Late Saturday night in Toronto, Andrew Scheer was still basking in the glow of an unexpected but welcome leadership victory.
But the former House of Commons Speaker and father of five kids said he knows the hard work will begin almost right away.
“My job is to to find the common ground,” said Scheer, after narrowly defeating Quebec’s Maxime Bernier to become just the second permanent leader in the party’s history.
His first message to his Conservative caucus on Monday back in Ottawa, he said, will need to be one of unity. The hotly-contested race and it’s down-to-the-wire finish highlighted some of the divisions still embedded deep within the party’s grassroots, as social conservatives pushed Scheer ahead of the more libertarian Bernier.
“All the internal numbers I saw and external polling showed that the race was down to Maxime and me,” Scheer acknowledged.
“I knew it could have gone either way.”
Scheer also joked with The West Block‘s Vassy Kapelos that he and his family have “got some things to talk about.”
“We’ve always been able to find that balance,” he said of his discussions with his wife, Jill. “We put a plan in place in case this happened.”
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As for his policy commitments, Scheer said he was happy with the enthusiastic response from the crowd on Saturday night when he mentioned pulling federal funding from universities that don’t foster a culture of free speech on campus.
“I think we see a disturbing trend,” Scheer said, adding that it’s not right for campus clubs get shut down because “they dare to challenge established orthodoxy” on certain issues.
WATCH: New federal Conservative party leader Andrew Scheer discusses freedom of speech
“It’s happening here, it’s important that we don’t allow it to escalate. It’s that intolerance of the left on so many of these subjects that lead to political correctness gone so far that you can’t even have a conversation about things.”
Scheer repeated that he has no plans to push for a reopening of the abortion debate, but would not say for certain if he will march in a pride parade.
“It’s become a very politicized type of event,” he said of certain pride parades, citing the exclusion of groups like local police.
“What was once maybe fighting for a policy objective to obtain recognition has now become something that’s gone way beyond that. Many members of that community don’t support the type of event it’s turned into.”
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