Conservative caucus to vote on whether to enact power to remove O'Toole

Ottawa -

The Conservative national caucus is not all on the same page when it comes to the political future of leader Erin O’Toole, as they head into their first post-election caucus meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday, where MPs are expected to vote on whether or not to give themselves the power to potentially oust him.

It’s shaping up to be a contentious meeting, with one Conservative senator bucking some MPs’ calls for unity by imploring his colleagues to vote to have the power to call for a leadership review over O’Toole’s “failed” performance in the federal election.

“To vote against the right to hold a leadership review is folly. Voting in favour of a review vote is not pleasant, but it is necessary. The status quo under the present circumstances is a mistake,” reads an email from Nova Scotia Conservative Sen. Michael MacDonald to the caucus, obtained by CTV News. 

Deciding whether to take the first step towards removing O’Toole, or at least leaving the door open to the possibility is one of four key votes that the caucus is expected to take during the meeting, in line with the party’s observance of the Reform Act. The initiative from Conservative MP Michael Chong came into effect in 2015, and is meant to empower party caucuses on Parliament Hill.  

The Act sets out four powers that caucuses can decide on whether or not they want to enact

• The review and removal of the party leader;
• The election of the interim leader;
• The election and review of the caucus chair; and
• The expulsion and re-admission of caucus members.

The votes on whether to grant these powers are supposed to happen at the first post-election caucus meeting, but other parties’ observance of the rules has not been consistent in the past.

If Conservatives decide tomorrow to enact the power to prompt a leadership review, 20 per cent of caucus would need to sign a formal agreement to trigger the process, and then it would require a majority of caucus to vote to remove the leader through a secret ballot process.

Tuesday’s meeting comes amid ongoing internal Conservative Party disagreement over whether O’Toole should remain at the helm of the party after the Sept. 20 federal election loss. After promising to gain seats across the country the party is returning with the same number of MPs that it had before the vote, slightly down from the number of seats the party won in 2019.

While some of O’Toole’s MPs have come out recently to state their continued support and call for caucus to rally behind their leader, the email from MacDonald indicates not all within the caucus are convinced he should remain in the party’s top job.

In the letter, MacDonald references vote counts in key regions like Alberta and Ontario and cites O’Toole pivoting from running in the leadership as a “true blue” Conservative with the down ballot support of social conservatives, to a more centrist leader that embraced a carbon tax among other more progressive policies as a catalyst for that outcome.

His positon is that the party bled “natural Conservative” support to parties like Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada as a result of this pivot.

“The Leader’s conscious decision to move the Conservative Party to the left has been a strategic failure… I believe he did work hard at it, and made some improvement early in the campaign, but in the end it was not enough, not nearly enough,” he writes.

“It was said during the campaign that this is no longer our grandfather’s Conservative party. That I can agree with – my grandfather’s Conservative party would not have lost the 2021 election,” he ended the letter with, referencing a comment made by O’Toole in the final week of the race. 

O’Toole has already initiated an internal review of what went wrong during the 2021 election campaign. When he announced the review he said the party is "building towards victory next time,” signalling his intention to still be the leader when the next race is called.

In a statement to CTVNews.ca, Chelsea Tucker, a spokesperson for the Conservative leader, said “Mr. O’Toole has always supported the Reform Act provisions and this continues to be true. Caucus members are encouraged to vote as they see fit.”

When the caucus met for the first time after Andrew Scheer’s 2019 election loss, caucus decided against voting to enact the power to oust him as party leader, though he did go on to face further pressure to step aside, and ultimately resigned months later.

With files from host of CTV’s Question Period and host of CTV News Channel’s Power Play Evan Solomon.