Considering that all three main party leaders had reason to worry about facing their political families after Oct. 21, Scheer's polling numbers at the moment are particularly dire.

That Conservative MPs did not move immediately to oust leader Andrew Scheer this week should not be mistaken for a signal that his caucus or the party intends to keep him around long-term. After all, Conservatives defer to their membership arguably more than any other major federal party. Pre-empting the grassroots is therefore unthinkable.

That said, Conservatives are thinking hard about Scheer’s future. The thoughts aren’t really happy ones, given Scheer basically matched the popular vote of the Liberals and fell short on seats in the Commons, despite some of the most advantageous campaign conditions an opposition leader has ever faced.

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In data published this week by the Angus Reid Institute, only 41 per cent of Conservative voters said Scheer should stay on to lead his party into the next election. The same number (42 per cent) say he should go. Those in Canada’s four westernmost provinces are slightly more inclined to keep him than those in Ontario and provinces east of it. Those with post-secondary education are more inclined to bid him adieu.

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Considering that this was a campaign in which all three main party leaders had reason to worry about going home to face their political families, these numbers are dire. After all, Justin Trudeau took the Liberals from majority to minority status after just one term. Jagmeet Singh presided over the loss of seats and popular support among New Democrats. Yet the vast majority of those who cast votes for the Liberals or NDP say Trudeau and Singh should stay on to lead their teams into the next election, whenever that comes (85 per cent said so for Trudeau, 87 per cent for Singh).

The vast majority of those who cast votes for the Liberals or NDP say Trudeau and Singh should stay on to lead their teams into the next election, whenever that comes (85 per cent said so for Trudeau, 87 per cent for Singh).

Uneasy then, lies Scheer’s political crown. Party leaders in the past – Joe Clark comes to mind – have vacated the top spot with much stronger endorsements in leadership reviews. But would swapping the person at the top necessarily cure all that ails the Conservative Party of Canada?

To be sure, there were other factors in its electoral loss. Rumblings that the party’s antiquated technology failed to identify and pull the party’s vote during the campaign point to a critical problem in a vote result as close as this year’s. Just as important is addressing why that vote was so close. Without an adequate plan to offer swing voters on climate change, stumbling on social values issues such as same sex marriage, the Conservative party in 2019 appears badly in need of modernization.

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS

While Singh was able to avoid making his own personal religious orthodoxy a political liability by focusing on messages that appealed to swing voters, questions of whether Scheer’s own faith would influence government policy followed him like a bad smell, as he repeatedly failed to face these questions squarely and pivot to issues that resonated with swing voters more.

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How much of the trouble is attributable to Scheer’s leadership? And how much is a reflection of a leader beholden to what party membership wants? If the Conservative base – an amalgam of social and fiscal conservative factions – wishes to see its leader form government again, it must allow the leader (whomever that is) to woo more people. It must make room for new voices and views under the blue tent. Ultimately, members must decide what is more important to them: being in power or maintaining ideological purity. The former will require uncomfortable compromises. The latter may well doom the party to opposition status for the foreseeable future.

So far, Scheer has shown himself to be the champion of the purists. He may sleep soundly at night knowing he is maintaining his, and their, principles. And he may rely on their support come next spring when the membership decides his fate. But as former cabinet minister John Baird begins the work of reviewing all that went wrong, make no mistake: Scheer, his caucus, and card-carrying Conservatives have many sleepless nights ahead.

Shachi Kurl is Executive Director of the Angus Reid Institute, a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation.

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