Posted on 08/24/2020 4:50:11 AM PDT by xp38
The second time, as it turns out, is the charm: Erin O’Toole will be the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
The Durham MP won the race to replace Andrew Scheer as leader of the party in a physically distanced hybrid convention Sunday night. That capped off a campaign forced to pivot repeatedly to adjust to life and politics in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
This race was the second at bat for O’Toole after he previously ran and lost to Scheer in the 2017 Conservative leadership race, taking third place in that campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at globalnews.ca ...
Does anyone have background or details on this for those of us who do not closely follow Canadian politics?
Is this a good guy or what?
I haven’t been following the contest closely. The favourite to win was Peter McKay but obviously he lost. What little I have read was McKay was the more left leaning of the candidates. Therefore O’Toole was less left leaning. He got support from a social conservative on the last ballot apparently so there is that. I know this is bare bones but this guy will be facing Trudeau in the next election in a few years or sooner.
I went to High School with him. I was class of 1990, and he was 1991.
He was a moderately-popular kid, probably ranked about Gamma in the pecking order, and the last I had heard of him (until he entered politics) was that he’d gone to RMCC and was eventually commissioned into the Air Force.
He has a charisma deficit, but he is solid on the major conservative issues of government spending restraint, the energy sector, immigration, foreign policy (he’s no friend of the chi-coms, military, and law and order. He’s not a social conservative but he promised he wouldn’t silence them in the party. That last point remains to be seen. Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the same promise in 1994, then prevented his party from having any serious debate over issues such as abortion.
Sorry I meant 2004 - not 1994.
Never seen a man with a female name, “Erin.”
You are really going to get mad with Kelly then.
I may not have made myself clear. Obviously there are men out there with feminine names, only that I’ve never seen a man by the name of “Erin”, which is one that tends to be exclusively female.
Sophia Gingerwell for sure. I knew a girl named Erin once, redhead with freckles, she beat me at chess, I should have been looking at the board not looking at the city.
Anyway, there had been no recent polling but this comes as a mild surprise.
MacKay had been the frontrunner, former cabinet minister, a “red tory” (read: RINO), last leader of the old PC party before it merged into the new Conservative party. The most tested leader by a mile. Quit parliament rather than risk losing during the Poodoh jr. election in 2015.
O’Toole quite frankly has also been pretty much a red tory but has gone out of his way to present himself as true blue.
Lewis (black lady and pro-life, not that abortion is in danger of ending in Canada but she at least was in favor of admitting she is a social conservative) was the most promising choice, she swept the west on the 2nd ballot. I wonder if she could have won if she had passed MacKay (it was close), probably not as she wouldn’t have been the choice of MacKay voters. I hope she is elected to parliament and becomes a member of the Tory frontbench.
A 4th candidate was the most conservative, no chance.
I see O’Toole did the best in Quebec, I hope that means he is able to win seats there because unless you can do what Harper did and clean up in Ontario, you need more seats in Quebec or you can’t win. MacKay was clearly unacceptable to the party base for him to lose decisively to a rather underwhelming challenger in O’Toole.
There are dudes named Kelly
https://www.behindthename.com/name/kelly/top/united-states
I had never heard of a dude named “Erin” before this guy but....apperently he is not alone, it did register as a boy’s name
https://www.behindthename.com/name/erin/top/united-states
Wikipedia lists a few other famous male Erins, including another Canadian MP, Erin Weir
Must be a Canadian thing. Like all those dudes named Clark, or in England with all those blokes named Nigel. You almost never have American-born men with those names.
Behind the name doesn’t have it ever registering as a boy’s name in Canada, I don’t know how complete that data is though. It slightly registered in the US, at one point cracking the top 500.
The other male Erin’s with a wiki page are
A black guy, football player (US)
A Samoan Soccer player
A New Zealand Maori Rugby Player
And a soccer player from Cape Verde
It's a Gaelic thing. Ethyl (sp) is also a man's name, there was a pro golfer contestant on You Bet Your Life back in the 1950s.
To add insult to injury, I have know Aarons (2) who were girls.
Another one born in Quebec.
Hopefully growing up in Ontario has done lots of good to him.
. Lindsey Graham must be smiling now. Good luck mocking his name in the future when FR en masse and supports a 52 year old dude named Chloe next!
Good lord
https://www.behindthename.com/name/ethel/top/united-states
There were male Ethels!!! Almost a top 400 name in 1898.
Another weird coincidence...the Canadian Parliament actually managed to have TWO men named ‘Erin’ recently. The other is Erin Weir, who was expelled from the NDP party after sexual assault allegations, and I believe either didn’t run again or was defeated for re-election in 2019. I’ve never met ONE guy named Erin, let alone two serving in the same body. What are the odds?
:^) Oh, it gets weirder than that, and just in Ireland. ;^)
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