Ontario MP Scott Aitchison makes Tory leadership bid official

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OTTAWA — Two extra Conservative MPs joined the get together’s management roster Sunday, with Ontario’s Scott Aitchison and British Columbia’s Marc Dalton launching their campaigns.

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Aitchison, 49, selected a craft brewery in his hometown of Huntsville, Ont., for his opening occasion, promising to carry an finish to the hyper-partisan antics and political video games which are the norm now in Canadian politics.

“Extra partisan bickering is solely not the reply,” he mentioned, as an lively crowd waved vibrant indicators merely printed with the phrase “Scott” on them.

“Fixing issues requires actual management. I’ve been in Parliament now two phrases. And I’m dismayed by the vitality wasted on political video games, as an alternative of getting issues accomplished. What’s lacking in Ottawa is management.”

He promised a marketing campaign freed from assaults on his opponents that focuses on the financial system, nationwide and international safety, local weather change and housing.

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Dalton, 61, did his launch on Twitter, saying in a posted video that one in all his first actions as chief shall be to provoke a public inquiry into how the federal Liberals dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dalton accused the Liberals of utilizing pandemic contracts to line the pockets of their associates, making choices primarily based on politics moderately than public well being, and ignoring proof about vaccine accidents to push forward with “coercive measures to get individuals vaccinated.”

Each males have been first elected to the Home of Commons in 2019. Aitchison beforehand served as a councillor after which mayor in Huntsville, and Dalton as a B.C. Liberal MLA.

Their entrance means there at the moment are 4 sitting MPs operating, together with Pierre Poilievre and Leslyn Lewis.

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There at the moment are eight candidates in whole, with the 4 sitting MPs joined by former Quebec premier Jean Charest, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, impartial Ontario MPP Roman Baber and Saskatchewan businessman Joseph Bourgault.

The Conservatives are selecting their third chief in 5 years after Erin O’Toole was voted out of the job by the Conservative caucus in early February.

The candidates have till April 19 to enter the race and till June 3 to promote memberships. The vote will happen Sept. 10.

Aitchison’s pledge to not run a marketing campaign of assaults is in stark distinction to a lot of what has been taking place within the race to this point.

Brown and Poilievre went at one another straight on Twitter final week after Brown accused Poilievre of supporting “discriminatory insurance policies” that focus on immigrants whereas a cupboard minister in 2015.

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He referred particularly to Poilievre’s assist for a ban in opposition to ladies sporting a niqab throughout citizenship ceremonies, which was a coverage of the previous Conservative authorities that was ultimately struck down by the courts.

In response Poilievre accused Brown of outright “lies” about every part from the niqab ban coverage, to his place on carbon taxes and Ontario’s new sex-ed curriculum.

Poilievre in flip has levied sharp assaults at Charest, a former Progressive Conservative get together chief nationally who led the provincial Liberals in Quebec. Poilievre has mentioned Charest just isn’t a real Conservative.

Poilievre, with endorsements from 44 present Conservative MPs, is taken into account the front-runner within the contest, nicely eclipsing caucus endorsements for Charest, who has 9, and Brown and Lewis who each have two.

On Saturday, Brown acquired a giant endorsement enhance from Calgary MP Michelle Rempel Garner, who had declined to endorse anybody in both of the final two contests.

Aitchison’s sole MP endorsement Sunday got here from Kenora MP Eric Melillo.