NOVEMBER 16, 2021 – Yesterday one of our unelected senators decided to try to kick start the process to force a leadership review of O’Toole.
Denise Batters was appointed by Harper on January 25, 2013. Today however, at a time when we need unity to control the agenda in the House and when we need to kick Trudeau off of the front pages, the good senator has decided we need to splinter and keep our leader on the front pages, but as negative unhelpful news not positive news.
Here we have an unelected senator attacking an elected MP and an elected leader from the safety of the Senate. This is a pretty safe spot from which to cause trouble. After all you cannot be turfed (you were never elected), you are not really accountable to anyone and no matter what happens to O’Toole or the party, you will get paid and still have a pension. It is easy to speak out and be brave when you have nothing to lose.
I have been involved in politics for over 50 years and such a move is always interesting.
When this type of thing happens the first question that comes to mind is does she have a future leadership candidate in mind? She didn’t support O’Toole in the last one.
Is there a group or candidate using the safety of the Senator’s position to advance their agenda while they remain anonymous?
I guess we will see. It will be interesting to watch where this goes, but one thing is sure the Liberals will be loving every moment of it.
KEITH_BEARDSLEY
Keith is a former political staffer with over 50 years of active involvement in Canadian politics. He is a former Deputy Chief of Staff to a Prime Minister for Issues Management and he was a senior political advisor involved with political research, Question Period, political attack teams and election war rooms for over 20 years. A well-known political pundit, Keith has appeared many times on Canadian political panels.