Jean Charest and the center of Canadian politics

Jul 22, 2022

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WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK. I'm your host, Maura Forrest, with Nick Taylor-Vaisey. Today, we dive into the chatter about JEAN CHAREST and a new political party. We raise a very important question about PIERRE POILIEVRE's latest video. And public servants REALLY don't want to go back to the office.

DRIVING THE DAY

TO THE CENTER — Will JEAN CHAREST launch a new, centrist party if he loses the Conservative leadership to PIERRE POILIEVRE?

It's a provocative idea that's been making the rounds this week, and was given oxygen in La Presse by columnist YVES BOISVERT , who said "the hypothesis of some kind of center-right coalition has been openly discussed for several weeks" among Charest's entourage.

— On Thursday, La Presse Canadienne's MICHEL SABA published a story claiming Charest's team refused to say whether he would remain a member of the Conservative Party if he loses the leadership race, which only poured fuel on the fire.

That story prompted a direct response from Charest on Twitter , who said he's "been a proud Conservative for over 30 years and will always remain one."

— TASHA KHEIRIDDIN, Charest's campaign co-chair, flatly denied to Playbook that there's any talk of launching a new party. "It is not something that is being talked about by any organized group," she said. "I have heard people anecdotally… who are concerned about the future of the party and worry about this possibility."

But Kheiriddin's new book, " The Right Path ," is part of what got this ball rolling. In the book, published earlier this month, she contemplates the creation of a new center-right party if the populist and centrist factions of the Conservative Party can't reconcile their differences. Boisvert's column quoted her.

She's quick to say a new party isn't her preferred option. "I don't think that's the path to take, because I don't think that it leads to government," she told Playbook. "The right answer is to really find a way to keep the family together."

— But as Poilievre's victory looks more and more assured, moderate conservatives are trying to make their voices heard . Next month, a conference in Edmonton hosted by Centre Ice Conservatives, the brainchild of former Conservative leadership candidate RICK PETERSON, will give a platform to folks in the center.

Speakers include former B.C. premier CHRISTY CLARK, Kheiriddin, former senator MARJORY LEBRETON and Globe and Mail columnist ANDREW COYNE.

Peterson told Playbook he has "unequivocally zero interest in creating a new political party." But he did say the Conservatives won't win the next election if they don't reflect centrist concerns. "If we lose the fourth election in a row because we don't appeal to mainstream Canadians, that would be the death knell of the Conservative Party as we know it."

— For a dose of reality: Here's what former Conservative Cabinet minister LISA RAITT had to say about the idea of a split in an email to Playbook: "Starting a new party is not a short-term solution. It would take years to build infrastructure and membership. And in that time there would continue to be a Liberal government. I'm not against or for it — I just recognize the significant challenges."

— The real question, for now, is what Poilievre will do with the party if he does win the leadership. Clark told the Globe and Mail this week that Poilievre will likely pivot to the center if he wins, as "most politicians" do.

— But what if he doesn't? "There is no grand pivot. I am who I am," Poilievre told the Calgary Sun's RICK BELL earlier this month. The National Post's JOHN IVISON seems to buy it : "There will be no pivot; no apologies; no retreat," he wrote this week.

— If that's true, then a bunch of moderates may be about to find themselves without a home. And at that point, does the new party idea that apparently no one is thinking about start to look a little more appealing?

CONSERVATIVE CORNER

A THIRD DEBATE — The Conservative Party's leadership election organizing committee has decided to hold a third official debate in August. Charest had been pushing publicly for another chance to face off against his rivals earlier this week.

— But on Thursday afternoon, Poilievre adviser JENNI BYRNE released a statement indicating the frontrunner won't be attending. Here are some choice excerpts from the missive, which was phrased with all the subtlety and civility you've come to expect from his campaign:

"Pierre Poilievre participated in two official Conservative Party debates. … It was not the campaign's fault that the Party's Edmonton debate was widely recognized as an embarrassment."

— And then: "Jean Charest has had a hard time getting even a couple dozen people to his campaign events. That is why he wants another debate — to use Pierre's popularity with the members to bring out an audience he can't get on his own."

— Clap-back: Charest's campaign released a statement of their own , calling Poilievre's decision "an act of disrespect and humiliation to the Party leadership."

— Of course: These official debates are supposed to be mandatory for all candidates. Here's STEPHANIE TAYLOR for the Canadian Press, suggesting the Poilievre campaign may face a C$50,000 fine if he doesn't show.

THE GATEKEEPERS — Poilievre put out another of his videos on Thursday , this time promising to approve a runway expansion at Toronto's Billy Bishop airport that would allow jets to land downtown.

— Here's the thing, though: In the video, he's walking along, listing off the people who got in the way of a previous proposal to extend the runway, and JUST AS he says the word "gatekeepers," he arrives at … an actual gate. Or a bit of fencing or something. It's right in his way, stopping him in his tracks.

— How did he do this? Did his team time how long his speech was and then walk back from the gate to figure out where he should start? Did they film a dozen takes until he landed at the gate at the right time? Was this all just a beautiful coincidence?

— This isn't the first time this has happened: In another recent video , he ended up right alongside a truck just as he was bemoaning the high price of diesel. HOW?? We asked Poilievre's campaign and they didn't tell us.

— Is there any point to this, you ask? Not really. Mostly we're just curious. Except that part of what's so skillful about these videos is that they seem entirely effortless. Poilievre seems like he's just talking off-the-cuff, just chatting, really. But maybe there's a little more to them than meets the eye.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

9:30 a.m. (10:30 a.m. ADT) Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU will meet with local families in Queens County, P.E.I. Veterans Affairs Minister LAWRENCE MACAULAY will also attend.

11 a.m. Indigenous Services Minister PATTY HAJDU will make an infrastructure announcement in Thunder Bay, Ont.

12:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m. ADT) Trudeau will meet with local fishers in Prince County, P.E.I.

1:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. CST) Agriculture Minister MARIE-CLAUDE BIBEAU will hold a press conference in Saskatoon to discuss the annual conference of federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers.

4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m. PDT) NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH and MP PETER JULIAN will meet with firefighters in Burnaby, B.C.

6 p.m. (3 p.m. PDT) Singh and Julian will meet with Burnaby Mayor MIKE HURLEY.

7:40 p.m. (4:40 p.m. PDT) Singh and Julian will attend the Vancouver Bubble Tea Festival.

— On Sunday:

1:20 p.m. (11:20 a.m. MDT) POPE FRANCIS will arrive in Edmonton, Alta. Governor General MARY SIMON will welcome him to Canada at the airport. He has no public events that day.

4 p.m. Conservative leadership candidate PIERRE POILIEVRE will hold a meet-and-greet in Barrie, Ont. , which was once the federal riding represented by former rival PATRICK BROWN.

ALSO FOR YOUR RADAR

EAT FRESH — Redditors aren't known for their collective subtlety. So when a manager at Health Canada told a departmental town hall why she preferred to work from a real office instead of a home office, the subreddit inhabited by feisty public servants blew up with mean-spirited mockery and memes.

— Where it all started: The Wednesday town hall , hosted by deputy minister STEPHEN LUCAS and associate deputy minister HEATHER JEFFREY, offered "an update on phase two of re-entry to the workplace and the hybrid work environment."

Enter the department's director of privacy, ANDRÉA ROUSSEAU. Asked to share her own experience, Rousseau relayed a short anecdote involving a Subway sandwich artist near her office whose income relied on patronage just like hers.

The redditors concluded their phased-in return to work was all for poor Subway. So out came the memes . So many of them . Endless savagery .

— What this is really about: Policy Options reporter KATHRYN MAY published a story Wednesday on PCO clerk JANICE CHARETTE 's push for a return to office for bureaucrats across the land. "My expectation is that departments are actively testing hybrid work models," Charette reportedly wrote to deputy ministers.

As May spells out, the clerk can't tell departments how to do their business. Only Treasury Board, the government's actual employer, can hand down directives from on high. But it's deferring to departments on how to organize the workplace. So the public service is a decentralized mosaic of office planning.

Clear as mud? We thought so.

— The personal response: Rousseau tweeted a defense of her anecdote . "I was asked to share my experience in the hopes that others who are feeling anxious could relate," she said. "In keeping with who I am, I infused some humour. I suffer from extreme anxiety and humor helps.

"Regrettably, a colleague hiding behind a Reddit handle felt the need to minimize my comments and what has ensued has been vitriol and hate of a kind that I could have never expected. It was like (a) gut punch.

"You are allowed to not agree with me. That is your right. But attacking my character, my competencies to do my job and my integrity is not OK. I could have just left this alone, but as a mom to a young girl I constantly tell her to stand up for herself. So I am too."

— The level-headed intervention: Leave it to MICHAEL KARLIN, the strategic policy lead at the Canadian Digital Service, to offer sanity. "If you're not happy with your back to work situation, write your union. Over and over again. You deserve a safe workplace and the information to make health and safety decisions for yourself and your family," he tweeted .

"Collective labor action is good but you can do so without mean-spirited remarks about people as individuals. They're more likely to listen to you."

— Further reading: May recently launched a newsletter called The Functionary. The latest edition goes deep on the epic fight over where public servants should spend their workdays .

HOW THE TABLES HAVE TURNED — Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT was heckled at an event in Montreal on Thursday by a protester who called him a "climate criminal."

It wasn't great timing on the protester's part, given the news conference was about the monkeypox outbreak rather than the climate. Still, one imagines it had to be galling for the former environmental activist, who is himself no stranger to civil disobedience .

— At issue: The protester was upset about Guilbeault's approval of the controversial C$12 billion Bay du Nord offshore oil project. Guilbeault clearly had mixed feelings about the decision, telling the Toronto Star in April that he "never thought [he] would come into politics to say yes to an oil project."

SUMMERTIME READS

Today's picks come from Hub editor-at-large and former Harper adviser SEAN SPEER.

BRAIN FOOD

I read a lot of books because our podcast, Hub Dialogues , often speaks to authors of new books.

I just read, for instance, a book by British left-wing lawyer, DAVID RENTON, " Against the Law: Why Justice Requires Fewer Laws and a Smaller State ," which provocatively argues that progressives have to come rely too much on laws and regulations to advance their goals and need to recommit themselves to social activism and mass movements.

One book that I'm reading on my own rather than in preparation of a podcast recording is COLE SUMMERS' " Don't Tell Me I Can't: An Ambitious Homeschooler's Journey ." BARI WEISS recently published an essay at her Substack by a young homeschooler in Utah who by the age of 10 owned and was running a 350-acre farmstead.

It was an extraordinary story made even more extraordinary and tragic [because] the essay's author, Cole Summers (whose real name was KEVIN COOPER), drowned while kayaking with his brother after his essay was submitted but before it was published. Kevin wrote an autobiography earlier this year that tells his story of self-education and entrepreneurship. I recently bought it and plan to read it this summer.

GUILTY PLEASURE

The Hockey News , Season Preview Issue

Politics and policy take a backseat to my real passion, which is hockey. A sign that the end of summer is near is that the Hockey News releases its annual season preview issue for the upcoming NHL season. As a kid, I used to memorize it. I still buy it as soon as it comes out and read it cover-to-cover.

Here's our summer 2022 reading list so far .

Send us your reading suggestions — your brain food and your guilty pleasure! We'll share them in the Playbook newsletter.

MEDIA ROOM

— A third-party investigation found former Unifor President JERRY DIAS "tried to impede a probe into his conduct and pressured a whistleblower to drop their complaint about an alleged kickback scandal," the Toronto Star's SARA MOJTEHEDZADEH and ROSA SABA report .

— The German government told Ottawa if the Nord Stream turbines weren't returned, Berlin would be forced to halt military and economic aid to Ukraine, according to the Globe and Mail's STEVEN CHASE and ROBERT FIFE .

— POLITICO's KYLE CHENEY and NICHOLAS WU have all the latest on the Jan. 6 select committee hearings.

— The latest episode of POLITICO's EU Confidential podcast dives into Europe's devastating heat wave.

PAPER TRAIL

EV SALES — Zero-emission vehicles made up 7.7 percent of new vehicle registrations in the first quarter of 2022, according to Statistics Canada . That's up from 5.2 percent in 2021, though it's still a long way from the government's 2026 target, when the Liberals want 20 percent of new vehicle sales to be emissions-free.

Almost all of the 26,000 electric and plug-in hybrid cars registered in the first three months of this year were in British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario. In Ontario, EV registrations more than doubled from the first quarter of 2021.

Montreal was the metropolitan area with the most new EV registrations (6,260), followed by Vancouver (5,035) and Toronto (4,176).

— Some added context: Even as EV registrations rose 55 percent compared to last year, overall vehicle registrations dropped 10 percent from the first quarter of 2021, which StatsCan links to the global semiconductor shortage .

— Also to note: SUVs remain "Canadians' vehicle type of choice," StatsCan reports, accounting for 57 percent of new cars registered in early 2022.

— For more: Check out Statistics Canada's nifty new interactive tool that lets you compare vehicle sales by fuel type, vehicle type and province.

PROZONE

For POLITICO Pro subscribers, catch up to our latest policy newsletter from ANDY BLATCHFORD: Bring on another Conservative leadership debate.

In other news for subscribers:

— Artificial intelligence offers hope in reducing sepsis deaths.

— Senate votes to temporarily suspend tariffs on baby formula.

— What's in the Senate's far-reaching decriminalization package?

— Democrats urge Cardona to outline how colleges must protect students seeking abortions.

— United CEO apologizes for blaming flight disruptions on FAA.

PLAYBOOKERS

Birthdays: HBD to former Bloc Québécois leader GILLES DUCEPPE, Kitchener MP VALERIE BRADFORD, Sen. MARILOU MCPHEDRAN, former Newfoundland MP BILL MATTHEWS, former Manitoba MP ANITA NEVILLE, RUFUS WAINWRIGHT and ALEX TREBEK (RIP).

Happy 3-0 to SHAE MCGLYNN, Rubicon Strategy's milestone-celebrating director of public affairs.

Saturday celebrations: B.C. Public Safety Minister MIKE FARNWORTH, Sen. TONY LOFFREDA (60!), Journal de Montréal columnist RICHARD MARTINEAU, former Ottawa MP DAVID DAUBNEY.

Sunday: ANNA PAQUIN turns 40! Also celebrating: former Ontario minister and ex-Liberal MP GERARD KENNEDY, former Oakville MP TERENCE YOUNG, former Alberta MP BRENT RATHGEBER, former Ontario minister SEAN CONWAY.

Send birthdays to ottawaplaybook@politico.com .

Spotted: U.S. President JOE BIDEN, testing positive for Covid .

RAJ GREWAL ( yes, that Raj Grewal ), telling Brampton Mayor PATRICK BROWN and the two warring groups of city councilors to smarten up.

Some of the 170 safety inspectors for the Technical Standards and Safety Authority who walked off the job Thursday, picketing outside Canada's Wonderland .

Canada Post, releasing "fun and fanciful" new stamps to celebrate Canada's vintage carousels.

Movers and shakers: Veterans Affairs Minister LAWRENCE MACAULAY has announced that 33 new members have been added across the department's six ministerial advisory groups.

Media mentions: MICHELLE CARBERT is leaving journalism "after nearly a decade on Parliament Hill and 6.5 years at The Globe and Mail."

The CBC's JUDY TRINH is joining CTV National News as a correspondent in their Ottawa bureau.

Farewells: Former Liberal MP REX CRAWFORD has died. "He was well known as an independent thinker who didn't always toe the party line," his obituary reads .

TRIVIA

Thursday's answer: It was Canadian film director NORMAN JEWISON who described his encounter with an immigration officer at a Toronto airport by saying, "Only in my native country would an official in a department of the federal government question my sanity in returning home."

Jewison turned 96 on Thursday.

Props to KEVIN BOSCH, NANCI WAUGH, DOUG RICE, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, SHEILA GERVAIS and BRAM ABRAMSON .

Friday's question: Seventy-five years ago today, a famous nuclear reactor was activated in Canada. Where was it located? Bonus points: What technology did it help pioneer?

Send your answers to ottawaplaybook@politico.com

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