Meet the contenders in the federal Tory leadership race

[Tory MP Andrew Scheer announced Sept. 28, 2016, that he’s running for the Progressive Conservative leadership. THE CANADIAN PRESS]

With the federal Conservative leadership vote set for May 27, 2017, in Vancouver, politicians have come forward to throw their names into the hat.

In order to participate in the leadership race, each applicant must submit 300 party member signatures from no fewer than 30 electoral districts in at least seven provinces and territories, and pay a contestant entrance fee of $100,000.

To help readers familiarize themselves with the candidates, Yahoo Canada News is compiling mini-profiles of all the Tory lawmakers who announce their intention to run for party leadership. Keep checking back as new names are added to the list.

[Conservative leadership candidate Steven Blaney speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill on Oct. 24, 2016 in Ottawa. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld]

Steven Blaney

In September 2016, Quebec MP Steven Blaney stepped down from his post as opposition critic for public services and procurement — signalling a fairly clear intention to run for the leadership of his party.

The MP behind the controversial Anti-terrorism Act announced his candidacy Oct. 23, and within 24 hours had renewed quashed calls for a niqab ban.

The 51-year-old politician was first elected in 2006 in the riding of Bellechasse-Etchemins-Levis in Quebec City, where he continues to represent. He has had some prominence in the Conservative ranks: promoted to cabinet in 2011, heading the veteran affairs department and then appointed minister of public safety in 2013.

Blaney was born in Sherbrooke, Que. and grew up in Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, going on to graduate from the University of Sherbrooke as a civil engineer. In 2002, he attained an MBA.

His career prior to Parliament Hill, has been as a consultant and entrepreneur in infrastructure and environmental technology, according to his website.

During his time under the administration of then-PM Stephen Harper, Blaney was appointed vice-chair and then chair of the Quebec Conservative Caucus and also sat on the Indian Affairs Committee and the Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Committee. In addition, he joined the Defence Committee in 2007.

After taking over the reins of Veteran’s Affairs in 2011, his two years in the position would become a rough ride, dealing with many complaints from veterans and advocates about the bad treatment they got and the immense bureaucracy they faced when dealing with the department.

He was put under the gun after it was revealed the Last Post Fund, an independent agency that hands out federal monies for graves to families of poor veterans, turned down two-thirds of applicants.

Veteran’s groups pressured the Harper government to revise the eligibility requirements and to increase the $3,600 stipend. They wanted the government to increase the fund’s annual dole out from $5 million to $7 million. Nothing happened.

“Our firm intention is to maintain this program. We are covering all the funeral and burial costs and we will keep on this way,” Blaney said at the time.

Blaney is, however, credited with two major VAC initiatives: the Helmet to Hardhats Program, helping former soldiers find jobs in construction, and the Cutting the Red Tape for Veterans whose goal was to simplify the administrative process and to make all forms easy to understand.

He went from the frying pan into the fire though after being appointed Minister for Public Safety in 2013. In response to two acts of terrorism in Canada (including the 2014 shootings on Parliament Hill), he introduced the highly-controversial Bill C-51, Anti-terrorism Act. It passed in May 2015.

In general it smooths out information sharing between federal agencies, broadens police powers to detain or restrict terror suspects, allows the public safety minister to add people to Canada’s “no-fly list,” and enhances the powers of Canada’s spy agency CSIS.

“I always said there is no liberty without security… now I am convinced there is no prosperity without security,” said Blaney as he testified before the Senate’s national security committee

Law professors across the country protested that the powers provided to CSIS are too broad. Prior to C-51, CSIS’s role was to collect intelligence. Now, the spy agency has what’s known as “disruptive” powers, which means it can do things above and beyond mere observation.

"CSIS will not become a secret police force,” insisted Blaney before the bill passed.

Blaney lives in Lévis, across the river from Quebec City, with his wife, Marie Bouchard, and their two children, William-Antoine and Alexandra.

