Conservatives ‘united’ O’Toole says, after MPs give themselves the power to remove him

.OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says his caucus is “fully united,” despite MPs voting to give themselves the power to potentially oust him after the party’s 2021 federal election loss. On Tuesday Conservative MPs met in-person in Ottawa for their meeting since the election, where O’Toole faced a caucus upset by various elements of the unsuccessful national campaign, including losing seats and MPs in key regions of the country.
Coming out of the meeting where his MPs took what could be the first step in removing him, O’Toole said he remains confident that he has enough caucus support to remain at the helm of the party. “As I said today during our first meeting as a caucus: as leader, I am accountable. Accountable for what went well, and accountable for where we fell short. I’m also accountable for where we failed in executing on our plan for Canadians, and I take that responsibility very seriously. I’m resolutely committed to reviewing every element of our campaign,” O’Toole told reporters. “We’re all disappointed, no one more so than me. But we have to make sure we build on the gains we have, learn from where we fell short,” he said. The caucus’s decision to leave the door open to the possibility to change up its leadership before the next election was one of four key resolutions they made on Tuesday.
Through the Reform Act— an initiative from Ontario Conservative MP Michael Chong that came into effect in 2015—the caucus voted on giving themselves four key internal powers for the coming session, including the ability to review and remove their party leader and elect an interim replacement.
If Conservatives want to forge ahead with this leadership review, 20 per cent of caucus would need to sign a formal agreement to trigger the process, and then it would require a majority of caucus members to vote to remove the leader through a secret-ballot process. O’Toole encouraged his caucus to vote in favour of enacting these powers, and he said after the meeting that just because caucus has the ability in its back pocket, he doesn’t feel threatened by it.
Source: ctvnews.ca