Lessons to be learned from the victory of Erin O'Toole

National Post, 28 August 2020

Canadians get two choices for prime minister. With the election of Erin O’Toole, one of them now is a clear-eyed realist on China.

The Conservative party leadership race has lessons about policy, politics and process.

Canadians get two choices for prime minister. With the election of Erin O’Toole, one of them now is a clear-eyed realist on China, offering a new approach on what will be the dominant foreign and economic policy question for the next generation.

Donald Trump changed the parameters of the conversation on China, recognizing the communist regime not as a partner but as at least a rival, if not an enemy. While the coronavirus may lead to the president’s defeat, it has ensured that the world will now follow his tougher line on China.

Erin O’Toole has a well-developed policy for challenging China where possible, and for responsible disengagement in security, technology and trade. He has no admiration for its “basic dictatorship,” as the prime minister once professed. Canadians as a whole — and certainly the country’s corporate elite — were never admirers of Chinese communism, but were content to take a pass on human rights, trade manipulation and security threats if it meant cheap goods. That has now changed. Chinese domestic cruelty has ramped up and its duplicity on the virus launched a global pandemic. O’Toole is ahead of a curve that will flatten others who still cling to an outdated pro-China view.

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