Two members of Parliament have just changed parties and their decisions will affect the federal election, set by law for Oct. 21, 2019.
On Aug. 23, Maxime Bernier, the Conservative MP for Beauce in Quebec and a close second in the party’s leadership vote in 2017, left the party. On Sept. 14, he launched the People’s Party of Canada.
On Sept. 16, Leona Alleslev, the Liberal MP for Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill just north of Toronto, announced that she was leaving the Liberal caucus for the Conservative Opposition.
Bernier and the People’s Party have the positioning to become the conscience of the Conservative Party, like the NDP has been the conscience of the Liberal Party.
Medicare, Petro-Canada, the National Energy Program, and left-leaning environment and women’s rights policies were produced because of NDP pressure during minority governments.
Bernier started his party with just $140,000 in donations, enough to hire two staffers and set up a headquarters in Gatineau Que., across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill. Last year, by comparison, the NDP raised $5 million, and thought it was a disastrous amount.
Bernier has more political grit and determination than Jagmeet Singh, Justin Trudeau or Andrew Scheer.
Not since Réal Caouette, Quebec car dealer, uneasy ally of Ernest Manning, Roy Thompson and WAC Bennett, and founder of the Railliement des créditistes, the Quebec wing of the federal Social Credit party, has Canada seen a political leader like Bernier.
Caouette created the Créditistes when Manning overturned his federal leadership victory over Red Deer’s Roy Thompson because Manning thought a francophone, bilingual and Catholic leader would harm the federal Socreds in the West.
Turns out that Caouette, not Thompson, could win seats. His party held 14 in the House of Commons and Thompson had zero. The federal Socreds disappeared and Caouette became a political icon.
Bernier is a 21st century version of Réal Caouette and he has a base in Western Canada from his Conservative leadership bid a year ago.
In Ontario, Leona Alleslev is the Greater Toronto area toehold that the Conservatives need to win the next election.
Alleslev was airily dismissed by the chattering class when she joined the Conservatives because she only won her seat as a Liberal in 2015 by a narrow 2.2 per cent margin.
She is a woman of substance, with a weightier career resumé than Prime Minister Trudeau’s or her new leader, Andrew Scheer’s.
Alleslev holds a degree from the Royal Military College, an elite university. She has held command positions in the Royal Canadian Air Force where she retired with the rank of captain.
She’s been a senior manager in private sector aerospace and consulting corporations and has been a successful civil servant in the Department of Defence.
It’s an easy bet that she’ll win re-election next year, giving Conservatives a breakthrough in the Toronto region where they must win back seats from the Liberals to form government
Only 274 MPs have crossed the floor since Confederation and they have usually been mavericks who are long forgotten.
Winston Churchill was a maverick who crossed the floor – twice before he became prime minister and led Britain’s winning war effort.
“Ratting and re-ratting,” he jested.
Maxime Bernier and Leona Alleslev are Churchill’s kind of floor crossers.
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business journalist and author.
