Canada's Tory leadership race: Meet the new Maxime Bernier
The man who once cultivated a playboy image and famously left sensitive government documents at his girlfriend’s home has changed.
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ST-GEORGES — It’s a bit past noon on a weekday in the Beauce, and Maxime Bernier is in his element: He’s delivering a speech to the board of trade in his home riding.
Far from the media spotlight of Ottawa, Bernier — one of two Conservative leadership candidates from Quebec — has free rein to speak his mind and outline the kind of Canada he hopes to lead.
His talk is vintage “conservative-speak” — the kind you don’t hear often in Quebec, where the party holds only 12 out of 78 seats: Less government. More personal freedom. Lower corporate taxes. Respect for the Constitution.
He takes aim at the CBC and Radio-Canada, for example. They’re great institutions, Bernier says, but enough with cooking shows and sports — private broadcasters can handle that.
The home riding crowd laps it up in between bites of their pulled pork and potato lunch.
This region south of Quebec City is free enterprise country, so close to Maine that some residents drive across the border to Jackman to buy groceries and gas because they are cheaper.
Like his politician father before him, Gilles Bernier, who’s in the audience and working on his son’s campaign, Maxime Bernier can do no wrong here.
Winding down his speech, he tells his audience: “Continue to do what you do best — that is to say, to work for yourselves, to create your own wealth. For my part, I will ensure the government dips in your pockets less often and gets off your back with a ton of regulations.”
He adds: “I aim to create a federal government which respects the constitution, which respects taxpayers. It’s a big challenge. We want to make major reforms.”
Bernier’s platform is among the most detailed and elaborate of the 14 candidates in the race to head the federal Tories. He insists it’s not designed just to bag votes for his bid, but will be the government’s agenda if he becomes prime minister.
This is a different Bernier — wiser and more cautious — than the man who once cultivated a playboy image and played fast and loose with his career.
Until now, he was best remembered for leaving sensitive government documents on the coffee table in the home of his girlfriend Julie Couillard, who once associated with two convicted bikers.
That 2008 incident spelled the end of his time as external affairs minister in the government of Stephen Harper and sent him into the political hinterland, with thoughts of quitting politics altogether.
There were other bloopers.
Also in 2008, while visiting Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, Bernier handed out Jos Louis cakes. The soldiers, witnesses said, would have preferred steak and beer. Cynical columnists had a field day, portraying the minister as a political lightweight.
In 2011, in Halifax, he said Quebec does not need the Charter of the French Language, Bill 101.
“It’s old news,” Bernier says now, regarding his image, in a sweeping interview with the Montreal Gazette.
“It’s still part of my political personality. I don’t deny it. I was able to pick myself up. I learned from these errors and now we can move on to other things.”
Bernier, now 54, says he’s changed. He has had the same girlfriend for seven years. Photos of his two daughters, 14 and 18, line the shelves of his riding office.
He runs four or five days a week, and takes part in marathons in the Beauce — where he has been elected four times — to raise money for charity.
But the panache is still there. Early in the campaign he issued an Instagram invitation urging Canadians to call him Mad Max with his face photoshopped onto the road warrior’s body.
The stunt seems to have helped, combined with his numerous speech-giving forays into English Canada. Bernier’s name recognition, which hovered at four per cent at the start of the race, now stands at around 25 per cent.
Most of his donors, he says, are from outside the province.
“They call me the Albertan of Quebec,” Bernier jokes. “It stuck. Why? Because I talk like them. I talk about economic freedom. I talk about capitalism without fearing the word. That surprises them coming from a Quebec politician.”
Last week, CBC pollster Éric Grenier concluded — based on an analysis of endorsement, fundraising and polling data — that Bernier and businessman Kevin O’Leary are the front runners in the leadership race.
Bernier, too, says he sees the campaign as a two-person battle, with ballots to be mailed out in April for the vote in May. Grenier, however, suggests there will be no winner on the first ballot given the large number of candidates.
It’s crucial, then, for candidates not only to be the first choice of members casting ballots, but the second and third, too, given that the party is using a ranked ballot system to elect its leader. It’s expected there could be as many as 10 ballots.
Bernier has analyzed the situation up and down, and says he is not particularly worried about the splashy O’Leary, noting he has little name recognition in Quebec and is not fluent in French. (While many Canadians in other provinces know O’Leary from the Dragons’ Den, he was not part of the French-language version of the TV show in Quebec.)
