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Right now the CPC is so squishily left of where it should be that all Scheer can offer voters is a promise of better management, tax cuts here and there, and, not incidentally to be sure, a promise to protect “freedom of speech” (to Scheer’s credit, before he was leader, he opposed Bill C-16, which opened the door to compelled speech, while Bernier only understood its dangers after Jordan Peterson briefed him).

Photo by Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press/File

I understand and sympathize with Scheer’s dilemma. When the polls started looking good for the CPC, he began to suffer from “summit fever.” That’s what happens to people climbing Mount Everest when they near the top. They still have a tough climb ahead, and they aren’t sure they have the strength for it, but they have climbed so far already, they’ll do whatever it takes. So they start jettisoning heavy gear, even oxygen tanks, for the final sprint.

Summit fever is a contributing factor in many an Everest death. The political equivalent of summit fever is the willingness to jettison principles, the readiness to make compromises, even to make deals with those they recognize in their hearts as the devil, because the glittering prize has them mesmerized with its siren call.

On the whole, even though it doubtless means another Trudeau term, I think the Bernier effect will be salutary in the long run. Yes, sad for the next election, which Trudeau — a “post-national” progressive chugging through an unexamined life, riding an undeviating politically correct train of thought that requires no intellectual locomotive — doesn’t deserve to win. But the CPC does not have its ducks in a conservative row, conviction-wise, and therefore it too does not deserve to win.

Bernier’s putative new party may have a clarifying effect in — to continue the Everest metaphor — a presently foggy Base Camp. Will Bernier lead the next CPC expedition to the summit? Too soon to tell. Let’s see how he works out as a Scheerpa.