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The Conservative MP for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan is coming to the defence of his party leader.
In a Facebook post Friday, Tom Lukiwski says the campaign to get Andrew Scheer to resign is not coming from widespread discontent amongst the grassroots.
“It is time to call a spade a spade and to call ‘shame’ on those acting shamefully,” Lukiwski wrote.
“Rather, the entire campaign, played out in both conventional media and social media, has been driven by a small cabal of backroom boys, many of them former supporters of Maxime Bernier and veterans of an assortment of far-right third-party advertisers. Not to put too fine a point on it, they are mercenaries and trolls, trying to manipulate and concoct division and discontent that does not exist.”
Speaking about the post by phone on Tuesday, Lukiwski said he was prompted to write it when he started reading stories about organized efforts to oust Scheer and call his leadership into question.
“It just struck me that this is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. Something like this — it is destructive, it was counterproductive, it’s divisive to the party,” Lukiwski said.
Scheer has been facing calls to resign after failing to win the last election.
Kory Teneycke, a former spokesperson for Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, is among those calling for Scheer to step down. Teneycke was also running Maxime Bernier’s failed leadership campaign with Scheer as his main rival.
Teneycke is one of three founding members of Conservative Victory, a non-profit group calling on Scheer to resign and run for the leader’s position.
“These groups that are coming up now, I believe, have certain agendas at work,” Lukiwski said. “I’m not sure what exactly those agendas are, maybe financial, maybe personal, maybe political but nonetheless, for them to try and force Mr. Scheer into resigning is completely inappropriate in my view because it’s the members and only the members that have that responsibility and that right.”
On Friday, MP and former cabinet minister Ed Fast said he turned down a position in Scheer’s shadow cabinet, saying the party needed people who fully supported Scheer.
Earlier in November, Scheer won the support of caucus but he still faces a leadership review in April next year.
In Lukiwski’s view, that is the proper arena for discussions about Scheer’s future as leader.
“The Conservative Party operates by rules and, on the topic of leadership, the rule is clear: the members decide,” he wrote. “There is an established process for members to review the leader’s performance at the first convention after an election.”
Lukiwski said he has been urging others in caucus to voice support for Scheer.
He pointed to Sen. Denise Batters, who Tweeted a video on Saturday that compared this past election defeat to the one in 2004, from which the Conservatives rebounded to victory under Harper.
In the next few days and weeks, Lukiwski expects more of his caucus colleagues to come out with public statements of their own, saying it’s the party members who decide on Scheer’s leadership.
The MP said Scheer currently has his support as leader — now and in April.
— With files from The Canadian Press
