Conservative caucus voting on O'Toole's leadership
CTV
The Conservative caucus is currently meeting to decide whether it wants Erin O'Toole to remain the party's leader.
A third of the caucus of 118 MPs signed a letter earlier this week to force a secret ballot vote on his leadership at Wednesday’s caucus meeting, an expression of what party insiders have said is a broad dissatisfaction with O’Toole’s performance.
O’Toole has been fighting to hold on to his role to some degree since the Conservatives’ September 2021 election defeat, reaching this point after a handful of electoral district associations put forward calls for a leadership vote before the one scheduled at the party's national convention in 2023.
The embattled leader has framed this as “a reckoning” where the party needs to make a choice about what kind of party it wants to be going forward, a question the Conservatives have been grappling with for some time.
Over the last few days both current and former MPs have spoken out, issuing open letters making their case to their colleagues as to why they feel it’s time for O’Toole to go.