COMMENTARY: Scheer disaster revisited

When Andrew Scheer announced his resignation at leader of the Conservative Party of Canada earlier this month, my thoughts immediately went back to a column I wrote shortly after his election as leader in May 2017 which I had entitled “Scheer Disaster.”

Without being a braggart, I must say that the column now seems a bit prophetic given the last couple of years.

In that column, I challenged the notion that Scheer was “Harper with a smile” and if only he could lighten up the conservative image they would win the next election. I was more inclined to see Scheer as Preston Manning with an evil grin. Scheer, like Manning, was a hard-right Reformist who would make the party even more socially conservative than it was under Harper.

As the post-election analysis has shown his failure to adequately clarify his and the party's positions on social issues contributed greatly to the CPC's defeat in October's election.

While some are suggesting it was a “special arrangement” Scheer had made with party officials regarding the education of his children at private schools that precipitated his ouster, I believe it was the social conservative agenda which forced him to go. That special deal was not so special in the realm of politics and had been approved by the appropriate party authorities. But it makes for a nice excuse.

In that May 2017 column, I declared that it was “Howdy Doody Time for the Conservatives” as Andrew Scheer, with his boyish face, square chin, and perpetual smile and dimples, bore a striking resemblance to the puppet character from that 1950s to 1960s television show.

So it is perhaps fitting to use another reference to the show for the ending of his political leadership. One of the other main characters of the show as “Clarabelle the Clown” who never spoke until the very last frame of the very last show. And then only one word, “Goodbye”

Goodbye Andrew!

Frank Likely lives in Springhill and writes a weekly column for the Amherst News.