OTTAWA–Andrew Scheer took the first steps toward trying to salvage his leadership this week when he met privately with Conservative candidates in downtown Toronto, the Star has learned.

Scheer met Wednesday with defeated candidates from the Greater Toronto Area at the Albany Club, a posh Conservative private establishment on King St. E., in an effort to reach out after the party failed to make expected big gains in the GTA, particularly in Mississauga and Brampton.

Instead, it finished the campaign even further behind in the region than it was in 2015, when Stephen Harper’s government was swept from power.

The choice of the meeting venue was no accident. The Albany Club is ground zero for senior Conservative operatives who are unimpressed with Scheer and his recent campaign, which also saw the party lose ground in Ontario and Quebec.

Scheer met there with former deputy leader Lisa Raitt, who lost her riding of Milton in the Oct. 21 vote, as well as other candidates predominantly from Mississauga and Brampton-area ridings.

“I gave him my perspective on what was happening on the ground during the election,” said Raitt, one of Scheer’s few vocal post-election defenders.

“We also discussed the high calibre of candidates we had, and I said I appreciated his reaching out so quickly and meeting face-to-face with the unsuccessful ones.”

Scheer knows he’s in for a fight if he wants to keep his job, sources say, and he also knows what kind of toll such a fight could take on him and his party.

A Conservative source told the Star that Scheer has privately expressed concern about the effect party infighting could have on his wife and five children. The source said that Scheer appeared “wobbly” in his conversations with defeated candidates, with some expressing deep anger over the campaign’s performance in the GTA.

But others close to the Conservative leader — who has kept a low public profile since the election — say he’s up for the fight.

One source close to Scheer said he’s been calling a “long list of unsuccessful candidates, new and re-elected MPs, campaign managers and organizers” since his loss. “The message to caucus and candidates is that he’s willing to put in the hard work required to make the changes necessary to win the next election,” the source said.

The next post-election test will come Wednesday, when Scheer will address the new Conservative caucus for the first time.

Sources tell the Star that Quebec MPs are furious after expected gains in that province turned to a loss of two seats. One Quebec Conservative, granted anonymity to discuss Scheer’s position, said he failed to satisfy Quebecers’ doubts about his social conservative views. Many are bitter that a number of “really good candidates” the party recruited failed to win, such as former Trois-Rivieres mayor Yves Levesque.

Conservative Sen. Jean-Guy Dagenais recently told Le Devoir that it might be better for Scheer to bow out if the party expects to win seats in Quebec.

Kory Teneycke, a former communications director for Harper who also worked on Doug Ford’s provincial campaign, is openly critical of the Scheer campaign, saying it made key strategic errors.

In an interview with the Star, Teneycke said Conservative efforts to paint Justin Trudeau as a politician who is “not as advertised” backfired spectacularly after a series of revelations about Scheer.

“The challenge is when you lay out that ballot question for your opponent, you’re also being measured by that standard too,” he said.

“Not disclosing that you have American citizenship is not full and frank. The three-day, slow rollout of whether or not you have an insurance broker licence is not full and frank. The wishy-washy, impossible-to-understand response to gay marriage and abortion questions isn’t great. When you can’t disclose whether or not you had a contract with Warren Kinsella to kneecap a political rival, that’s not being full and frank.”

Teneycke also said Scheer should not have sidelined Ford in Ontario during the campaign.

In the months ahead, Teneycke said Scheer’s biggest challenge will be to frankly explain his views on gay marriage. If he is perceived as viewing homosexuality as “a sin or immoral,” many Canadians will view that as bigotry, he said.

“I think it could be a fatal issue,” Teneycke told CTV’s Question Period. “Maybe not in terms of a leadership vote within the Conservative Party but I think in terms of actually being successful in being elected to be the prime minister of the country, I think it’s a deal-stopper.”

While there is a deep dissatisfaction among Ontario Conservatives with the Scheer campaign’s performance, it’s not clear those feelings are as strongly felt among the party’s newly elected Ontario MPs. Scheer may also be able to count on support from many MPs from Western Canada after the party’s near sweep of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

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If Scheer emerges from Wednesday’s meeting with the Conservative caucus behind him, the next major test will be convincing delegates to the party’s April convention in Toronto to give him a “clear mandate” to lead the party into the next federal election. Teneycke says that threshold should be 80 per cent — the level Harper once set for his own leadership review after an election loss, which he passed with 84 per cent.

As Scheer’s team scrambles to contain party anger, another member of Scheer’s inner circle darkened the Albany Club’s doorstep this week.

Hamish Marshall, Scheer’s campaign manager, received a chilly reception there at a closed-door session of the so-called “club with no name,” an elite Ontario Tory group.

“I felt kind of bad for Hamish because people were treating him like he was radioactive,” confided one attendee.

Marshall disputed that characterization, and told the Star he had a good time at the event.

Another attendee, who spoke to the Star about the private gathering on the condition they not be named, said they weren’t privy to every conversation over cocktails, but disputed Marshall was treated as a pariah.

At Queen’s Park, there is a certain amount of schadenfreude after the federal Tory leader shunned Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford during the campaign.

More practically, Queen’s Park Tories say Scheer’s problems take the heat off Ford, who has his own political challenges within his party.

“Ford will benefit from this,” said a high-ranking Ontario Tory. “If the so-cons are busy undermining Scheer, they don’t have time to be a distraction and divisive” at the provincial PC convention in Niagara Falls in February, said the insider, referring to social conservatives who feel betrayed by both Scheer and Ford.

In an interview Friday with Newstalk 1010’s Jerry Agar, the premier insisted he “has a great deal of respect” for Scheer.

But Ford stressed that he does not buy the spin from some Conservatives in Ottawa that his government’s policies cost Scheer the election in Ontario.

“The federal Conservatives lose, then they point the finger at someone, and if they win, well, they’re the hero,” the premier told Agar, who suggested the federal Tories “might be looking for a new leader.”

“Well, good luck to them,” Ford shot back, emphasizing he has no interest in the job.

“I’m focused on Ontario. They can look for a leader and good luck, I hope they get a great leader.”

Robert Benzie is the Star's Queen's Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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