Former Liberal, former Liberal leadership candidate, is more conservative than the CPC Leader.
Sure am glad we didn’t take a chance on the Bernier guy, that’s for sure.

The CPC has provided an excellent breakdown of each round sorted right down to the riding for the Leadership election.

Of all the day after articles written, I think this one is closest to the bone.

Okay. That cardboard cut-out of JP Veitch (Rona’s partner) was hilarious.
Rona is kicking Liberal ass, or “balls”….
Thank you, Rona Ambrose, you did a great job. Cheers!
First round results (last to first): Deepak, Saxton, Peterson, O’Leary (?), Alexander, Blaney, Raitt, Leitch, Lemieux, Chong, Trost, O’Toole, Scheer, Bernier
Two surprises to me: Trost in fourth and Bernier less than 30%. So, tell me again how this style of convention is bad for TV? The depth of the field is actually benefiting the networks.
The next results will be an amalgamation of rounds two through seven.
Second announced results: (off the ballot) Saxton, Peterson, O’Leary, Alexander, Blaney, Raitt, (still on the ballot) Leitch, Lemieux, Chong, Trost, O’Toole, Scheer, Bernier
Round 8-10: (off the ballot) Lemieux, Leitch, Chong, (on the ballot) Trost, O’Toole, Scheer, Bernier.
Round 11: (off the ballot) Trost, (on the ballot) O’Toole, Scheer, Bernier (36%)
Round 12: (off the ballot) O’Toole (on the ballot) Scheer (38.36%), Bernier (40.38%)
Final Ballot: The Conservative Party leader is Andrew Scheer (51%)
Blog Notes: I’ve been liberal in my libations. There won’t be any more posts from me today. Cheers!

He is absolutely correct here. It is up to the party.
If he wins today, as I hope, it will be his and our job to convince the party that supply management of dairy and poultry products is a bad thing.
I empathize with supply management supporters though, the up-front costs of buying the quota are huge, indeed they are the retirement plan for the farmers.
For Bernier to succeed he must have a plan to reimburse those who have and are paying for the quotas. These aren’t ‘rich farmers’ as the less educated detractors claim, they are Joe and Jane Frontporch doing the best they can. Only then will he be able to convince the non-fiscal wings of the CPC that supply management is more hurtful to consumers than beneficial to a small handful of farmers.
Fortunately for Bernier (and us) he has never shied away from arguing his point with logic and facts.

If the party wanted to prove to Canadians that first past the post is a superior electoral system to proportional representation, they’ve succeeded.
I don’t know what the party would do otherwise but there are two things that I do know. Absolutely no delegated conventions and I want my vote (which is really the same thing).

I’m watching the CPAC broadcast of the CPC Leadership convention and one thing struck me with Michael Chong’s ten minute speech. He didn’t use the words, “Prime Minister” when he talked about Trudeau. Chong is not alone in this with regards to the Conservative MP’s vying for leadership.
I’ve called Justin a lot of things, but I’m not a politician, I’m not an MP, I’m just a shmuck with access to his wife’s blog.
We can call Trudeau anything we want, Michael Chong and all of the leadership contenders, should not. He is the Prime Minister and if that’s the job you want, you should show a bit of respect for the office.
Update: Erin O’Toole is very good speaking a prepared speech. Lots of not-so-subtle digs at the Cosmo Queen in the PMO. Red meat.
Update: Lisa Raitt with a message Conservatives need to hear, “Which fight is more important, the last one or the coming one?”

Today and tomorrow on CPAC1.
Watch! Listen! Be bored out of your mind between the rounds of voting! Remember, only one candidate will be dropped after each round, so thirteen rounds (or until one candidate gets 16,901 points). Now, this is the age of computers and everyone has voted for each round already, so theoretically, once all the ballots are processed it shouldn’t take long at all to know the winner. That would be a bit anti-climactic though so you can bet there will be Speeches! (boring) Cheers! (boring) Policy panels! (boring)
Can’t they just just email us?
Or to better pass the time, help them count the votes:

h/t Midnight

In part 34 of a continuing series examining why Canada is not the US, we see the first change in the CPC leadership race. O’Leary cancels his run and endorses Maxime Bernier. As an added bonus, O’Leary manages to keep his record of attendance for CPC debates consistent.
Live stream of the last debate starts at 6 ET.

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.