The Conservative Party of Canada held a policy convention this past weekend. COVID-19 being in the air, it was not your typical confab. Events were held virtually, and by most accounts, it was a disaster for Erin O’Toole.

Even the usually fawning conservative members of the media couldn’t contain their revulsion. The usually apologetic National Post ran a number of articles in its Monday edition offering analysis. Every one painted a bleak picture of a party—and leader—in disarray.

Conventions are usually opportunities for political parties to marshal the troops and whip up some enthusiasm. For O’Toole, this one was more about papering over internal divisions, most notably from social conservatives who hold the balance of power in the party.

On that front, steps were taken before the convention to dissolve the riding association of former leadership contender Derek Sloan—so he couldn’t stack the convention with anti-abortion crowd—and prevent the candidacy to the party’s national council of former federal candidate Ghada Melek over anti-Muslim comments she’s made in the past.

It didn’t work. Instead, headlines coming out the convention focused almost entirely on how the party is full of climate change deniers after delegates voted down a motion to declare climate change real. 

It’s been a rough seven months at the helm for O’Toole. Most Canadians still don’t know what he stands for, which is why he’s shifted gears in recent weeks and cast off the Captain Canada shtick for ads aimed at reintroducing himself to Canadians. To borrow a golf term, he’s taking a mulligan.

It’s been quite the slide for O’Toole, whose personal approval ratings have steadily been going south. He has no one to blame but himself, of course.

Conventional wisdom coming out of the leadership in August was that O’Toole had to broaden the tent for the party to have any hope of winning in Ontario and Quebec. Instead, he continued to listen to the frat boys and nincompoops among his gaff-prone advisers intent on turning the Cons into the Trump party of the north.

He’s changed tack recently, giving the boot from caucus to anti-vaxxer Sloan and demoting loudmouth Pierre Poilievre from his finance critic role. The new(er) Erin O’Toole is decidedly less the “true blue” conservative he painted himself as to win the leadership. He and his advisers now seem to have made the decision to go after Red Tories that deserted the Cons in 2015 for the Liberals—as well as whatever votes they can scrape from the NDP by pretending to be the party of the working class. 

Who is O’Toole kidding? Those voters will never come back. O’Toole saw to that—he alienated the wing of the party that supported Peter MacKay for leader.

But O’Toole has a bigger problem. The Conservative party of 2021 is arguably more of an ideological rump in Canada than it was under its previous incarnations as Reform and the Canadian Alliance.

As other political pundits have noted post-convention, somewhere along the way, winning became the only thing for the Cons, even if that meant embracing extremist elements on the right.

The Cons are still the party of choice in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and nationally polls show they’re only a few points behind the Libs, which is not a good starting point to begin with. Also, the party is nowhere near where it needs to be in Ontario or Quebec, and putting up zeroes in Atlantic Canada. 

O’Toole’s hyper partisan bickering during the pandemic hasn’t helped his cause.  

He said during his speech at the convention that it’s time for the party to change with the times. But it may be more accurate to say that he’s the one out of step with his party. 

O’Toole is gambling that the party’s base won’t desert him as he attempts to steer a more moderate course. But early reviews suggest he’s got another thing coming with fringe elements in the party talking up dumping him as leader even before the next election. 

That’s not likely to happen, but it wouldn’t be unprecedented. Social conservatives in the party control almost half the seats on the national council. And we all remember what happened to Patrick Brown when he tried to steer the Ontario PCs to the political centre. He was dumped for Doug Ford, who went on to win a majority.

O’Toole is not fixing to go to the polls, or so he says. But the Conservative party’s official communications team has been sending out confusing signals. An election could still happen. The Liberals announced this week that they will table a budget on April 19. They’ll need one of the Bloc or NDP to support it to avoid a non-confidence vote. Given the way O’Toole is flailing, Liberals may be looking to find a way to make an election happen sooner rather than later.