Federal Conservative MP Peter McKay, right, is greeted by his father and former Tory cabinet minister Elmer McKay after arriving at his campaign headquarters in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, on October 14, 2008. Mike Dembeck / The Canadian Press
A veteran cabinet minister led by Brian Mulroney says the evolution of the Conservative Party is an inevitability that some critical members of the Veterans Party must accept.
Elmer McKay commented on Monday in response to concerns expressed by former Conservative Sen. Margery LeBretton and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney about the party’s direction during the current race.
“It is fashionable to say that a party has lost its direction. The same can be said for each of the parties. I don’t think the Conservative Party has lost its way, “said McKay, 85, from his home in Nova Scotia.
Also Monday, Mr McKay, Mr Advocate General, Minister for National Revenue and Minister for Public Works under Mr Mulroney in the 1980s and 1990s, said he supported Pierre Poaliver for the Conservative leadership, in part because the Ottawa MP has qualities similar to Mr. Mulroney, who leads the Progressive Conservative Party.
Ms. LeBretton – who worked with progressive Conservative leaders from the 1960s to the 1990s before being appointed to the Senate – told Global News over the weekend that she was concerned about the direction in which Mr n Poilievre takes over the party as he seeks its leadership.
Ms LeBreton said that the candidates for Conservative leaders who joined the “complaints brigade” were doing a “bear service” not only to the party but also to the country.
And she said the “great adjustment” made in 2003 between Stephen Harper as leader of the Canadian Alliance and former progressive Conservative leader Peter McKay, Elmer McKay’s son, was a “break that could not be repaired.”
Mr Mulroney, meanwhile, recently said, according to La Presse, that he was no longer recognized in the current Conservative Party.
Mr McKay said he certainly sees himself in the current Conservative Party. “I think it’s a danger for people like Marjorie LeBretton and a few others to say that because they have certain opinions that the party has left them and they have left the party,” he said.
“I have seen supposedly many loyal conservatives, for personal reasons, leave the party and then say, ‘Oh. It’s not my fault. It’s the party’s fault, “said Mr McKay, an MP from 1971 to 1993, excluding the year he stood aside while Mr Mulroney represented his administration in Central Nova.
“You have to keep the spirit of team support along with any sense of personal resentment you have. It’s easy to take your balls and go home. ”
He said he had qualities he liked in the Conservative leadership candidates, but said Mr Poilievre was an independent thinker with a “frank and bold approach” who did not deviate from his principles.
Mr McKay defended Mr Poilievre’s call for the dismissal of the governor of the Bank of Canada, noting that many people were disappointed with the bank’s anti-inflation efforts. “I don’t want to interpret what Pierre said, but what he meant was that the Bank of Canada needs a second look and they don’t have to have all the answers.
On Mr Poilievre’s support for the convoy’s protests, Mr MacKay said Mr Poilievre was in favor of a fair hearing of the protesters. “I think it’s a shame that the government was so fast and other people focused so quickly on the dissidents, not on the hearts of the people who went so far, so long, to try to get a hearing,” he said.
“I just like this man and I see in him some of the qualities that I saw in Brian Mulroney when our party was stagnant and we were going very slowly and [not getting] everywhere with Joe Clark and it struck me that Mulroney was a man with the potential to change things. I feel the same way about Pierre Poalievre. ”
In 1983, Mr Mulroney succeeded Joe Clark as leader of the Progressive Conservatives and led the party to 211 of 282 seats in the 1984 election campaign.
Mr McKay said Mr Poilievre’s “greatest danger” was to allow his critics to categorize him as an extremist. “I am convinced it is not. If it was, I would not support it so enthusiastically,” he said.
Mr McKay said his son Peter had his own views on the leadership race. In a tweet in April, Peter McKay, Mr Harper’s cabinet minister, posted a photo of former MP Leona Aleslev, then in the race, and wrote that he was proud to support all candidates whenever and wherever he could. Peter did not respond to a request for comment.
The Conservatives are ready to announce their new leader based on a September 10 mail vote. Ontario MPs Scott Aichison, Leslin Lewis and Mr. Poaliver are running, as is former Quebec Prime Minister Jean Charest, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and Roman Baber, a former member of the Ontario legislature.
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