole moved to the left and alienated his party’s socially conservative base, along with fiscal and democratic conservatives, as a deliberate strategy which he claimed was necessary to finally defeat the Liberals. He explained this leftward lurch, stating: “I told Conservatives that our party needed the courage to change because Canada has changed”. In plain English, he meant, “To beat the Liberals, we have to become liberal like them”. Throughout the campaign, O’Toole insulted the social conservatives whom he courted during the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) Leadership race, and who crowned him Leader. He shamelessly promoted abortion, LGBTQ ideology, oppressive lockdowns, and liberty-destroying vaccine passports which coerce Canadians who conscientiously object to taking the jabs for a variety of reasons. He betrayed the party’s large socon base during the campaign trail when he flip-flopped on his previous pledge to protect conscience rights for healthcare workers to not have to perform nor refer patients for abortion or euthanasia. In doing so, he even contradicted official CPC policy as passed by grassroots members at a recent convention. After just the slightest bit of pressure from the liberal media, he reversed his position and said that he’d require doctors to refer for abortion and euthanasia, not appearing to understand nor care, what a catastrophic violation of conscience that would represent. O’Toole even angered fiscal conservatives by announcing his own job-killing carbon tax after repeatedly promising to repeal Justin Trudeau’s! What was the result of O’Toole’s left-wing, Liberal-lite election strategy? Did it attract more votes to the CPC and bring about the victory he promised? No. The exact opposite occurred. Facing a Prime Minister Trudeau who was personally unpopular, and a public that was ready for change after 6 years of scandal and mismanagement, O’Toole performed worse than Andrew Scheer did in 2019, losing two seats in the House of Commons. So much for leftism as a winning election strategy for Conservatives! O’Toole’s Liberal-lite platform also resulted in a massive drop in the popular vote for the Conservative Party. In 2019 under Andrew Scheer’s leadership, Conservatives won 6,239,227 of the popular vote. Although numbers are not yet finalized, as of this writing, the O’Toole Conservatives received only 5,529,272 of the popular vote. That means O’Toole presided over a collapse of almost 710,000 votes. Numbers show that O’Toole caused the loss by driving Conservatives to vote PPC Maxime Bernier’s party saw enormous growth in this election, tripling the votes obtained by the PPC in 2019, increasing it from 1.6% of the popular vote to 5.1%. As of this writing, the PPC obtained 842,087 votes compared to 294,092 in 2019. What does it tell us that the popular vote for O’Toole’s Conservatives collapsed by roughly 710,00 votes while the PPC grew by approximately 548,000? To me, it says that the majority of the PPC growth came from former Conservative voters abandoning ship and moving to a party that they perceived as better reflecting their values. The reason for that was clearly because Bernier had a more truly conservative platform. He ran on: defending freedom, fighting medical tyranny & globalism abolishing the carbon tax repealing Trudeau’s gender identity legislation (Bill C-16) repealing the Liberal “conversion therapy bill” that would jail parents up to 5 years and last but not least, supporting moderate pro-life legislation such as a ban on sex-selective abortion and promising that no topic, including anti-abortion legislation, is off limits in the House of Commons. If we assume that 70% - 80% of the PPC vote consisted of dejected Conservative voters with the rest being a mix of people who never voted before, plus some Liberals and Greens attracted to Bernier’s freedom platform, that would account for between 348,000 to 416,000 of the CPC’s 710,000 vote shrinkage. What about the 294,000 to 362,000 missing people who cast a Conservative ballot in 2019? Where did they go? I believe it’s reasonable to assume that these are largely people who stayed home on election day in 2021 because they were disgusted with O’Toole’s radical slide to the left, became despondent, and gave up on the political process. In short, O’Toole conducted voter suppression on his own base. We can prove with certainty that at least 14 seats would have flipped to the Conservatives if O’Toole hadn’t driven this segment of the party’s base into the arms of Maxime Bernier. See the chart below listing the 14 ridings where a Conservative candidate narrowly lost and the PPC vote was strong. For example, in Kitchener-Conestoga, Carlene Hawley, a pro-life CPC candidate, lost to the Liberal by a mere 194 votes. The PPC candidate, Kevin Dupuis (also a pro-lifer), got 3,641 votes. If we assume that just 70% of the PPC’s vote was former Conservative voters who felt betrayed by O’Toole, Hawley would have beat the Liberal by 2,355 votes. If these ridings alone had flipped blue, the seating arrangement in the House of Commons would now look like this, with the Liberals reduced to a much weaker minority:      LIB:   149      CON:  133      NDP:    29 Please don’t make the mistake of blaming these 14 Liberal seats on Maxime Bernier. Erin O’Toole is who must bear the full brunt of responsibility. It was the actions of the Conservative leader that caused this vote split. Had O’Toole come out with a platform similar to Bernier’s, even if it was softer or more nuanced to draw less ire from the media, all of these seats would have turned blue in my estimation. But wait, there’s more… The table below shows that another 23 Liberal and NDP seats could have flipped to Conservatives if not for the combined factors of (a) defection to the PPC and, (b) voters sickened by O’Toole’s Liberal-lite policies not getting out of bed on election day. Column D shows that after accounting for the Bernier effect by assuming a 70% switch back to the CPC if O’Toole had campaigned on a truly conservative platform, the local CPC candidate wouldn’t have lost by much. Column E provides the drop in voter turnout this election versus last, which in most cases, could easily bridge the gap to produce a Conservative win. For example, in Thunder Bay-Rainy River, after adjusting for the PPC factor, the Conservative candidate, Adelina Pecchia, would’ve been behind the Liberal by just 143 votes. But we observe that 1,168 voters who turned out in 2019 stayed home this election. Of that 1,168, could there have been 144 people who previously voted Conservative, but didn’t this time as a result of O’Toole? I think that’s very likely. If we assume all 23 of the above ridings flipped blue, then the parliamentary standings would be as follows, giving the Conservatives a strong minority government:      CON:  156      LIB:   130      NDP:   33 O'Toole must resign I’ve made the case that O’Toole helped Justin Trudeau win, and sabotaged his own sure victory by aping Liberal policy on abortion, LGBT identity politics, medical tyranny, societal segregation and more. He doesn’t deserve to be leader because of his support for the child murder we call abortion. However, for all these other reasons I mentioned above, every Conservative Party member should want O’Toole gone. Campaign Life Coalition was the first to call for his resignation on election night. That was followed by a senior member of the CPC’s National Council, Bert Chen, launching a petition to “recall” O’Toole as leader, which, at the time of this writing has surpassed 2,700 signatures so far. If the Conservative Party faithful wish to avoid an even greater vote-split with the PPC in the next election, which is what I believe will happen if O’Toole remains leader, and to avoid having the Liberals come up the middle to win again, then they all need to get onboard with dumping O’Toole ASAP. They need to acknowledge that the Conservative Party needs to select a new Leader who will motivate social, fiscal and democratic conservatives to come back to the fold.   Sincerely, Jack Fonseca Director of Political Operations Campaign Life Coalition   For a web version of this election analysis that can be shared on social media, click here.