HALIFAX—It wasn’t exactly how the Conservatives were hoping to kick off their pre-election policy convention.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer accused Maxime Bernier of putting himself above the conservative cause after the Beauce MP offered a stunning barrage of criticism as he quit the party Thursday and vowed to start his own.

Bernier called the Conservatives “too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed,” charging Scheer and his caucus were governed more by focus groups and public polling than by conservative principles.

Scheer dismissed out of hand Bernier’s criticism that the party isn’t conservative enough.

“It’s been the Conservative Party of Canada that has been leading the fight against the carbon tax. It’s been the Conservative caucus that has been fighting for planned and orderly immigration. It’s been the Conservative Party of Canada that has fought for balanced budgets,” Scheer told reporters in an unscheduled news conference Thursday afternoon.

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“It’s been our party, and our MPs and caucus, that continually, every day, stands up for Conservative principles.”

Scheer’s predecessor, who knows a thing or two about a divided conservative movement, chimed in with his own criticism.

“It is clear that Max never accepted the result of the leadership vote and seeks only to divide Conservatives,” former prime minister Stephen Harper wrote on Twitter.

“His decision today allows the Conservative Party of Canada to move forward united behind our leader Andrew Scheer.”

But Bernier’s move also raises the possibility of a fracture in the party’s base with just over a year before the next federal election.

“I hope Justin Trudeau and his cabinet colleagues are breaking out the champagne,” tweeted Rachel Curran, who was director of policy under Harper.

The conflict between Bernier and Scheer — and indeed, much of the Conservative caucus — had been simmering for months. In May 2017, Bernier lost the party leadership vote to Scheer on the 13th ballot after leading the field on the previous 12. Later, he released a chapter of a planned memoir suggesting Scheer won thanks to “fake conservatives” who were signed up by the Quebec dairy lobby, which opposed Bernier’s bid.

He agreed to postpone the memoir and pull the chapter, but later reposted it and was stripped of his critic role as a result.

For the past two weeks, Bernier had been drawing the ire of his Conservative colleagues for a series of provocative Tweets criticizing “extreme multiculturalism” and “ever more diversity,” going so far as to taunt his party’s leadership after they held a news conference to discuss immigration policies.

Then on Thursday, as 3,000 members of the Conservative grassroots united in Halifax, Bernier scheduled a news conference in Ottawa.

“(The) party is afraid to articulate any coherent philosophy to support its position. Every public declaration is tested with polls and focus groups,” he said, adding he hopes to form a new party in the coming weeks.

“The result is a bunch of platitudes that don’t offend anybody, but also don’t mean anything and don’t motivate anyone. Andrew Scheer keeps talking about his positive Conservative vision, but nobody knows what that vision is.”

Bernier listed several policy areas where he claims to take a principled stand that promotes “free-market conservative” ideas and diverges sharply from his leader and party.

He cited his opposition to: Canada’s production quotas for dairy, poultry and eggs; the use of retaliatory trade tariffs against the U.S.; current immigration and multiculturalism policies (although he proposed no specific changes); and federal equalization transfers, “corporate welfare” and regional economic agencies that subsidize businesses.

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He said he decided nine days ago to leave the Conservative Party after he spoke to Scheer, who rebuked him for tweets on “extreme multiculturalism” which condemned the Trudeau government’s insistence on “ever more diversity.”

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Bernier defended his decision to remain MP for Beauce despite the Conservatives’ long-argued view that MPs who quit their party should step down and run in a byelection.

“It’s the party who changed,” said Bernier. “I didn’t change. I’m the same guy. I believe in the same ideas — and people in Beauce, they know that, so there’s no difference, I hope, for them.”

Bernier said he hoped that other Conservatives would join him in his new party. But if he had any takers, it wasn’t immediately apparent at the party convention on Thursday. Most MPs who spoke to the Star brushed off Bernier’s actions, saying they were just a minor distraction to the overall project of winning the 2019 election.

Thornhill MP Peter Kent said Bernier “simply couldn’t get over the fact he lost the leadership.”

“He was egged on by a number of acolytes, who, I think, led him to believe he had more support than he actually does,” Kent told the Star.

“I think if he had attended caucus today, the mandatory caucus here (in Halifax), I think he would have found unanimous rejection of what he’s been doing and how he’s been disrupting …. The party chose Andrew, and he should have accepted that.”

“It is a big distraction,” said Shannon Stubbs, an Alberta MP. “I think members want to focus on policy debates and the path forward as we focus on the next election.”

“It’s definitely not helpful to our movement and our objective of defeating the Liberals in 2019.”

Mark Strahl, the Conservative caucus whip, said, earlier in the day, that it was “unfortunate” Bernier skipped the Halifax convention.

“There’s 3,000 people here who are working to shape the policy of our party, and he’s not there for that, so I think that’s unfortunate,” Strahl said.

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