[Erin O’Toole, the former minister of veterans affairs, announced his bid for the Conservative Party leadership on Friday. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press]

Erin O’Toole

Erin O’Toole is no stranger to turbulence — up in the air in a helicopter or in the political arena.

He was first elected to the House of Commons in the Ontario riding of Durham in a 2012 byelection, replacing former cabinet minister Bev Oda, who left after an expense scandal. In Ottawa, O’Toole was appointed parliamentary secretary to International Trade Minister Ed Fast.

Montreal-born O’Toole was raised in the Bowmanville and Port Perry areas of Southern Ontario, the oldest of five children.

He joined the Canadian Forces straight out of high school, enrolling at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont. and graduating in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts.

Commissioned as an officer with the air force, his first posting was with 8 Wing in Trenton, Ont., focusing on search and rescue. He then went on to complete training as an air navigator in Winnipeg and was then posted to 12 Wing in Shearwater, N.S. He flew with the Royal Canadian Navy and afterwards, served aboard the frigate HMCS St. John’s.

Finishing his service in 2000, O’Toole geared himself towards a landlocked career— studying law at Dalhousie University, and graduating in 2003.

His legal career landed him in corporate settings dealing with issues of insolvency, litigation and energy regulation. He also worked for a manufacturing company as in-house legal counsel for five years.

Within three years of arriving in Parliament, O’Toole was handed the Veterans Affairs posting by then-PM Stephen Harper at a time when issues between veterans and the Tory government were heating up.

O’Toole — who has been a long-time member of Branch 178 of the Royal Canadian Legion — had to face growing and loud criticism from advocates and veterans concerning the Harper administration’s cuts to services for veterans.

In 2014, nine regional offices serving veterans were closed despite a chorus of proteststo then-Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino. Later the same year, an auditor’s reportsaid one in five ex-soldiers needing mental health care had to wait up to eight months for their application to be reviewed.

Just after his appointment in January 2015, O’Toole announced in his first major speech the department would be “veteran-centric,” the CBC reported.

“The veteran has to be at the centre of everything we do and their family,” he said.

“I want to create an informed and respectful dialogue about the opportunities and challenges facing our veterans.“

This is the Ontario politician’s second run at leadership as he sought interim leadership of the party after last fall’s federal election but lost out to Rona Ambrose.

The MP lives in Courtice, Ont., 60 km east of Toronto, with his wife Rebecca and their children Mollie and Jack.

[Speaker Andrew Scheer presides over question period in the House of Commons in Ottawa on June 3, 2014. REUTERS/Chris Wattie]

Andrew Scheer

Saskatchewan MP Andrew Scheer, who quit his post as Conservative House leader in mid-September, became the eighth Tory politician to run for the leadership position on Sept. 28.

“He is intelligent, he is perfectly bilingual and he communicates his messages effectively and in a positive way,” Alberta MP Garnett Genuis told the Globe and Mail recently.

Genuis described his fellow Tory as a social conservative who “is not afraid of diversity” and is open to all parts of the party — from libertarians to red Tories.

Scheer, who is one of the few contenders who is bilingual, is a high-profile member of the federal party having served as Speaker of the House of Commons during the four years the Conservatives had a majority government under Stephen Harper.

Born in Ottawa, one of nine children, Scheer went to study politics and history at the University of Ottawa and then finishing off his bachelor’s degree at the University of Regina. While there, Scheer joined the Reform Club and, later, the Canadian Alliance Club.

Already in a committed relationship with his soon-to-be wife, he decided to make his home in Saskatchewan after graduating. He took the Canadian Accredited Insurance Broker program, passed the test and started his career in the insurance industry, working at Shenher Insurance in Regina for six months. It was the lure of political play that attracted him more.

Next, he joined the constituency office of Canadian Alliance MP Larry Spencer in Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre and also worked on several Progressive Conservative campaigns in the 1999 Ontario election.

In 2004, Scheer made a major entry into the political world — he won the riding of Regina-Qu’Appelle in the federal election, trumping NDP MP Lorne Nystrom by a mere 861 votes. Nystrom had been the longest-serving member of Parliament up until that point. Two years later, Scheer was re-elected in the federal election of 2006, defeating Nystrom by a margin of 2,740 votes.

