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When you’re ahead in the polls and raising twice as much money as your nearest rival, why would you do something that is likely to upset half of your party membership?

Andrew Scheer might want to ask himself that question, after stripping his former leadership rival Maxime Bernier of his position in the Conservative shadow cabinet.

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The ostensible reason was that Bernier had committed to his caucus colleagues not to publish or promote a book he was writing that was critical of the way Scheer won the leadership last year.

He subsequently posted a chapter dealing with supply management on his website, and, according to one person in the leader’s office “that’s where the line was drawn.”

The passage that upset the Conservative leader was the part, entirely accurate, that claims Scheer pandered to dairy farmers in Quebec to get their votes. Bernier wrote these “fake Conservatives” signed up to block his candidacy because of his fierce opposition to supply management, the protectionist pricing scheme that shelters dairy, egg and poultry farmers from foreign competition.