Jordan:
Good afternoon sir, I hope the day's behaving properly on your side of the big hills and this finds you and yours well.
With the understanding that I'm asking an honest question as I'm attempting to educate myself on the candidates, do you believe that her lack of experience and the fact that she doesn't currently have a seat will hurt things?
On the CCFR site on faceplant that was brought up and it was pointed out it was a bit of a process to get Jagmeet Singh going after he was elected leader but had no seat.
If you're so inclined, I'd like to hear your take on O'Toole as well.
While Peter MacKay has experience in parliament, somehow I'm not entirely sure about him - for reasons I can't quite put my finger on honestly sir.
Anyway, again I'm trying to be educated and value your opinion, should you be so inclined.
All the best to you all sir. Stay well.
Dwayne
Dwayne,
The trends that we see in the US often trickle up here several years later. For several years the popular opinion in the US was to select a liberal leader (Obama), and that was followed by a sweeping desire for a populist candidate rather than a deep establishment, career politician. I believe that trend will make it's way up here, I just don't know exactly when it'll happen. If the general trend up here in the next election is to look for a populist candidate, then Lewis is that person. So to answer your question, the fact that she is not a career politician could either be a very, very good thing, or a very bad thing. Being a visible minority and a woman only helps draw in fringe voters. Lewis would be my second choice based on policy, but I'll probably vote for her because I think she's the only candidate that offers Canadians something new and different. She knows what she believes, isn't afraid to explain and stand up for her values, and she's not a white male (which unfortunately is rather demonized in our current societal state). I also very much appreciate that Lewis is willing to admit when she is uninformed on a subject, go and educate herself, and them form an opinion, rather than the all-too-common approach of politicians to issue shotgun opinions based on insufficient information.
My take on it is that Peter MacKay is the typical career politician who will say whatever it takes to get elected so as to not hinder his career. He tries to appeal to both sides of the political spectrum and is "lukewarm," so to speak. I think he'd be received by the Canadian people as Andrew Sheer, and doubt he'd be elected over Trudeau unless Justine does something stupid enough that even Liberal voters turn away from him. MacKay would be my last choice for party leader.
I think Derek Sloan is most clearly on our side when it comes to firearms legislation, stating that he'll repeal the Firearms Act completely and build up something sensible from scratch. I don't see him as radical at all, but I do see him as a TRUE conservative, while MacKay and O'Toole are somewhat more liberalized Conservatives. I think Sloan would be my first choice if I thought he could beat Trudeau, but I'm just not sure that he can. Being young and not a lifer is an advantage, IMO, and is partly what drew people to Trudeau in the past.
O'Toole would be my third choice in this running, simply because he's not quite conservative enough for my tastes, and also because his firearms position isn't strong enough for me. I do really like his position of ending government subsidies for media companies in Canada, though. Tough to have a populace that is well-informed by an unbiased media industry, when that media industry promotes whichever party promises the most money if they win...
For a decent summary of the positions of the various candidates on a variety of topics, this link has some good info. Scroll down to the table:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Conservative_Party_of_Canada_leadership_election
