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Quebec MP Maxime Bernier’s decision to quit the federal Tories is nothing more than an “ego outburst” and doesn’t signal divisions within the party, said Alberta United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney.

“It looks a lot more to me like sour grapes over the leadership election,” Kenney told reporters in Halifax Thursday, vehemently defending federal leader Andrew Scheer.

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Just hours earlier, Bernier slammed the Conservative Party as “too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed” and argued it had abandoned its members.

Bernier, who narrowly lost the leadership to Scheer, told an Ottawa news conference he was quitting the party to start his own political movement.

“It does not represent them anymore. And it has nothing of substance to offer Canadians looking for a political alternative,” he said.

The party abandoned its true ideals by refusing to end corporate subsidies or abolish the supply management system for poultry and dairy products, he added.