Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole is intent on keeping true conservatives out of his shadow cabinet.
Today O’Toole snubbed star candidate and newly-elected MP Dr. Leslyn Lewis for a position as a critic despite being one of the party’s strongest conservative voices.
Could it be because O’Toole feels threatened by the contrast someone like Lewis would create to his Liberal-lite approach in governing?
Lewis, who was first elected as a Conservative MP in the 2021 federal election, was also a leading contender for the party’s 2020 leadership race.
Lewis came in third place behind Erin O’Toole and Peter MacKay, receiving 30 per cent of the vote in the second round before being eliminated.
Since the leadership race, Lewis has been a strong, outspoken conservative voice against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s creeping socialist coup.
“Ever since Justin Trudeau tried to grant himself king-like powers at the beginning of the COVID crisis, what we have been witnessing in Canada is a socialist coup that we, the taxpayers, are funding,” wrote Lewis in an op-ed last year.
“Under this socialist revolution, there is no need to confiscate your property — they can simply redistribute your wealth through a home equity tax, confiscate hunting firearms that were legally purchased and owned, increase a ubiquitous carbon tax, or even potentially confiscate a portion of your retirement savings through a new tax on the private sale of your home.”
Lewis has also been brave enough to speak out against mandatory vaccination for MPs.
“The media and the power structure expect me to sit in the back of the bus. I won’t!” Lewis tweeted.
“They will try to paint me as a reckless lunatic in order to lynch me into silence. I will always tell Canadians the truth, and no bully or threats will succeed against us!”
O’Toole is afraid of a rebellion brewing among his own ranks. And even now, a caucus of true conservatives has formed to pick up where O’Toole is lacking and advocate for the fundamental human rights of the unvaccinated.
The leader of that caucus, long-time Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu was also excluded from the shadow cabinet.
It is clear that conservatives who represent the party’s base are not welcome in O’Toole’s red tory faction.
