‘Draft Ambrose’ campaign hits Conservative convention

[Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose has said she won’t run for the leadership race next year but there’s a ‘draft Rona’ movement underway. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick]

Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose will not be allowed to enter the party leadership race, much to the disappointment of supporters who tried to convince party members — and Ambrose herself — that she was the right person for the job.

Conservative members have voted at this week’s national convention in Vancouver against a change in party rules that would have allowed the interim leader to throw her hat in the ring.

“The entire Draft Rona movement, from start to finish, has been a grassroots movement in which Rona herself has played no part,” stated Scott Reid, MP for Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston, says in a statement following the vote..

“Rona has demonstrated an admirable restraint under very unusual circumstances. She made it clear that she was not behind the effort to amend the party constitution and that she had taken on the interim job with the intention of passing on the leadership in May 2017. With this vote, that is what will happen, exactly as she had assumed would be the case all along,” Reid continued.

Fans of Ambrose launched a campaign to convince party members — and Ambrose — that she’s the right person for the job permanently.

They started a website and got a hospitality suite at the party convention in Vancouver and even managed to gather the requisite 100 signatures from 100 ridings to bring to a vote the proposed amendment that would allow Ambrose to run.

Ambrose became interim leader following the Conservative election loss last fall.

Under the party constitution, the interim leader is barred from running in the leadership race and Ambrose put herself forward for the temporary position because she had no leadership aspirations.

But since then she has navigated the Conservatives through the awkward transition to Opposition and performed with aplomb in the House of Commons.

Her responses to several high-profile issues have managed to put a new face on the Tories and support has grown for her to take up the reins permanently.

Ambrose held numerous portfolios in the Harper cabinet, including health, environment, labour and public works.

“Rona shatters stereotypes and glass ceilings. She proves that in Canada, a woman with enough intelligence and perseverance can rise to any level, and accomplish any goal,” the Draft Ambrose website says.

Her popularity extends beyond her parliamentary colleagues.

A recent poll by Main Street/Postmedia found that 68 per cent of those surveyed had a favourable opinion of Ambrose, and just 11 per cent a negative one. The poll is considered accurate to within 2.4 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

If Stephen Harper enjoyed anywhere near those numbers the House of Commons might look very different today.

If Draft Ambrose fans had succeeded — in convincing both delegates and Ambrose — she would have joined Maxime Bernier, Michael Chong and Kellie Leitch in the race, the only declared candidates so far.

Conservatives will choose the next leader at a May 2017 convention.