Leslyn Lewis in St. Catharines
May 29, 2022
Takeaways from last night’s meet and greet with CPC leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis:
1. Niagara West MP Dean Allison carries a lot of weight, but his endorsement sure doesn’t. Loyal readers may recall his endorsement of Lisa Raitt back in 2017.
2. In his email, he invited party members to come out and hear Leslyn for ourselves in “St. Catherines.” How is it that a long-tenured Niagara MP can misspell the name of the largest city in the region?
3. Whereas there were diverse groups to hear Roman Baber and Pierre Poilievre when they came through town, there was only a handful in the large hall who were under the age of 65.
4. Among the large crowd, I spotted only one person wearing a mask.
5. Seated in the first row next to Dean Allison were Krystina Waler, still officially the St. Catharines CPC candidate of record, and Sal Sorrento, the Doug Ford Party candidate. Does Leslyn really want the quasi-endorsement of the candidate running for the provincial wing of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals?
6. The gentleman seated to my right and I both booed Sal’s introduction, drawing a curious look from an older woman sitting in front of us. Given that this was a crowd of conservatives, anyone applauding Sal more deserved the dirty look. Sal is no more of a conservative than rival Jennie Stevens of the orange NDP.
7. When speaking, Leslyn kept shouting as if the microphone wasn’t working.
8. When asked about her position on lockdowns, Leslyn shamefully passed the buck to the provinces and even refused to commit to ending them in the future. A good leader does not criticize horrific human rights abuses in other countries while standing on the sidelines and allowing them to take place in her own country.
9. When asked about getting the debt under control, she said, “There’s nothing more to cut” and instead suggested that there are “efficiencies” to be found. For a moment there, I wondered if I had been invited to listen to an NDP leadership hopeful instead of a conservative.
10. While Leslyn was spewing this drivel, I noticed that the gentleman seated to my right was busy playing card games on his phone.
11. Leslyn gave a real wishy-washy answer to the question about why the CPC was so silent over the last two years under Erin O’Toole. She again passed the buck to the provinces and said they just wanted to focus on keeping people safe.
12. Needless to say, Leslyn talked her way off this party member’s ballot. The only candidates I’ll be voting for are Pierre Poilievre and Roman Baber.
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