Leslyn Lewis Proved In CPC Debate She Has The Fire To Beat Justin Trudeau

At the first 2022 Conservative Party leadership debate, although a lot of attention went to Pierre Poilievre for his skillful takedown of Jean Charest, Dr. Leslyn Lewis also made a big impact by demonstrating that she can land solid punches on the debate stage.

It has been a growing trend with Dr. Lewis since her 2020 leadership run where she has felt less rehearsed and artificial in interviews, and been willing to directly call out the legacy media for perpetuating fake news. Now we see she is even willing to get into scrapes over contentious issues on the debate stage when she sees the truth as having been obscured. 

Although there is a lot of crossover between those who support Dr. Lewis and Poilievre, it was important at this debate for Lewis to decisively differentiate herself, and she did that on both the Freedom Convoy and social issues.

Although it was a messy exchange Lewis did make a move to be the main pro-convoy candidate in the leadership race.

Dr. Lewis is correct that although Poilievre did the right thing by supporting the convoy he spoke more in favour of the truckers right to protest and took longer to speak in favour of their demands to remove all COVID-19 mandates. 

This makes sense for an issue for Dr. Lewis to try and monopolize as she was the first leadership candidate to back the Freedom Convoy, and one of her most recent viral moments involved calling out CTV News host Evan Solomon for lying about the convoy.

Lewis even worked in the legacy media’s slanted coverage of the Freedom Convoy into her answer on defunding the CBC.

On social conservative issues rather than running away from the debate due to the legacy media’s pressure against pro-life politicians since the news that Roe v. Wade may be overturned in the US, Dr. Lewis instead called out the other candidates from avoiding speaking on social issues. 

Even if you like or dislike Pierre Poilievre (I think he is a good leadership choice) Dr. Lewis undeniably got a good line off against him on social issues by saying he “cannot just be the Finance Minister if he wants to be prime minister,” in reference to his avoidance of directly dealing with social issues.

Another minor highlight of the debate for Dr. Lewis was her calling out Scott Aitchison for implying that those who were sketprical of the government’s response to COVID over the last two years were conspiracy theorists. Dr. Lewis pointed out a lot of what were called “conspiracy theories” ironically came true over the past couple of years. 

Overall Dr. Leslyn Lewis’ debate performance was quite good and shows a substantial improvement from her performances from back in 2020. She has developed a more fiery yet controlled political personality which appeals to a wide range of voters. 

No doubt if she continues like this and makes small improvements going forward she could easily beat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on stage if she finds herself as the Conservative Party leader for the next federal election.