Free of baggage from Harper’s Conservative era, Scheer seeks to replace him
OTTAWA — When Andrew Scheer first started telling people he was considering a run for the leadership of the federal Conservatives, he’d often get a raised eyebrow in response.
Scheer served four years as Speaker of the House of Commons, following several years of serving as deputy Speaker. In that gig, he was in charge of defusing partisan fights; why now, people wondered, would he want to start them?
Now, as he finds himself bumping elbows with the front-runners with just two weeks to go, Scheer acknowledges that being Speaker freed him from some of the previous Conservative government’s excess baggage.
“There are some things that we might want to start a new chapter on, and not having been in cabinet, there’s a certain sense of separation from that era,” he said in an interview this week.