Liberals waste no time branding Scheer as social conservative extremist
OTTAWA — Even before Conservatives began counting the ballots, the ruling Liberals set out to frame the new Opposition leader as a far-right extremist.
Only trouble was, the relentless barrage of email missives from Liberal headquarters in the days and hours leading up to Saturday’s vote were aimed largely at Maxime Bernier, the front-runner and presumed winner of the marathon Conservative leadership race.
Conservatives may have thought they’d nipped that strategy in the bud when, on the 13th and final ballot, they opted by the thinnest of margins for an ostensibly safer choice: the genial, low key Andrew Scheer, former Speaker of the House of Commons.
But the outcome hasn’t substantially changed the governing party’s narrative.