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It may have been said in jest but it reflects a lack of peer-to-peer respect that still afflicts Scheer among those senior colleagues who toiled in the trenches of Harper’s cabinet while he sat on the backbench or in the Speaker’s chair.

“It’s problematic,” a senior member of Scheer’s shadow cabinet repeated over and over, while professing to have no clue as to how to fix the problem of his leadership.

The Conservatives were sitting pretty in the polls in the spring and through the summer — statistically tied with the Liberals or even ahead. As fall has turned to winter, support has ticked lower, in some surveys falling below the psychological bar of 30 per cent. The concern is that this is not because a significant number of voters are defecting to Maxime Bernier’s new party. Rather, the worry is that the support is shifting to the Liberals, who are now more than 10 points up in some polls.

“Every MP is hearing: ‘Scheer needs to be strong, he needs to be out there’. And he is out there, but we are in an age where people want a fighter,” said the second shadow-cabinet member.

I’m concerned there is no compelling narrative

On any number of issues from the Canada Summer Jobs program to moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, the leadership’s position has been slow to emerge.

“They seem to be afraid to take a position on things that might go against provincial partners, and so speak out of both sides of their mouth,” said one party insider.

He said that the Opposition Leader’s Office is “somewhat chaotic and not well organized.”

This is not a case of an internal rebellion by a disgruntled faction. Even those who are critical say that Scheer is thoughtful and considerate, and has fostered a strong camaraderie in caucus that easily weathered Bernier’s departure.

The leader is deemed to have performed well on certain issues — such as the drive to force the government to change the law on offenders like child killer Terri-Lynne McClintic.

But there are fears that small victories on individual files are not translating into broad support.

“I’m concerned there is no compelling narrative,” said one well-respected Conservative. “We should have stuck to a continuous message for weeks on end. It’s only when we’re sick and tired of it that people out there start hearing it.”