The federal Conservatives are the preferred choice of old men in Canada.

This was clear from three polls conducted by Ipsos for Global News in the midst of the 2019 election campaign.

The Conservatives were also favoured by the largest number of men between the ages of 35 and 54. But where the right wingers were most vulnerable was among younger women.

The three Ipsos polls showed that the Liberals' appeal was fairly evenly split between men and women, though women 55 years of age and older were more likely to lean this way than the men in the same age bracket.

Women in all age groups were more likely than men to support the NDP.

So where does this leave the Conservatives now that their right-wing, patriarchal, and Pride-boycotting leader, Andrew Scheer, is stepping down?

Various media outlets have been trotting out names of people who might replace Scheer. Invariably, this has been accompanied by a great deal of talk about which candidates could appeal to people living in seat-rich Ontario and Quebec.

The Conservatives have also been completely out of touch with the large number voters alarmed about the impact of climate change.

But the bottom line is that if the Conservatives want to knock off the Liberals in the next election, they're going to need a leader with more appeal to female voters than Scheer or his predecessor, Stephen Harper, ever had.

It doesn't have to be a woman, of course, but it would certainly help.

Alberta premier Jason Kenney has suggested that former interim leader Rona Ambrose would be a "brilliant" choice. But Ambrose's less-than-fluent French might prevent her from seeking the leadership. Nowadays, a prime minister must be fluently bilingual. (Scheer's heavily accented French didn't help him at all on Quebec.)

There are only 22 female Conservative MPs in Parliament.

They are Leona Alleslev, Candice Bergen, Kelly Block, Raquel Dancho, Rosemarie Falk, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Diane Finley, Cheryl Gallant, Marilyn Gladu, Tracy Gray, Rachel Harder, Tamara Jansen, Stephanie Kusie, Cathy McLeod, Michelle Rempel Garner, Lianne Rood, Jagdeep Sahota, Nelly Shin, Shannon Stubbs, Karen Vecchio, Kathy Wagantall, and Alice Wong.

Most of them wouldn't have a chance either because they're rookies, they can't speak French, or they're social conservatives—or a combination of two or all three.

That really only leaves Rempel Garner, though Bergen, who describes herself as pro-life and pro-LGBT, considered running in 2016. The Winnipeg Free Press reported in 2016 that Bergen doesn't speak French.

Rempel Garner, on the other hand, has a French-Canadian background on her father's side. She's 39 years old and just won her third election in a Calgary riding.

Another female Conservative MP, Dianne Finley, was an administrator of the University of Western Ontario's French Immersion School and held several cabinet posts in the Harper government. Finley is 62 and hasn't never given any indication that she's interested in the top job.

Alleslev is a former Royal Canadian Air Force officer who crossed the floor from the Liberals in 2018. While her parliamentary profile suggests she's bilingual, her former affiliation with the Liberals would make her an unlikely choice should she decide to run.

Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who represents South Surrey—White Rock, lists her preferred language as English and French on her parliamentary profile. But she won by a fairly narrow margin in her riding in 2019 after losing a 2017 by-election, so she's unlikely to seek the party leadership. She has a personal bankruptcy in her history.

McLeod, who represents Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo, is well regarded within the party but she's already ruled herself out of the leadership race because she doesn't speak French. 

This morning, Rempel Garner left the impression over Twitter that she's being encouraged to run.

https://twitter.com/MichelleRempel/status/1205488796281790470

But if she enters the race, she might have difficulty convincing many Canadians that she cares enough about the climate to warrant becoming prime minister.

Rempel Garner has been a vocal critic of the "job-killing carbon tax", the Kyoto Protocol, and Bill C-69, which creates a new regulatory framework. She served as parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment in the Harper government, which had a notoriously bad record on the climate.

"Nobody is going to support a carbon tax because the emperor has no clothes," Rempel Garner declared in Parliament earlier this year. "It doesn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It kills jobs. And it's bad public policy. It's bourgeois public policy. It's elitist public policy. It says if you're a low-income mom, it doesn't matter that you need to fill up your car."

In fact, the federal government has promised to return the revenue it collects through rebates.

In the speech below, Rempel Garner also claimed that global demand for carbon was not going to decrease even if there was no investment in the Canadian oil sector.

People who are freaked out about the climate, desperately hope that global demand for carbon decreases in the coming years. And they want a leader who will help bring that about.

So there you have it, folks.

There's only one Conservative woman who might have a serious shot at the party leadership. And she's out of touch with two-thirds of the country on climate change.

That's why it's safe to conclude that things are not looking good for the Conservatives this morning—even after news that Scheer is on his way out the door.