After much digging into the Candidate Campaign Expenses Reports on the Elections Canada website, I’m finished the update to my latest special report:

Promise Made Promise Broken

The Conservative Party’s Election Expense Clawback and what my research revealed about why the Conservative Party can’t win in Quebec

 

 

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The Conservative Party’s 2019 Election Expense Rebate Clawback was a terrible policy decision that effectively stole money owed to Electoral District Associations (EDAs) by Elections Canada and delivered it to Party coffers instead.

This theft was justified using the same pitiful words those with no moral backbone always use to rationalize their stupidity.

“Everyone else is already doing it.”

I began my research into Conservative Party election spending to find out why James Dodds claimed the Party owed $5.5 million to its Electoral District Associations when every political commentator, including me, estimated the total to be somewhere just north of $10 million.

I ended learning a far more disturbing truth — that while Party officials, including Erin O’Toole, all claim “we must win more seats in Quebec” in the next election, the Party made no effort to win more than 70 seats in the last election.

Unless the Conservative Party faces these problems head-on and finds real solutions for them fast, Justin Trudeau will win the next federal election. Honestly, how could Trudeau not win when the Conservative Party makes almost no effort to win more than 20% of seats in the House of Commons.

I wrote this report in the hopes that the Conservative Party will stop lying to itself and to its members and fix these systemic problems now, while there is still time before Trudeau forces his long-desired pandemic election upon Canadians.

In the pages that follow you’ll read:

• my detailed examination of the Party’s failure in Quebec in the 2019 federal election, followed by
• my dissection of how the Party got here, and
• recommendations for the Conservative Party to dig itself out of this hole.

Are These Insurmountable Problems?

No problem is insurmountable when it is faced head on and dealt with openly and honestly. The Party already knows everything I discovered by spending a dozen hours with Elections Canada and a spreadsheet.

Every problem is insurmountable when you refuse to face it. Party leadership has, so far, stuck with the Ostrich Approach. They’ve buried their heads deep in the sand of denial while pretending these problems do not exist.

Do they have the courage to change course?

I hope so, but so far I’ve seen very little to give me hope.

Erin O’Toole did take a few steps in the right direction during his first 100 days, such as:

• Appointing a new national campaign manager, Fred DeLorey
• Appointing a new Executive Director
• Appointing a ‘Quebec Lieutenant’ to oversee election preparedness and campaign strategy in Quebec.

Since then, he’s only managed to alienate large portions of the Conservative Party’s base.
Poll after poll shows Erin O’Toole’s popularity is in free fall. The Party itself is not far behind.

My research uncovered several inconvenient truths about Conservative Party election tactics in 2019:

• Almost 70% of the seats in Quebec were essentially uncontested by the Conservative Party in 2019
• Over 70 seats across Canada are also uncontested by the Conservatives
• Of the 50 Conservative Electoral Districts that spent less than $25,000 during the 2019 election only one emerged victorious (and that EDA could run a dead dog for a candidate and still win)

Unless and until the Conservative Party is willing to deal with these deeply troubling revelations they will continue to suffer defeat after defeat at the hands of Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party.

The country cannot afford nor will it survive four more years of disastrous and failed Liberal policies.

The only question that remains is willing the Conservative Party is willing to do anything to stop them.

I hope this Special Report will help guide them to the correct answer.