the conservative parties of Canada

 so the conservative party of Canada has a new leader, Mr. Erin O'Toole.

O'Toole replaces outgoing leader Andrew Scheer. in the fallout from the 2019 federal election where the Liberal Party won a minority government, Scheer was out as leader. I didn't really follow the conservative party story too closely, just occasional headlines from TV news. O'Toole seems like a decent fellow.

I was disappointed to see Scheer removed after just one election. Scheer won the popular vote, held the Liberals to a minority, and nicely increased the number of conservative seats. In Canadian federal election history a majority government is virtually never defeated after one term. So it was not realistic to believe or expect Scheer should have won, or he somehow cost the conservatives the win.

Scheer was well on track to follow the Stephen Harper 4-election strategy. When Harper became conservative leader he was facing a popular Paul Martin majority that appeared set to govern for a good decade or longer. In the Harper strategy

• election 1: hold the Liberals to a minority
• election 2: win a minority
• election 3: win a larger minority
• election 4: win a majority

In 2019 Scheer successfully completed step 1: nicely. But it is what it is. I understand some of the anti-Scheer faction want the conservative party to move toward the centre-left. If I'm following, the theory seems to be this is needed to win in urban Toronto (the GTA), Ottawa, Montreal, and the Maritimes.

With the rise of the Green Party, Canada already has three left-wing parties: Liberal, NDP, Green. the leftist worldview seems to be very well represented in Canada. I'm not sure if the left-leaning voter in Canada really needs or wants a fourth option, some kind of Red Tory, left-lite?? thing.

the other conservative party

The 2019 election featured the electoral debut of the People's Party of Canada (PPC). Maxime Bernier was able to get the new party launched, field a candidate in every riding, and win 1.6 percent of the vote. They cost Scheer a few seats, but not enough to tip the final 2019 result Liberal minority win.

Not too bad for a party only founded in 2018. How long and how many elections did the Green Party exist in Canada before they won their first seat? Bernier and the PPC don't seem to be going anywhere soon. PPC today is an option for the right-leaning voter in Canada. I'm guessing the legacy conservative party hopes PPC will turn out be this generation's National Party. Some good ideas, charismatic leader. Didn't form critical mass, failed and dissolved in a few years.

the long game in Canada

I'd suspect the PPC wouldn't mind following a trajectory broadly along the lines of the Reform Party of Canada. Reform was founded in 1987. By 2006, Stephen Harper of the conservative party, the merged Reform/Progressive Conservative Party entity, won a federal election. So 19 years, about a generation. The long game in Canada sometimes isn't all that long. In the mean time as I noted, there was generally fairly good government in Canada under Jean Chrétien / Paul Martin.