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Conservative MPs will be in Ottawa next week for their first caucus meeting after the election and it will be a test of Scheer’s level of support within the party. The caucus could vote to give itself the power to trigger a leadership review (part of the parliamentary reforms that Conservative MP Michael Chong got passed in 2015). If caucus adopts this power, 20 per cent of the caucus would then need to vote in favour of launching the review.

However, adopting this power would be a change of heart from the Conservatives, who chose not adopt it after the 2015 election. Many in the caucus prefer to leave leadership review power in the hands of the broader party membership.

The party’s constitution already mandates a leadership review to take place at the party’s next convention, scheduled for April in Toronto. Delegates to the convention will vote by secret ballot on whether Scheer should remain in charge.

Photo by Carlos Osorio/Reuters

Below are extended versions of MacKay’s remarks from Wednesday’s event.

Social conservative issues

I think there was a number of issues that became very prevalent in this election that nobody other than the politicos wanted to talk about. People did not want to talk about women’s reproductive rights. They didn’t want to talk about revisiting the issue of same-sex marriage. And yet that was thrust onto the agenda and hung around Andrew Scheer’s neck like a stinking albatross, quite frankly, and he wasn’t able to deftly deal with those issues when the opportunities arose. And I think among female voters in particular, and those who would have been impacted by any revisitation (of abortion), it created a nervousness or it took them out of their comfort zone if they were considering voting Conservative. Which, you know, frankly, having known Andrew Scheer…like Stephen Harper, who was Prime Minister for almost ten years, there was no intention and there is no intention to revisit those issues. But it created an aura, inaccurate, but impacted very much at that point when people enter the ballot box.