‘Who speaks for the centre?’ A new group of Conservatives says the party’s path to victory is right down the middle
OTTAWA-Dozens of Conservatives are mobilizing to create a new advocacy group in response to concerns that centrist voters are being shut out of political discourse in Canada.
Centre Ice Conservatives will style itself as a landing pad for moderate Conservatives to have their voices heard, with hopes that it will eventually also attract those turned off by the progressive direction of the current Liberal government, members of the group said in an exclusive interview with the Star this week.
The effort is running alongside the Conservative party leadership race, which is already mired in tension over whether the party is preparing to tack in a populist direction or a progressive one.
But Centre Ice members took pains to stress that their primary goal is to be part of a conversation about the party's future, and that they aren't activating in response to - or in support of - any one candidate's campaign.
The hope is to send a signal to them all: candidates must pay attention to the voters who will help the Conservatives win the general election.
You know, I know, everybody knows it - winning the leadership of any party means appealing to the base, but becoming the prime minister of Canada means winning swing ridings in Canada, with swing voters who are centrist," said Rick Peterson, a former leadership candidate and the co-founder of the new group.
And that's what we want to represent."
The Conservatives have increased their share of the popular vote in the last two federal elections, but not enough to win power.
After the 2019 election, Andrew Scheer stepped down as party leader amid much debate over whether his socially conservative views meant he could never lead the party to victory.
After the 2021 election, Erin O'Toole was forced out as leader because his bid to present the party as more centrist didn't lead the party to government either.
Which candidate will triumph in this race is a long way from certain. A new leader won't be elected until Sept. 10, and the names on the ballot won't be clear until the end of April.
So far, eight candidates are registered to run: Leona Alleslev, Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber, Patrick Brown, Jean Charest, Marc Dalton, Leslyn Lewis and Pierre Poilievre.
Poilievre is running on a populist message that calls for getting government out of people's lives, and his rallies are attracting thousands of people. His supporters say that's a sign that he is injecting new energy and enthusiasm for conservative ideas into a previously disaffected electorate.
He has also attacked Charest and Brown, portraying them as little more than Liberal-lite" politicians for their Progressive Conservative roots.
It's an echo of the dissatisfaction with O'Toole's push to the centre, and a belief among some Tories that the former leader's strategy will not put their party on the path to power.
On the other hand, Centre Ice backers point to the successes that Progressive Conservative parties - and even New Democratic ones - have had at the provincial level with more centrist approaches.
And there are also Conservatives who see the landmark NDP-Liberal deal as opening up a new pool of voters at the federal level.
That agreement will allow the minority Liberal government to remain in power until 2025 in exchange for implementing some key NDP priorities, including national dental and pharmacare programs and expansion of affordable housing programs.
The roughly $10 billion price tag on those commitments is raising eyebrows among the so-called blue Liberals," who are concerned about what that spending will do to the government's fiscal trajectory.
Among the 50 or so early backers of Centre Ice are those who'd fall into a blue Liberal" category, Peterson said, although he declined to name names.
Ann Francis, a two-time Conservative candidate in Montreal, said her experience knocking on doors is that voters line up behind party labels, not ideas.
I actually think people just don't understand what the parties represent, and what is the centre anymore," Francis said.
She's serving on Centre Ice's advisory board to help explain what that means, and where Conservative ideas fit in.
Peterson said Centre Ice is also a response to other well-organized groups from other factions of the conservative movement.
There are lots of groups out there," he said, but who speaks for the centre?"
Many of those groups - like the social media juggernaut Canada Proud, firearms enthusiasts and social conservative organizations - are already playing a role in the leadership contest, in some cases actively endorsing and backing specific candidates.
Centre Ice won't, Peterson said. The group also counts among its organizers people involved in a number of different leadership contests, including Poilievre's and Brown's.
Azim Jiwani supports Brown and is also the executive director of Centre Ice.
He said he sees politics turning into a polarizing force in Canada for many reasons.
Among them, parties are leaning more and more on activist bases whose own agendas then drive the party.
At the same time, Jiwani says nuanced and thoughtful debates are falling by the wayside as politicians aim to gain traction by making intense appeals that do well at generating online buzz.
The result, he said, is that the nuance necessary to craft policy is lost, and no one is staking out the middle ground, which is where elections are won.
If the Conservative party doesn't have a strategy to appeal to swing voters or doesn't have any groups that are advocating for swing voters, pushing the party or pushing the movement in general, then we're going to continue to have the same problem."
Stephanie Levitz is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @StephanieLevitz