O’Toole Threatening Conservative into Supporting His Carbon Tax Shows He’s not a Leader

Just a year ago Conservative leader Erin O’Toole was still maintaining his front as being a “True Blue” Conservative who would never run on his own carbon tax, which he even put in writing for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Now not only is O’Toole having the Conservative Party run on a carbon tax in the 2021 snap election but if you disagree with his carbon tax you will be removed from the CPC caucus.

Technically a Conservative MPs removal is based on whether they agree or disagree with O’Toole’s “Secure the Environment” plan, but everyone knows the most controversial part of his plan with Conservatives is the carbon tax.

It is telling that O’Toole believes that he needs to explicitly threaten his own Conservative Party candidates to follow his lead on his environmental plan. 

O’Toole in his statement on the matter said “If there are candidates that do not support it – or any other part of Canada’s Recovery Plan – They won’t be sitting in the caucus of a future Conservative government,” which is very telling of how poorly  O’Toole’s platform went over with current Conservative MPs and candidates.

You would never have to threaten your own candidates if the policy was seen as good. Especially for Western CPC candidates, running on a carbon tax is reputational suicide and will make their policy indistinguishable from the Liberals for constituents. 

Outside of the immoral nature of threatening Conservative MPs into not upholding the interests of their constituents, O’Toole’s threat being made public will definitely damage Conservative polling numbers. Voters really dislike this sort of sleazy backroom politics being made public, and it undermines the point of voting for a local representative if you know they can only rubber-stamp what their party leader wants.

It seems that O’Toole, much like Justin Trudeau, is not adept at holding a polling lead. Trudeau, when he was high up in the polls, arrogantly called a snap election without proper justification, and then proceeded to gaffe constantly on the campaign trail, saying things like “I don’t think about monetary policy”. 

O’Toole, on the other hand, since the Conservative Party took the lead in the polls started suddenly acting dictatorially thinking he is untouchable and started backing provincial vaccine passport programs, walking back his stances on defunding the CBC and universities that do not uphold students free speech rights, and of course, is now threatening Conservative candidates with expulsion from caucus if they don’t support his agenda. 

During the 2020 leadership election, much like how Ontario Premier Doug Ford, O’Toole ran on the concept of allowing free votes in Parliament for Conservative MPs, but even before election day, he has gone back on that promise. 

It is likely that now over the next week it will be Erin O’Toole’s turn to slump his own party’s polling numbers, which will give Justin Trudeau the ability to recover the Liberal Party’s popularity in the polls, all because O’Toole cannot keep his word.