OTTAWA (Staff) – Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest could not stop smiling last week as he watched the Reform party suffer through a week of crisis over charges of caucus extremism, disunity and weak leadership.
While hoping the uproar would lead voters to look again at the Conservatives, he insisted that Reform disarray would not be sufficient cause to predict a Tory revival from its two-seat 1993 election performance.
“We have to earn our way back,” Charest told reporters May 10. “We can’t depend on other parties to fall on their swords.”
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But he was happy to try to contribute to Reform woes.
Charest praised Brown for being “principled” and he did not close the door to her joining the Conservatives, although he said there had been no invitation and she said she is not considering another political party just yet.
“The wisest thing to do is let the dust settle,” he said. “Ms Brown should catch her breath.”
He said at an August Conservative policy convention in Winnipeg, “our doors are wide open (to anyone).”
And he said Brown’s defection and the now-public squabbling among Reformers shows the party is lacking leadership and clear policy.
“I think they are wearing their label of extremist because they earned it,” he said. “They worked hard.”
The Reform and Conservative parties are both trying to woo voters with right-of-centre policies.