As well, the Bernier camp believes it has a better ground game than O’Leary, who has been accused of running a part-time campaign from the U.S., where he films the reality TV show Shark Tank.
While O’Leary can draw crowds in urban centres, that does not help him rack up the support he needs in ridings spread across the country. Under the leadership rules, each riding is worth 100 points, and 17,000 are needed to win.
Hence Bernier’s decision to glad-hand his way across the country, dropping in everywhere from Whitehorse to Halifax.
“I went to Gaspé,” he says. “There are five Conservatives there. I met them. I think they’ll be voting for me. That’s 100 points. What other candidate will go to Gaspé?”
He’s also not worried about another leadership hopeful who has been making headlines — Ontario MP Kellie Leitch, who is playing the identity and immigration card to the maximum. He describes her as a “one issue” candidate.
If other candidates are struggling to get noticed, Bernier is not — for better or worse.
Last week, he made headlines for refusing to back down from his position in favour of abolishing Canada’s agricultural supply management system. His stance earned him a rebuke from Quebec’s powerful farm lobby, and producers who had never held a Conservative membership card have been signing up to block him.
Bernier believes supply management artificially inflates the price of milk, eggs and poultry, while opening the markets would bring prices down. He concedes the farmers’ campaign can hurt him in specific ridings, but says Canadians appreciate politicians who stand by their principles.
“I am the only elected person in Ottawa who is not afraid of the cartel and wants to defend consumers and I am proud of that.
“It’s an interest group defending their own interests. I didn’t expect them to do otherwise. My role as a politician is to defend the interests of all Canadian consumers, and this is the best position for all Canadian consumers.”
The matter has sparked a battle with leadership candidate Andrew Scheer, who favours supply management and was recently seen in St-Hyacinthe trying to drum up support for his campaign among farmers.
In fact, Scheer — who represents the Saskatchewan riding of Regina–Qu’Appelle — is the candidate with the largest number of Quebec MPs in his corner.
Meanwhile, Bernier’s views on supply management have also put him at odds with the one other candidate from Quebec, Steven Blaney, the MP for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis.
Blaney has emerged as one of Bernier’s harshest critics in what is being described as the Battle of the Beauce between two area men who have been MPs since 2006. (Bernier was born in St-Georges-de-Beauce, while Blaney was raised in nearby St-Marie-de-Beauce.)
“I am surprised a libertarian like Mr. Bernier is in favour of the dumping of largely subsidized American products” into Canada, Blaney said in February, referring to fears of what would happen if this country’s supply management scheme were scrapped.
Bernier says of Blaney: “He’s not known outside Quebec. He’s at two or three per cent. Quebecers and our members know he can’t win outside Quebec.
“But what helps me in Quebec is that people here see I am strong in Alberta and British Columbia and am doing pretty well in Ontario.”
Bernier’s stand on supply management was also a factor in the decision by another influential Quebec Conservative, Gérard Deltell, to back Erin O’Toole in the leadership campaign.
O’Toole, who was born in Montreal but moved away in his youth, represents the Ontario riding of Durham. This week, he and Deltell brought their campaign to Quebec City, Deltell’s home region.
Speaking to reporters, Deltell diplomatically played down talk of a rift with Bernier, saying the two have agreed to disagree. But he made clear he likes that O’Toole’s is in favour of supply management, and that he has served in the military.
“I know he can win in Quebec,” Deltell said.
Back at the board of trade, wood sculptor René Bérubé, who is in his 80s, was waiting for the event to wrap up to present Bernier with one of his works — this one depicting the MP.
“I was around when he was born,” Bérubé tells a reporter. “He’s a straight-shooter. He’ll make a good prime minister.”
“He’s proud, sincere; he says real things and respects real things,” adds Gilles Bernier after his son’s speech. “When he’s for something, he’s for it. There’s no pussyfooting around. It’s his strength and I think anglophones (in the rest of Canada) like this a lot.”
For all the focus on the Tory leadership debate, Maxime Bernier knows the Liberals and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are his real target.
“I will tell people the truth,” he says. “Mr. Trudeau made promises which he has not delivered on. He promised electoral reform which didn’t happen, a small deficit which didn’t happen.”
Ironically, this week, the Liberals paid Bernier a compliment of sorts. The Journal de Montréal reported on Tuesday that a researcher working for the Liberals has been following Bernier around, monitoring his public and media events.
Not one to miss an opportunity, Bernier took to Facebook to accuse the party of spying on him at the taxpayers’ expense.
“The Liberals are scared,” he wrote. “And they should be.”
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