The Conservatives will follow Andrew Scheer into the 2019 election, after the young Saskatchewan MP won an upset victory at the party’s leadership convention in Toronto Saturday night.

Scheer, who turned 38 on May 20, edged out front-runner Maxime Bernier by less than two percentage points on the 13th and final ballot Saturday night, finishing with just under 50.95 per cent of the vote.

The room at the Toronto Congress Centre erupted in a shocked cheer as party officials read out the final count, with confetti and blue and white balloons falling onto the crowd.

“What a campaign this has been,” Scheer said as he acknowledged and thanked Bernier and his other leadership rivals for their efforts and hard work.

“We have all grown because of your hard work . . . you have each brought your passion and what you believe in to the centre stage, and I plan to ensure the very best of those ideas are brought forward . . . to help us win in 2019.”

The victory was a major upset for Scheer. According to polls, pundits and many Conservative strategists at the Toronto Congress Centre, the race appeared to be locked up for Bernier, the 54-year old Quebec MP from the Beauce who wanted to push the party toward libertarian policies.

It wasn’t an easy victory. The Conservative party uses a ranked ballot to select their leaders, where party members order their preferences one though 10. In the first round of voting, Bernier appeared to have a comfortable lead, garnering 28.89 per cent of the vote to Scheer’s 21.8.

But as candidates continued to drop off the ballot — particularly the social conservative candidates — Scheer narrowed that lead and, in the final round, overtook the Quebec MP.

Scheer was seen as a “continuity candidate” in the race, jokingly called Stephen Harper With a Smile, someone who wouldn’t radically change the direction of the party as it prepares to take on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals in 2019.

In his acceptance speech, Scheer appealed to conservatives of all stripes to unite behind him.

“Every single kind of conservative is welcome in this party, and this party belongs to you,” Scheer told the crowd.

“We all know what it looks like when Conservatives are divided. We win when we are united. . . . All of the leadership candidates grew this party to the biggest its ever been in history. Now imagine what we will do when we’re all working together.”

While he welcomed all conservatives, one particular brand seemed to push Scheer over the top Saturday night — social conservatives.

After Brad Trost, the most successful of the two pro-life candidates in the race, dropped off the ballot, his supporters seemed to disproportionately fall in behind Scheer. The former Commons Speaker didn’t run as a social conservative, but was warmly congratulated by the anti-abortion Campaign Life Coalition Saturday evening.

Saturday’s voting showed surprising strength in that wing of the conservative movement, with Trost and fellow social conservative Pierre Lemieux combining for almost 16 per cent support in the first round of votes. Both Trost and Lemieux finished ahead of candidates like Lisa Raitt and Kellie Leitch, who received considerably more attention throughout the race.

In a press conference late Saturday night, Scheer acknowledged the contribution of social conservatives but wanted to focus on the common issues that unite all conservatives.

When pressed, Scheer said he would focus his caucus to focus on those issues like freedom of speech and cutting taxes.

“I’m not going to put myself in a binary box that you might want me to be in,” Scheer said.

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“My job will be to say, look, what aspects of these issues that different kinds of conservatives feel very passionately about, and we can all come together and work together on.”

Scheer said he believed in fiscal responsibility. “We have to get control on this out of control spending. It’s not fair to future generations of Canadians. ... I cannot allow Justin Trudeau to do the same thing to my five children that his father did to my generation.”

Bernier said he remained committed to his own principles and to the party. He said he sees a place for himself in a party led by Scheer, even though the ultimate victor’s stay-the-course approach differed so wildly from his own big policy ambitions.

“I like competition, it was a great competition,” said Bernier, visibly crushed. “I’m ready to work with Andrew; he did a great campaign, and that’s democracy, you know.”

In terms of policy, Scheer has promised to repeal the Liberals’ nation-wide plan to price carbon, and to further cut taxes on home heating. He also threatened to cut federal funding to universities who stifle free speech – although did not explicitly lay out how that would work.

Scheer also wants to reverse the Liberals’ decision to pull Canadian CF-18s out of the coalition bombing campaign against Daesh in Iraq. Like all leadership candidates, he’s not in favour of higher taxes.

According to the party, roughly 141,000 Conservative members cast a ballot in Saturday’s contest — most by mailing in their ballots, but several thousand on the day itself either in Toronto or at a smattering of voting stations across the country.

Scheer said he believes the in-person voting could have made the difference.

Before the voting began, party faithful paid a warm tribute to departing interim leader Rona Ambrose, who will be resigning her Edmonton seat in the House of Commons this year.

Ambrose devoted most of he speech to a list of criticisms of the Trudeau government, but saved some words of advice at the end for the incoming Conservative leader.

“It is important to remember that at this moment, no matter who wins, our leader will inevitably spend time learning, and listening, and working,” Ambrose said.

“(Stephen Harper) said the measure of a leader is how they treat their opponents in defeat. Never forget that . . . . The values that we share are so much more important than the proposals made in the heat of a campaign.”

Unlike Bernier, who had very little support within caucus, Scheer should have an easier time bringing his former rivals together. That work will begin on Monday, when the Conservatives return to Ottawa.

With files from The Canadian Press

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