Raitt, Chong, other Conservatives met to talk environment, policy, party’s direction after Scheer victory

Conservative MPs Lisa Raitt and Michael Chong were among a group of conservatives who gathered in Toronto in June to talk about the direction and policies of the Conservative Party of Canada, fresh from the selection of Andrew Scheer as the party’s new leader. Mr. Scheer’s (Regina-Qu'Appelle, Sask.) former rivals for the party leadership—who would later be named his deputy leader, in the case of Ms. Raitt (Milton, Ont.) and infrastructure critic, in the case of Mr. Chong—sat in on the meeting orchestrated by Mark Cameron, a former senior policy adviser to prime minister Stephen Harper and the executive director of Canadians for Clean Prosperity, a non-profit devoted to promoting pollution pricing. Both said they did so with the blessing of Mr. Scheer’s office. The meeting took place in a rented dining room in Toronto’s Massey College, said Hugh Segal, the head of the college and a former Conservative Senator, who also attended the meeting. Environmental policy was one of the subjects of discussion, according to Ms. Raitt and Mr. Segal. “Michael had made a good point during the leadership race, about our need to embrace and have a conservative point of view regarding environmental change, and what was going on. I value his opinion, and I’m curious, and I always have open ears and I want to hear what’s going on,” said Ms. Raitt. “It was just an information session for me, and I really haven’t been involved since, at all. I don’t even receive emails. But it’s not a secretive thing, because the leader was aware of it. I obviously was aware of it. And whatever we do is going to have to be in support of the Conservative position,” she said. Mr. Chong was the only candidate in the Conservative leadership race who supported putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions. “This is a policy year for us, and we’re going to have a policy convention that is coming in August in Halifax. There’s a lot of work being done in a whole bunch of different areas to try to get the right policy mix going forward,” said Ms. Raitt. Mr. Chong said that the idea behind the meeting was to explore new ideas for the party as it prepared for the next federal election. Mr. Segal said the meeting included “a very vibrant discussion about politics in Canada generally, about what the fallout was after the last general election, what the present government was doing right and doing wrong.” Socially progressive movement loses momentum That Toronto meeting appears to have been a part of a larger effort by Mr. Cameron to create momentum for a new organization geared towards pushing the Conservative Party of Canada closer to the political centre on some issues. That effort was corroborated by Aaron Binder, a multi-partisan political activist with the advocacy group A Strong Canada, who attended the Toronto meeting, as well as Benjamin Kolaczek, one of the organizers of the socially progressive conservative online advocacy group A Tolerable Opposition, which was also active during the Conservative Party leadership race. Scott Gilmore, a columnist for Maclean’s magazine, told The Hill Times in August he believed the fledgling organization had financial backing, and plans for a policy convention this winter. Mr. Gilmore held a cross-country “dinner tour” to engage with socially progressive conservative Canadians and discuss the direction of the Conservative Party, after writing a column that explored the possibility of creating a second conservative party in Canada. However, it seems that the efforts to create Mr. Cameron’s organization—there are no signs the intent was to explore splitting the Conservative Party—have since sputtered out, at least for the time being. Mr. Chong and Mr. Raitt, among others, said they are not aware of any meetings held since the one in Toronto. Bram Sepers, who served as Mr. Chong’s campaign manager in the leadership race, was among those initially trying to help Mr. Cameron drum up support for the new organization, according to Mr. Kolaczek, who provided The Hill Times with a screen capture of a June 9 text message from Mr. Sepers inviting him to join a “group of moderate conservatives” that was “forming.” Mr. Sepers told The Hill Times that he was involved early on “only to pass on names,” and had not been involved for months. Mr. Cameron declined to comment. Ms. Raitt, who Mr. Scheer named his deputy leader roughly a month after the Toronto meeting, and Mr. Chong, who was made the Conservative shadow minister of infrastructure in August, said that they attended the meeting to explore new ideas for the party moving forward. Each said that Mr. Scheer’s office was aware of their attendance. Both of the Conservative MPs “went out of their way to say that they were interested to hear what young people and others had to say, but they would be working within the context of the Conservative Party and the new leader to build a strong platform for a broad election effort some day in the future,” said Mr. Segal. Mr. Binder had previously told The Hill Times that more than two former Conservative leadership candidates had attended the meeting, which he now says was a mistake. Mr. Binder said discussions at the dinner were “pretty open-ended,” and that A Strong Canada was not involved with any organizing efforts associated with the event at this point. Natalie Pon, who also attended the Toronto meeting, said pushing the party towards the political centre was not discussed. She called it a dinner among “a bunch of policy wonks,” that did not include formal proposals of any policy in particular. “The theme of the idea was principled ideas, and ideas-based conservatism, at a very broad, high level. To say that there was any in-depth discussion on anything was a bit of a stretch. It was a very informal kind of gathering,” said Ms. Pon, a director on the interim joint board for Alberta’s United Conservative Party, who helped to lead a successful campaign last year for the federal Conservative Party to remove opposition to gay marriage from the Conservative Party’s policies. “It honestly hasn’t become much of anything,” she said of the Toronto meeting. “I think we’re all busy people.” Young Toronto Tories gather under a different banner In the meantime, a handful of young, centre-right conservatives in Toronto have banded together to create a group they call the 1885 Society, seeking to use regular speaking events to promote “moderate” and “one-nation” conservative principles, and support for nation-building, peace, order, and good government, and “love for the diverse splendor of Canada’s cultures, character, and environment, with a commitment to enrich them all,” its Facebook page says. The 1885 Society is named after the year the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, “the single greatest act of nation-building in the history of our country.” The society held its inaugural event in Toronto last week, with Mr. Segal volunteering to attend and introduce the group’s first guest speaker, McGill University economist Christopher Ragan, who discussed the success of economic principles espoused by both Conservative and Liberal governments of the past. Mr. Segal said he was not otherwise associated with the 1885 Society. Ms. Pon is, but said there was no link between the 1885 Society and the dinner in Toronto. The 1885 Society was founded by eight people, some of whom have volunteered for campaigns run by Mr. Chong or former Conservative MP Joe Oliver, said Matthew Cressatti, one of the founders. They include Ben Atkins, a national volunteer coordinator and digital communications coordinator for the Michael Chong campaign, and Alexei Simakov, who is currently seeking the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party nomination in Toronto Centre. The group supports Andrew Scheer’s leadership of the Conservative Party, said Mr. Cressatti. peter@hilltimes.com @PJMazereeuw

Raitt, Chong, other Conservatives met to talk environment, policy, party’s direction after Scheer victory

But an effort to get a new socially progressive conservative organization up and running appears to have fizzled out.

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Raitt, Chong, other Conservatives met to talk environment, policy, party’s direction after Scheer victory

But an effort to get a new socially progressive conservative organization up and running appears to have fizzled out.

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