Like anyone else running for high office, Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Lemieux was always going to say he was running to win. But as one of two self-identified social conservatives running for the leadership of the Conservative party, he always had a secondary — but equally important — task: making his issues impossible for the mainstream candidates to ignore.

“My presence in the race and my messaging in the race has helped change the race for the better,” Lemieux told iPolitics recently over lunch in Ottawa. Lemieux said that, because he’s been a voice for the party’s so-con wing in the race, other candidates are now reaching out to anti-abortion groups and “trying to talk their language.”

Lemieux said that, like most so-cons, he’s fed up with the consensual cone of silence that fell over the abortion issue in Canadian politics sometime in the 1980s — and with the fact that many within his own party refuse to re-open the debate for fear of the electoral consequences.

Lemieux acknowledged, though, that not all leadership candidates are keen to talk about abortion and called their refusal to re-open the debate “an infringement on our freedom of speech … and an infringement as well on democracy.”

“So that’s why we run our race until the very end and seek people’s support by asking them to put my name first on the ballot,” he said.

Lemieux said his involvement in the race is a “winning scenario in so many different ways,” because he’s been able to assure social conservatives and those with faith-based political values that they have a place in the Conservative party.

“First of all, to see these things as strengths … that validates someone voting for me, but what a message that sends. Regardless of the outcome of this race, the more people who vote in favour of that, to say, ‘You know what, that resonates with me,’ that sends a really strong message,” said Lemieux.

“I frame it this way. I say, as a leader I want a larger party. I want more people in our party.”

Lemieux was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces for 20 years and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was a member of Parliament from 2006-2015 and attributes his loss in the 2015 election to the strong “anti-Stephen Harper sentiment.”

“I canvassed more doors than I’ve ever canvassed before … and the message I consistently received was, ‘Pierre, love you, you’ve done fantastic work, one of the best MPs we’ve had in terms of delivering actual change positive change and federal funding to the riding — can’t stand your leader.'”

Lemieux said he’s “really optimistic” about his chances in the leadership race, but if he’s not successful he will consider running again in 2019.

“I actually think no one knows the outcome of this race. People think they know the outcome of this race and you see this kind of jockeying … the race is down to two people. No, it’s not,” he said with a laugh.

While the other social conservative leadership candidate in the race, Brad Trost, has told his supporters to pick Lemieux as their second choice on their ballot, Lemieux is not reciprocating.

He said candidates and voters have asked him more than once who he’s naming as his second choice and who he’s asking his supporters to back as their second choice.

“It’s not for Pierre Lemieux to push people into someone else’s camp. It’s for the other candidates to pull people into their camps. So if they want to win Pierre Lemieux supporters, people who are going to put Pierre Lemieux at the top of their list, it’s not like they have to win me over. They need to talk the language of the people who are voting for me,” he said.

Lemieux also insists he and Trost are not cut from the same cloth. “Well, the first is I served our country for 20 years so if someone values military service, service to our country in that regard, and the leadership that comes from that — I joined when I was 17.

“I learned a lot about leadership and that’s the kind of leadership I’m bringing to the race and it’s different from everyone else’s, including Brad’s.”