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Friday, Maxime Bernier announced the creation of his new political party. He did so without my support.

There’s a reason I chose to support him when I ended my campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada last year. I believed then, as I do now, that he will fight for the issues I believe in. He will always have my respect for that.

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But I simply cannot support anything that threatens to hand Justin Trudeau and the Liberals a second term in government.

Trudeau is the reason I sought to lead the Conservative party in the first place. I was so terrified of what another four years of Trudeau’s Liberals running the show would do to our country that I felt I had to step up.

Max is a friend. I respect his passion and his ideas. However now he is driving a wedge between conservatives at a time when Canadians desperately need us to be united. In recent weeks I have tried on two separate occasions to talk him back into the party but to no avail, he is hell-bent on doing this. That’s the passion I love in Max, but now is not the time.

We have a prime minister who has seemingly done everything in his power to destroy Canada’s economic competitiveness, drive investment south of the border and punish our most profitable industries with crippling taxes and regulations.