WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK. I’m your host, Maura Forrest, with Nick Taylor-Vaisey. Today, we dive into the chatter about JEAN CHAREST and a new political party. We raise a very important question about PIERRE POILIEVRE’s latest video. And public servants REALLY don’t want to go back to the office.
— TASHA KHEIRIDDIN, Charest’s campaign co-chair, flatly denied to Playbook that there’s any talk of launching a new party. “It is not something that is being talked about by any organized group,” she said. “I have heard people anecdotally… who are concerned about the future of the party and worry about this possibility.”
But Kheiriddin’s new book, “The Right Path,” is part of what got this ball rolling. In the book, published earlier this month, she contemplates the creation of a new center-right party if the populist and centrist factions of the Conservative Party can’t reconcile their differences. Boisvert’s column quoted her.
She’s quick to say a new party isn’t her preferred option. “I don’t think that’s the path to take, because I don’t think that it leads to government,” she told Playbook. “The right answer is to really find a way to keep the family together.”