(File Photo/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

By Nicole Reis

Vidal On Scheer

New MP weighs in on lack of Conservative leadership

Dec 23, 2019 | 12:00 PM

Gary Vidal, the newly elected MP for the Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River and shadow cabinet minister for Indigenous Services is reflecting on the news that Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer is stepping down as leader, and will move aside once a successor is chosen.

Vidal was sworn into his MP role on Nov. 20.

“It’s been a difficult week. There was lot of emotion and intensity around the whole thing and obviously that creates some uncertainty and some challenge within our party,” Vidal told meadowlakeNOW. “I think those are just things as political parties, we have to work through and we have to come out the other side better than what we went in as and I think we’ll work hard to do that.”

Vidal mentioned a policy convention to be held in April will guide the party members to assess those who will step forward to assume the Conservative Party leadership role.

“I’m going to watch this play out a little before we assess who a new leader will be,” he said.

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Vidal expressed his appreciation for Scheer’s work despite his recent resignation.

“I think Mr. Scheer deserves a lot of credit and a lot of appreciation from Conservatives across the country, he took our party to a place that nobody would have expected us to be in 2015,” Vidal said. “It wasn’t the result we hoped for but there was some incredible progress made over the course of four years.”

The Conservatives held the Liberals to a minority government in October but many in the party had hoped for a better result.

With files from Canadian Press

Editor’s note: this story has been amended to make clear Andrew Scheer remains the party leader until a successor is chosen. Since this article was originally posted the Conservative Party has decided to select a new leader in June.

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nicole.reis@jbpg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722