Tory, NDP caucus meetings underway
Posted Sep 13, 2016 8:12 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Two political parties in the process of searching for new leaders are opening caucus meetings Tuesday.
The New Democrats are meeting in Montreal — with multiple sources telling the Canadian Press that a concerted effort is underway to push Tom Mulcair to step down sooner than later.
Conservatives are meeting in Halifax where Interim Leader Rona Ambrose opened her party’s first caucus meeting of the fall session, saying Justin Trudeau’s government has spent the summer finding new ways to spend money and raise taxes.
The party learned Monday that Former Cabinet Minister Peter MacKay won’t join the race to replace Stephen Harper.
It came as a surprise to many, but University of Toronto political scientist Nelson Wiseman believes MacKay when he says it’s because he wants to spend time with his family.
“This is one of the cases where I find it credible. In most cases I don’t, but this is a case where it all adds up and it makes sense,” he said. “I say that because he didn’t run in last year’s election, so he made a conscious decision then.”
Even though MacKay would have been the clear front runner, Wiseman doesn’t think it would have been a slam dunk win.
“There have been many cases in which the person who’s touted as the front runner at the beginning doesn’t end up taking it, it just depends on the dynamics of how many people, what the rules are at the convention and so on,” he explained.
He adds, MacKay’s decision shouldn’t change the race since a number of candidates have already put their name forward.
That’s very different from the NDP, which Wiseman says appears to have closed and locked the leadership nomination barn doors.
