Andrew Scheer, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, announced his resignation Thursday, December 12, before the House of Commons. He said it was "One of the most difficult decisions in (her) life ", but claimed that he was placing "The interests of (her) family and (his) go first ». Moments later, the Conservative Party confirmed reports on the Global News network that Scheer had tapped into the training fund to cover part of his children's school fees in a private school.
Andrew Scheer draws the consequences of his defeat in the federal elections of October 21 and the calls for resignation from his own party that followed. Given favorites a few weeks before the election, the Conservatives finally failed to bring down the Liberal Justin Trudeau. And if they won MPs, even putting Justin Trudeau in the position of taking the lead in a minority government, they underperformed in Quebec and in Ontario.
prevarications
The day after the vote, many conservative voices were raised to blame Andrew Scheer's procrastination on abortion and gay marriage. On abortion in particular, it had taken several debates between candidates for Andrew Scheer to end up saying that he was "Pro-life personally", but that he did not intend to support a private member's initiative questioning this right. This posture partly explains the rejection of the Quebec vote.
Since the election, Andrew Scheer has repeated that he wants to remain at the head of his party until the next party convention scheduled for April 2020 in Toronto. He even said that he was ready to go back to possible new elections, which can be called at any time by the Prime Minister since he does not have a parliamentary majority.
Andrew Scheer was elected Leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Commons when Parliament returned to office on December 5. He also had just won his first parliamentary victory by having all political groups, except the Liberals, vote to create a parliamentary committee to monitor the government in its diplomatic relations with China. Tense relationships since the arrest in late 2018 of Huawei’s chief financial officer, still under house arrest in Vancouver.
