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Social conservatives helped Scheer to victory over Bernier in the Conservative Party’s 2017 leadership race. Today, Tyler Thompson said, “droves” of them are leaving his side, seeing more opportunity in the PPC. Her own attempts to run as a Conservative had been rejected by the party, she said. “I believe that the Conservative Party is underestimating the groundswell of the grassroots people who feel they have been ignored.”

Bernier is no social conservative himself — for one thing, unlike Tyler Thompson, he is pro-choice. He told The Canadian Press on Thursday that a PPC government would not include social conservative issues in its platform, and that Tyler Thompson knows it. The policies Bernier proposes are largely economic: he argues the federal government should never subsidize corporations, the supply management system for dairy, eggs and chicken should be abolished, and corporate tax rates should be substantially cut.

Photo by Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson/Facebook

However, Bernier, who announced he was forming the PPC in the fall after an acrimonious split from the Conservatives, has also accused Trudeau of promoting “extreme multiculturalism,” and proposed reducing immigration levels. To some mockery, he recently wondered on Twitter if Canada’s participation in the Paris Climate Accord, UN Global Migration Pact and foreign aid, all of which he disagrees with, made Trudeau loyal to a “FUTURE WORLD GOVERNMENT THAT WILL DESTROY CANADA?”

Bernier’s critics have accused him of trying to stir up xenophobic fears and validate climate change denial. But Tyler Thompson said she believes he is hitting a nerve.