After initially agreeing to attend the Saturday debate in Toronto, he bailed. That would make his attendance record ‘zero’. That should also be the votes he gets.

New memberships will now not be able to vote for the CPC leadership.
Who actually is winning? All the campaigns are spinning and if your phone is anything like mine, you’re getting two or three calls a week.
I’ve made up my mind on who I’ll be voting for.

Oh. My. What are we CPC members thinking?
Related Nanos and the PDF. The sample sizes are small but in a nutshell: O’Leary is strong in the Prairies and Ontario, Chong beats Raitt in the Atlantic, Bernier is strong in Quebec and sits in second or third everywhere else. An interesting question in the survey asked the likely-hood of voting for or against a non-bilingual candidate. The determinate responses were split 33/33.

Yes, please.

Lisa Raitt released her tax plan today. Fairly standard Conservative fare.
Yesterday, Maxime Bernier released his foreign affairs policy:

• Work with allies to defend Canada’s security, especially against radical Islamic terrorism.
• Focus on the security and prosperity of Canadians, not pleasing the dysfunctional United Nations.
• End development aid.
• Promote free-market policies, liberalized trade, and private property rights around the world.

Polling numbers from La Press (Google translated).

You may not like a leader needing to speak French, but it matters a great deal whether you want it to or not.
Note, Andrew MacDougall is a former Dir. of Communications for PM Harper’s PMO.

Five candidates playing to win. The rest…not so much. Not that being a bright light of economic liberty, the rear-guard of social beliefs, representing the NDP wing, or a sober second thought about immigration will mean much if those ideas don’t enthuse the voters of certain electoral district rich provinces.

10.10 The election of the Leader shall be by way of a direct vote of members in every electoral
district, as follows.
10.10.1 Each member of the Party will have one vote.
10.10.2 Each electoral district will be allocated 100 points.
10.10.3 Leadership candidates will be assigned a point total based on their percentage of
the vote in each electoral district.
10.10.4 To win the leadership, a candidate must obtain a majority of points from across
the country.
10.10.5 Voting will be by preferential vote (single transferable ballot).

I don’t know how many candidates we’ll have on our ballot, I think last time was two, but I can’t remember.

Today a Liberal.

“Canadians are known as peacekeepers above all and not warriors. There’s nothing proud about being a warrior, war is a desperate outcome for a human being, peacekeeping is extremely noble.”

I have no clue where the idea that this guy could be a contender for CPC leadership comes from. I have heard exactly nothing ‘in the wind’ from anyone outside of media and I think they just want to stir up crap.
H/t, Rob

I have made no hiding of the fact that I’m currently supporting Maxime Bernier for CPC leadership. I like his economic policies and his general libertarian outlook. One thing is really bothering me, though.
Let us all get one really important thing straight.
It is not racist, misogynistic or xenophobic to propose that immigrants and refugees entering the country each have some face-to-face time in an interview.
I find it ironic, stupid and sickening that you are providing our opposition with the talking points they’ll be using against you if you win. Newsflash, fools, according to the Liberals, the NDP and the media, Conservatives are always going to be racists. We always hate women. We always hate immigrants. Our policies always hurt the poor. We are always against the Native population.
Stop it. Stop it, stop it. Have you learned nothing?
Pleasing your enemies does not make them your friends.
The more you attack Kellie Leitch the more you’re going to lose by and the more I am thinking of pulling from Bernier to Leitch because Conservatives are making their arguments to the media. Like they are your friends?
You had to do the digging on the Liberals various expense scandals. You had to provide the numbers to our “journalists” that proved the impossibility of Shiny’s Syrian refugee plan. You had to force them to recognize the Yazidi. You did this work, not them, YOU. The media were too busy talking about Trudeau’s socks and counting his abs that day. Just stop it, already.
Stop making what they see as their job, easier for them to do.
Here’s a thought. Maybe, just maybe, we had a change election too. Maybe no matter what policy presented or what you did, losing was inevitable. Maybe you learned the wrong lesson last November.
Perhaps, if you start sticking up for straight-forward, reasonable policies and your fellow caucus members who propose them instead of decrying everything that might have something to do with a Turban or a Prayer Mat as rasicst, you might climb in the polls too.
Now, grow up and stop talking out of class.

Tony Clement is out of the CPC leadership race.

Maxime Bernier releases his income tax policy.
Highlights:

• Raise the Basic Personal Exemption to $15,000
• Eliminate two tax brackets so that income from $15,001 to $100,000 is taxed at 15%
• Tax income over $100,001 at 25%
• Eliminate boutique tax credits that serve no public policy purpose.

Dear Conservatives;

If people are going to vote Liberal, they’ll vote for real Liberals, not fake ones.
Further, as Conservative leadership candidates, has it occurred to you that these days you spend almost all of your time aping Trudeau on immigration, while he spends zero time aping you?

Joe Oliver on equalization.
An excellent article detailing the problems with equalization and asking important questions about the viability of the program or whether it’s even worth keeping.
However I’m not sure I fully appreciate the veracity of the former Canadian Minister of Finance making arguments meant to shore up Western Canadian conservatism. The same guy who had the power to change the system not 10 months ago.
Between this and Tony Clement calling for the end of the CBC, I get the feeling the Ontario Conservatives are feeling a little heat in the leadership race.

Maxime Bernier starts the week with a solid policy announcement.

I think she’s onto something here.

Conservative party leader candidate Maxime Bernier is calling for a phase-out of the Canadian broadcast regulator’s role as telecom watchdog as part of his plan to deregulate the industry.
The full text.