Scheer’s resignation shocks Manitoba MPs

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This article was published 11/12/2019 (1594 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Andrew Scheer’s end-date as Conservative leader had been hotly debated since the party’s disappointing result in the October federal election, but his sudden announcement on Thursday that he will resign caught many Manitoba politicians by surprise.

“Today is a tough day for all of us in caucus,” Tory MP James Bezan told the Free Press. “We love him.”

The two have been friends since both were elected in 2004. As Scheer told the Commons he’d be stepping down, Bezan pressed his lips together, nodding side to side.

“Andrew Scheer is a good man; he served the party with distinction.”

Manitoba Sen. Don Plett, the Conservative leader in the upper house, said he felt “bitter” that Scheer was stepping down.

The party fell flat in vote-rich areas around Toronto and Montreal, though the Tories won more votes than any other party in the Oct. 21 election.

“Somehow the media and the critics managed to taint all of that into a loss. How do you win with those kinds of attacks? Andrew made some of those points when he spoke with us,” Plett told this newspaper.

“There were people that had their own agenda.”

In Winnipeg, Premier Brian Pallister commended Scheer for his work as Commons speaker and Tory leader, all while raising young children.

“It’s a tremendously difficult situation that Mr. Scheer faced,” Pallister told reporters.

The premier said October’s result “wasn’t enough to satisfy, I suppose, many in the Conservative movement,” and encouraged Manitobans to take out Conservative memberships and help select the new leader.

Pallister rejected the idea of running to lead the federal Tories, though Sen. Plett said he’d make a great candidate.

Rumours swirled Thursday around Parliament Hill that Scheer had resigned after members learned that the party subsidized his children’s private schooling, though a Conservative spokesman would not link the two.

The party confirmed paying to cover the added cost of private school in Ottawa compared with Regina, “as is the normal practice for political parties,” and would not specify the amount. Scheer has five children.

The issue appeared to have prompted a second caucus meeting Thursday evening, after some Tories publicly balked at the party paying that cost.

Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Bergen sat beside Scheer with a sombre expression, as he told the House he needed to focus on his family.

“He always respected me in my decisions, and he gave me so many opportunities,” Bergen said in an interview. Scheer appointed her House leader, a senior role that involves negotiating with other parties in the Commons on votes and timing.

“He’s such a great guy; he actually would have made a very, very good prime minister,” she said. “I know the toll this job can have on your family and relationships.”

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“If you look on balance at the sacrifices and the contributions that he’s made to Canadian public life, this is a day to thank him,” MP Jim Carr told reporters.

NDP MP Leah Gazan said Scheer’s “excessive” support for the oilsands and discomfort with LGBTTQ+ issues and abortion made him unappealing as a federal leader in urban Canada.

“A lot of people saw the writing on the wall,” said the new MP for Winnipeg Centre. “It was pretty clear after the election.”

— With files from Larry Kusch

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca