LILLEY: Pierre Poilievre's Brantford gamble risks dividing Tories
· Toronto Sun
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Phil McColeman stopped as he walked out of Pierre Poilievre’s rally on Sunday and said, “No, no, no.” The former Conservative MP was expressing his displeasure at Poilievre appointing a candidate to run in the next election.
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Would-be candidates and local organizers had been gearing up for a nomination race ever since Larry Brock, the Conservative MP since 2021, announced he would resign as of last Friday. Rather than working with local officials, though, Poilievre had been canvassing around Brantford looking for someone to appoint.
The man he finally settled on, Brantford Mayor Kevin Davis, wasn’t even Poilievre’s first choice. Still, he was the candidate Poilievre unveiled on Sunday.
“Everybody, please welcome onto the stage the next member of parliament to fight for saving money and fight for our community, fight for our country, your mayor, our future MP, Kevin Davies,” Poilievre said, getting Davis’s last name wrong.
Davis was first elected mayor in 2018, winning handily, but his 2022 re-election was close enough that it went to a recount, with Davis winning by just 208 votes. Some local Conservative members view that as a problem given that the Liberals are targeting this seat to flip it red, and they preferred other candidates they felt had a better chance of winning.
A rough start
When he took the stage Sunday, Davis acknowledged that there were others waiting in the wings.
“We have some great young talent here in our local Conservative party, Joshua Wall being one of them and Dave Carroll being another. And I appreciate that because of the urgency that we face, the urgency that we face in this riding with the oncoming election, we can’t be caught with our we can’t be caught with our flatfooted on this,” Davis said.
Just after Davis mentioned Wall and Carroll, McColeman, the Conservative MP for the area for 13 years, stood up and walked out.
McColeman’s walkout wasn’t spontaneous. He and Brock had both endorsed Carroll to be the Conservative candidate. Some members of the riding association board had also backed Carroll.
Normally, battles over nominated candidates versus appointed ones, or a parachuted candidate backed by the party’s central bosses, don’t mean much. Were Brantford a safe Conservative seat at the moment, then details like this wouldn’t matter.
The trouble for Poilievre is that despite Conservatives holding this area for 18 years, 13 of them under McColeman and five under Brock, the riding is now in play.
Liberals see an opening
Earlier this year, the Liberals approached Brock, trying to hint to him that he could be appointed to the bench as a judge. This was during Mark Carney’s attempt to manufacture a majority, and they clearly thought then that they could win the seat.
Brock didn’t bite at the time. In fact, he did the opposite and told party brass what the Liberals were up to. Over the summer, though, he did decide to resign and return to his former job as a Crown prosecutor before his leave of absence expired.
The Liberals appear set to run Joy O’Donnell, who placed second to Brock in the last election. They are also determined to win this riding and, given recent polling, that’s entirely possible.
The latest Leger poll for Postmedia has Carney’s Liberals at 53% support in Ontario to Poilievre’s 34%.
A must-win test
Poilievre and his team know they need to win Brantford. If he fails to win this seat, there will be calls for him to resign as party leader.
Speaking with senior people in the party, they say that’s why Davis was appointed. They viewed him as the strongest option and felt Brock’s notice didn’t leave enough time for a nomination race.
After spending years as the party’s justice critic, Brock stepped down from the role in June and later took time away to deal with what were described as ‘personal issues.’ In August, he informed the party he would be leaving, giving roughly a month’s notice.
Believing a byelection could come quickly, they turned to Davis rather than risk a lengthy nomination battle.
Whatever the reasons, the decision has led to division in the local party at a time when they can ill afford it. The Conservatives are going to need to be united if they want to keep Brantford blue, but the events on Sunday show that unity may be elusive.