In spring 2006, he was appointed by Harper as assistant deputy chairman of Committees of the Whole, one of three deputy speakers.

In 2008, he moved up to House Deputy Speaker and chairman of Committees of the Whole.

Scheer’s political career had a vertical trajectory, he was victorious in the sixth round of balloting in June 2011 to become the youngest House Speaker in Canadian history at age 32 and the first to represent Saskatchewan.

The Saskatchewan resident has been rated “pro-life” by Campaign Life Coalition all three times he has run. He spoke out in 2008 after the governor general gave the Order of Canada to abortionist Henry Morgentaler: “I am greatly disappointed that Canada’s highest civilian honour has been politicized and debased by this appointment.”

He is also opposed to same-sex marriage. In 2005, as the House was voting on the Civil Marriage Act amendment to include homosexual unions, Scheer said that “marriage is by nature heterosexual” and since gay couples “cannot commit to the natural procreation of children. They cannot therefore be married.”

The 37-year-old politician and his wife Jill and five children — Thomas, Grace, Madeline, Henry and Mary — live in Regina.

[Pierre Lemieux is pictured in the centre. MARKETWIRED]

Pierre Lemieux

Pierre Lemieux, who was an MP for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell for nine years until the 2015 election, is the 7^th politician to announce his intention to run for the leadership position on Aug. 22.

The 53-year-old professional engineer announced his plans in an email to Tory supporters in the Ottawa-area riding he used to represent.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, he laid out some key principles: “Pierre is pro-life and believes in the sanctity of life from conception through to natural death. Pierre supports the traditional definition of marriage as the union between one man and one woman.”

Other issues of importance to the Ontario politician include freedom of speech, religion and assembly and federal politicians that “display integrity, honesty and concern for the best interests of Canadians.”

Born in 1963 in Embrun, Ont., Lemieux went on to gain a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and then a master’s degree from the Royal Military College of Canada. He then served in the military for two decades retiring at the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

He joined civilian life by working in the Ottawa hi-tech industry and then launched his own company focused on project management and consulting services geared towards charities and government departments.

When he captured the riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell in 2006, Lemieux broke up a long-held Liberal riding (since 1962).

Within a year, Lemieux was appointed parliamentary secretary for Official Languages and deputy government whip. He was dropped from the Official Languages post in 2008 and became parliamentary secretary to then-agriculture minister Gerry Ritz. In 2015, he was transferred over and became parliamentary secretary to then-veteran affairs minister Erin O’Toole.

Known as a social conservative, Lemieux opposed the 2011 Bill C-279 — introduced by the NDP — which would have permitted transgender people to use the bathroom that matched their gender identity. After going through a few amendments, the bill was defeated in the Senate.

In 2012, Lemieux voted in favour of MP Stephen Woolworth’s Motion 312 — which would have forced Parliament to study whether a fetus in the womb should be considered a human being under Canadian law. He also sided with B.C. MP Mark Warawa’s Motion 408 which asked Parliament to ban sex-selective abortions.

A member of the Eastern Ontario Handgun Club, he participates in competitions called “cowboy action shooting” in which shooters dress up like the Wild West, have cowboy aliases and shoot at targets.

“It is a lot of fun, and it’s very satisfying,” he told Huffington Post back in 2013.

His cowboy name? The Lawman.

Lemieux, who is married with no children, is also known to be a supporter of the Crossroads Pro-Life Walk, an annual pro-life event.

[Brad Trost/Radio-Canada]

Brad Trost

Saskatchewan MP Brad Trost is the latest entrant in the race for Tory leadership after announcing his candidacy online on Aug. 16. The representative for Saskatoon-University, who worked as an exploration and mining geophysicist before switching to politics in 2004, bills himself as “100% conservative.”

Trost was first elected to Parliament 12 years ago in a close four-way race in Saskatoon-Humboldt but won subsequent elections as an MP handily, winning his new Saskatoon-University riding in the 2015 election with 41.5 per cent of the vote.

He currently serves as the Opposition critic on Canada-U.S. relations and previously served on House of Commons committees for natural resources, international trade and industry. He also founded the Conservative Party’s energy caucus and is a member of its pro-life caucus.

The 42-year-old could appeal to the right-leaning wing of his party on both economic and social issues. Trost has been a strong critic of carbon taxes as bad for job creation and retention, and spoke out in support of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. He also previously introduced a private member’s bill to open Canada’s uranium mining sector to increased foreign investment.

Trost is also outspoken on socially conservative issues, such as same-sex marriage, abortion and transgender rights — in ways that put him in opposition to Rona Ambrose, the Conservative Party’s interim leader. He voiced strong support at their May convention to keep the Conservative Party’s definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, and said in announcing his leadership candidacy that he is an “uncompromising defender of traditional marriage.”

In the past he has opposed federal funding for Toronto Pride Week, and earlier this year he referred to Liberal recommendations on euthanasia as the “most extreme in the world.” The MP has consistently opposed federal support for the International Planned Parenthood Foundation and spoken in favour of restrictions on abortion.

In a July interview with the Toronto Sun, Trost confirmed that he opposes same-sex marriage, abortion, assisted death, transgender bathroom access, marijuana legalization, abortion, carbon taxes and taxes in general.

“I think God put conservatives on Earth to stop taxes everywhere, forever,” Trost said.

But Trost himself hasn’t yet spoken about his decision to run for Conservative Party leadership — he’s on vacation in Mongolia. CBC News reported that Trost will hold a news conference to outline his positions and campaign when he returns to Canada after Labour Day.

Trost — born in rural Langenberg, Sask., — is married with a toddler daughter and lives in Saskatoon.

[Deepak Obhrai/TWITTER]

Deepak Obhrai

Calgary East MP Deepak Obhrai, who is considered the elder statesman of the Conservative Caucus and is reportedly now the longest-serving MP of South Asian origin, became the fifth candidate to enter the leadership contest on July 15. He is the party’s Opposition critic for international development.

Obhrai first entered Parliament in 1997 as a Reform MP. He also represented the riding three years later as a member of the Canadian Alliance party (which the Reform morphed into). Then he joined the PC caucus from 2003 to 2004 before the official merger of the Alliance with the Tories.

The politician is particularly interested in making sure the party remains open to people from all walks of life, and lobbied the party earlier this year to not raise membership fees, saying it was becoming an “elitist, white-only” club.

“​We are a party that is for all Canadians — no matter where they come from or whether they’re disabled, visible minorities, or young, women,” he told CBC radio on July 15, after joining the race.

Obhrai is closely linked to Peter MacKay, the ex-cabinet minister from Nova Scotia who led the unite-the-right campaign while heading the PC party. He left politics last year to spend more time with his family. (MacKay is a partner in the Toronto office of U.S.-based global law firm Baker & McKenzie).

The Calgary politician also served as MacKay’s parliamentary secretary when MacKay was foreign affairs minister from 2006-07.

In throwing his hat in the ring, Obhrai has told his fellow Tories that if he loses, he will back MacKay should the ex-parliamentarian also decided to run.

Born in Tanzania to South Asian parents, Obhrai was sent to school in India and the United Kingdom. Prior to immigrating to Canada in 1977, at age 27, he worked as an air traffic controller.

The new immigrant became soon became a leader in community building. He served as head of the Hindu Society of Calgary, the Monterey Community Association and the India–Canada Association and was vice-president of the National Indo-Canadian Council. Every year, he hosts the National Diwali celebrations on Parliament Hill.

Since becoming an MP, the 66-year-old has become active in the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association and also served as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of International Co-operation (appointed 2008) and then handed the role of parliamentary secretary for International Human Rights (2013) by then-prime minister Stephen Harper.

Even so, the Calgary MP spoke out against his own government’s Bill C-24 legislation that would revoke Canadians with dual citizenship if they were convicted of terrorist acts.

“One of the strongest human rights principles is to create all Canadian citizens equal, no matter what,” he stated in the House of Commons back in 2014.

“We are treating one Canadian differently from another Canadian, and in my opinion that is against a fundamental human rights provision… a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”

He has been honoured for his work among ethnic communities: the Indo-American Friends Group of Washington, D.C., bestowed him with the Pride of India Award in 2014, for his work at empowering the Indian diaspora and the Vietnamese Canadian Federation presented Deepak with the VCF Award 2015 for his work with the community.

Intriguing to note Obhrai hasn’t lived in the constituency he represents since the late 1990s. His primary residence is located in the Calgary Northeast riding.

Obhrai and his wife, Neena, have two daughters and a son, as well as a grandson and granddaughter.

[REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst]

Tony Clement

Updated: Oct. 12, 2016

Tony Clement withdraws his candidacy in announcement on Facebook.

Tony Clement became the fourth person to add his name to the leadership race on Tuesday (July 12).

Clement has been the Parry Sound-Muskoka MP since capturing the riding in 2006. Prior to that, the Conservative Party’s foreign affairs critic served provincially as an MPP for Brampton West-Mississauga from 1999 to 2003 and for Brampton South from 1995 to 1999.

Clement has had a long history in the Tory ranks. He is credited with helping to usher in the reign of then-Ontario premier Mike Harris in the 1990s and held several portfolios under Harris, including transportation minister in 1997 and then environment minister in 1999. He is one of the main drafters of Harris’s Common Sense Revolution policies.

Born in Manchester, England, (nee Panayi) Clement was four years old when his parents migrated to Canada. They soon divorced and his mother remarried. Tony took his stepfather’s surname. He went on to get a political science degree from the University of Toronto in 1983 and then a law degree three years later.

Clement became president of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party in 1990 and was soon allied with Harris. Under the Harris administration, as the environment minister, Clement is noted for creating Ontario’s Drive Clean campaign, which enacted periodic testing for older vehicles.

In 2001 he became the province’s minister of health and long-term care. He then lost a bid to head the Ontario PCs, defeated by Ernie Eves in 2002. Eves kept him in the health portfolio until the Tories lost the election 2003.

Clement switched his gears that year and ran for the leadership of the federal party, which Stephen Harper won.

Clement spent a few years working as counsel for a Toronto law firm and as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto’s law school.

After finally entering federal politics in 2006, Clement jumped through a few major postings: appointed minister of health in 2006, then industry minister in 2008 and finally, treasury board president in 2011.

No stranger to controversy, Clement was at the centre of a scandal involving $50 million of G8 funding in 2010. The auditor general at the time released a 2011 report revealing the money was approved by Parliament for border infrastructure. Instead, Sheila Fraser said it was channeled towards improving the downtown core of Huntsville, Ont., which hosted the event. Consequently, the Tories were accused of a coverup.

Most recently, Clement has been needling the Trudeau government over its $15-billion arms deal with Saudia Arabia. Clement is now calling for transparency, asking for details about the agreement — which his Conservative administration refused to do back in 2014 when it signed the deal.

Clement’s priorities, as stated on his website, are supporting businesses and job growth through low taxes, getting tough on crime and ending the long-gun registry.

For fun, the 55-year-old politician, and avid guitarist whose favourite bands include Rush and the Foo Fighters, is a volunteer DJ on a monthly two-hour show on 88.7 Hunters Bay Radio. He has declared: “one of my passions is music.”

Clement is married to Lynne Golding, a partner at the international law firm, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, and has three children.

Michael Chong

Michael Chong became the third person to join the leadership race on May 16.

The Conservative MP — whose father was Chinese and mother Dutch — was born in 1971 in the same region that he represents: near Fergus in Wellington County, southern Ontario.

He was first elected to Parliament, representing Wellington-Halton Hills, in 2004. Chong, 44, has since served as minister for intergovernmental affairs and sport, as well as president of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada.

He famously resigned his ministerial position in 2006, protesting his own government’s motion to recognize the Québécois as a nation within a united Canada.

In addition, Chong is known for his Reform Act of 2013, which aimed to provide individual MPs with more power. The act was finally passed by the Senate last June.

“We have to introduce further reforms to curb the powers of the [Prime Minister’s Office] and party leaders,” Chong told the Globe and Mail.

Chong, who is married and has three sons, studied philosophy at Trinity College at the University of Toronto. After graduation, he held a series of high profile jobs including chief information officer for the National Hockey League Players’ Association and a similar position at Barclays Bank.

Notably, he is a co-founder of the Dominion Institute — which is now known as Historica Canada whose aim is to boost Canadians’ awareness of civics and history. He remains on its board of governors.

Chong has indicated he’s interested in a foreign policy review, more action on trade, lower taxes and less government spending, He’d also like to see the PCs burnish their environmental policy and do more to attract female and ethnic voters.

The Ontario MP says his party was too strong on “certain issues” that alienated women, university-educated individuals and people from diverse backgrounds.

“There were mistakes and I don’t think we should have done that,” he told the Globe.

[REUTERS/Chris Wattie]

Kellie Leitch

On April 6, Kellie Leitch, the Ontario MP for Simcoe-Grey, was the first politician to officially enter the race.

The official Opposition critic for health, Leitch is a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon who was first elected in her riding in 2011. In that race she beat out former MP Helena Guergis, who had been booted from the Conservative Party after a number of controversies and forced to run as an independent.

Born in Winnipeg, Leitch grew up in Brandon, Man., and has credited the late finance minister Jim Flaherty for drawing her into politics. Leitch, who lived in the same Ottawa apartment building as Flaherty, performed CPR on him when he suffered his fatal heart attack in 2014. She led tributes to him on the floor of the House of Commons.

The 45-year-old Leitch is also remembered for appearing beside former immigration minister Chris Alexander during a news conference held last October to unveil the Tory party’s “barbaric cultural practices” snitch line.

"The Conservative government is not afraid to defend Canadian values,” she told reporters at the time. “By contrast, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair are more worried about political correctness than tackling these difficult issues that impact women.”

When the snitch line was roundly criticized and the Stephen Harper government defeated, Leitch — and others from his cabinet — backed off the position, calling the plan “misunderstood” and “poorly communicated.”

Leitch also served as Harper’s ministers of labour and status of women. In her role as minister of the status of women, she drew criticism for defending the then-prime minister’s refusal to call a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.

“We have had numerous studies looking at this,” she told reporters. “We’ve had hundreds of recommendations. We don’t need more lawyers looking at what the problem is.”

A committed member of the Conservative Party since her university days, Leitch is counting on party support for her leadership bid. She has tapped Montreal party activist Dany Renauld, Toronto lawyer Sander Grieve and chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, Andy Pringle, for her campaign committee.

[MP Maxime Bernier is the second person to enter the Tory leadership race. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld]

Maxime Bernier

Maxime Bernier, MP for Beauce, Que., announced on April 7 that he too would be seeking the Conservative Party leadership. The former businessman entered politics in 2006 and is known for his libertarian views and fondness for small government.

Describing himself as a fiscal conservative, Bernier’s political experience includes stints as minister of industry, minister of foreign affairs and minister of state (small business and tourism) while in Harper’s cabinet.

He resigned as minister of foreign affairs in 2008 after admitting that he had left sensitive documents at the home of an ex-girlfriend.

“If I run I will run for more freedom and less government intervention in our day-to-day lives,” he told a reporter in January. “It’s not the job of the government to give money to businesses.”

Currently the official Opposition critic for economic development and innovation, Bernier has called policies that create more government in order to address economic disparities “nonsense.”

In an interview with CBC on Wednesday evening, he said he was eager to see more candidates enter the race so Canadians could assess for themselves which form of conservatism was right for them.

“We need a leader who believes in Conservative values and is able to explain that to Canadians with passion, with conviction,” he said.

With files from Terri Coles