Erin O'Toole Spent His 1st Week In Parliament Extending Olive Branches (Analysis)
OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole is out to modernize his party, and his first week in Parliament demonstrated just how he plans to do that — and the instincts he may need to keep in check as he prepares for the next election.
Dressed in a blue suit and wearing a striped orange tie to mark Sept. 30 as Orange Shirt Day, a day of remembrance for the survivors and victims of Indian Residential Schools, O’Toole’s first question as leader of the Official Opposition was about the Liberals’ record on reconciliation.
That question — about why the federal government has yet to deliver on a promise to close the gap on health outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and to publish an annual progress report based on indicators, such as infant mortality, suicide, addiction, life expectancy and chronic diseases — was a noticeably different from lead questions of previous Tory leaders.
Watch: Erin O’Toole says Liberals are “all talk and no action” on Indigenous matters. Story continues below.
After it received mostly a non-answer from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, O’Toole quickly moved on to questions about rapid COVID-19 testing. But the signal was noticed by the Grits and political watchers.
O’Toole, who recently came out of isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus, spent most of his time and his party’s focus in question period Wednesday on rapid testing. Knowing Canadians are concerned about their families’ health and safety, especially in Ontario and Quebec, where daily case counts are surpassing spring records for infections, and people are having to spend hours in line waiting to be tested, and then waiting days before getting their results, O’Toole said he has not only heard those concerns but has partly shared in that experience.
But like his question on reconciliation, O’Toole’s attacks against Trudeau rang of a rabid partisan unable to shed the instincts of hyperbole and to stick to the...
