Conservatives vote to remove Erin O’Toole as leader

After less than 18 months at the helm, Erin O’Toole is out as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

During a secret ballot vote Wednesday, the Conservative caucus voted 73-45 to turf O’Toole. The party now will have to select a new leader for the third time since 2017.

O’Toole was ousted after a third of the caucus of 118 MPs signed a letter earlier this week that forced Wednesday’s vote.

“After this morning’s caucus, I think we are more united than ever,” Quebec MP Pierre-Paul Hus told reporters in Ottawa. “We’re ready going forward.

“All the caucus members are willing to work together and we want to move forward to be ready for the next election and to win.”

The Conservative MPs now will have to find an interim leader before the next leader is chosen at a convention.

“Leadership races are important,” Ontario MP Eric Duncan told reporters. “Unfortunately as a new MP and as a volunteer, I’ve been through a few of them over the years. We’ll go through another one. But they can be a uniting process. We have candidates (who will) step forward that will do that.

“We can be united. I think everybody has the understanding (that) we need to get on the same page, we need to move in the same direction and I’m very confident there’s a strong willingness to do that.”

Elected the party’s leader in August of 2020, O’Toole had been on the hot seat since the Conservatives lost the federal election in September. A number of electoral district associations called for a leadership vote before the one that was scheduled for the party’s national convention in 2023.

Among the concerns expressed by party members were O’Toole’s “flip-flops” on key issues, and the party losing seats in key regions of the country in the federal election despite leading in the polls in the early part of the campaign.

Others felt he failed to stand up for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms during the pandemic, and failed to unite the party.

In November, Saskatchewan senator Denise Batters called for a review of O’Toole’s leadership. He responded by kicking her out of caucus.

Prior to Wednesday’s vote, the Canadian Press obtained a statement from 21 former Conservative MPs that said O’Toole had not only failed to unite the party, but that his recent words and actions have created greater disunity.

Alberta MP Garnett Genuis said Tuesday that O’Toole had to go.

“We’re not seeing what we need to from the leadership right now,” Genuis said. “But I think when you have leadership with vision that unites people that we’re in a very strong position going forward.

“I’m optimistic about the future of our party. I think we need new, strong, principled leadership.”

— With files from The Canadian Press