自由党翻新浪

[focus on today]

This interview provided a good insight for Canada's future- which basically it is in grey colour.

 

[向问天]

土豆了不起，越腐败越连任。
感觉他是大智若愚。

 

[focus on today]

Liberal Strategists seem understand human's sinful nature better and be able to use it to Liberal's advantage

 

[uglyducking]

土豆了不起，越腐败越连任。
感觉他是大智若愚。

难道不是大腐若洁？

 

[focus on today]

Behind Erin O’Toole’s old-school image lies a thoroughly modern Conservative strategy

He’s been a politician’s son, a soldier, a lawyer and a Harper cabinet minister. Today, he may seem like a man out of another time – but his flirtations with Trumpism and right-wing digital warfare suggest a very 21st-century conservatism

www.theglobeandmail.com

Behind Erin O’Toole’s old-school image lies a thoroughly modern Conservative strategy
He’s been a politician’s son, a soldier, a lawyer and a Harper cabinet minister. Today, he may seem like a man out of another time – but his flirtations with Trumpism and right-wing digital warfare suggest a very 21st-century conservatism

Even 20 years ago, some of Erin O’Toole’s habits stuck out as old school. He was a Dalhousie law student still in his 20s, but when his new wife, Rebecca, left the table, he stood. The Nova Scotia Tories he was meeting often noticed that after lunch or breakfast with him, he’d send them a handwritten note.

About 10 years ago, James Dodds, the TD Bank vice-president who has just been appointed to head the Conservative Party’s fundraising arm, became so confident his old friend would one day be prime minister that he started keeping the notes, collecting about 40. “It’s a great thing to do, because no one does it any more,” Mr. Dodds said. “They send an e-mail. But a handwritten note, that’s going to get on someone’s desk, no matter how senior they are.”

Smart. And also Mr. O’Toole’s way. Old-fashioned manners were inculcated at home and in four years at Royal Military College. His father, former Ontario MPP John O’Toole, knew to show up for elderly constituents' birthday parties when he was a school trustee and municipal councillor in the 1980s. Erin O’Toole is, in many ways, old school.


He has an affinity for Robert Borden, the First World War prime minister. As a Toronto lawyer, he trooped to meetings of the Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy. If he becomes PM, the former helicopter navigator will be the first in more than 50 years with military experience.

But there is a sharper edge. This week, we saw Mr. O’Toole lead his Conservatives in an aggressive parliamentary manoeuvre that, for a moment, brought the country to the brink of a snap election. His party pressed a motion for an “anti-corruption” committee that would not only expand probes into WE Charity but add several new inquiries, issue an unprecedented House of Commons order for PMO e-mails about prorogation and authorize the opposition-controlled committee to summon the Prime Minister or his ministers as it sees fit. It was deemed such a threat by the minority Liberals that they threatened an election if it passed.

It turns out the Erin O’Toole who handwrites genteel thank-yous is not shy about pointy-edged politics. He is both a traditionalist and a practitioner of modern political tactics.

For his party, he is another kind of throwback: the first leader to represent Ontario since George Drew more than 60 years ago. That places Mr. O’Toole, raised in Bowmanville, in the modern battleground of federal politics. He looks like what politicians used to look like: thinning hair, middle-aged spread, suit and tie. He appears older than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, though he is 13 months younger. “I’m not a celebrity,” he says.

He is deliberately accentuating a contrast. Mr. Trudeau still casts himself as an agent of change, even after five years. In a pandemic, the Liberal Prime Minister has promised to expand social programs and green the economy. Mr. O’Toole talks about Canada building stuff again, selling oil and lumber, keeping statues of Sir John A. Macdonald and a return to normalcy. The old normal.

The tactical Erin O’Toole, however, has flirted with populism and protectionism, even accepting the suggestion that he’s injecting a touch of Donald Trump into Canada. His strategists point instead to lessons from British PM Boris Johnson: When the left campaigns on social justice, they say, Conservatives can win over working people and realign politics – by playing down the ideology of free trade and austerity, and instead talking about protecting jobs and communities.

Certainly, Mr. O’Toole has decided tactics count. Some he knew in Nova Scotia Tory circles 20 years ago marvel that he won the leadership as the more conservative option to Peter MacKay – they thought it was the other way around. In 2003, Mr. O’Toole was a PC leadership delegate for the socially progressive Scott Brison, who later crossed the floor to the Liberals. But Mr. O’Toole repackaged himself with a modern digital campaign, and won with steely tactics.

 

[focus on today]

Trudeau funded anti-hate network to paint conservatives racist: