DURHAM:Durham Member of Parliament (MP) Erin O’Toole has officially announced he is running in the race to replace Andrew Scheer as leader of the federal Conservative party.
Mr. O’Toole launched his campaign by releasing a video on his social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter, on Monday, January 27th.
“The country needs a strong Conservative Party. We need strong leadership to unite our party, take the hyphen out of being a Conservative, and ensure we grow our movement to win,” Mr. O’Toole said, in the video. “We need to show more urban and suburban Canadians that their values of liberty, family and equality are at the core of our party.”
Mr. O’Toole previously ran for the leadership of the party in 2017, finishing third in the race behind Maxime Bernier and Mr. Scheer. He had been serving as the party’s foreign affairs critic.
Mr. Scheer announced his plans to resign as party leader on Thursday, December 12th, after the 2019 election only reduced the governing Liberal party to a minority government.
Some other leadership hopefuls in the race are Peter MacKay, Marilyn Gladu, and Derek Sloan.