It was an ambitious platform that we publicized aggressively
Housakos, who is recognized for his deep Conservative connections within Quebec and his ability to mobilize voters, said when he meet O’Toole again in April he was thoroughly impressed with his French skills.
“By April, he made a demonstration to me that his French got so significantly better that I said,’You know what? If this guy can make such a significant improvement to his French from December 2019 to April 2020, imagine the improvement he’s going to make from now until the summer.’ That was a big element that tipped me over,” Housakos said.
Over the course of the campaign, O’Toole called 2,000 Conservative members in the province, and Clarke said he spoke virtually to another 7,000 people on the leader’s behalf.
“When I started making calls for Erin O’Toole in February, people would answer and ask, ‘Eric who?’,” Clarke said with a laugh. “But by the beginning of May, people not only recognized Erin’s name right away, but they were quoting parts of his Quebec platform and telling us how much they agreed with it.”
“That’s when I knew that our campaign was taking off,” added Clarke, who became senior advisor to O’Toole when he officially became leader of the Conservative party this week.
But seducing Conservative members to win a leadership race and seducing the general Quebec electorate are two completely different challenges, O’Toole’s team acknowledged.
And many of the issues that made O’Toole an underdog at the beginning of the campaign are the same ones he’s facing going into a general election.
Source: Lire l'article complet de Vigile.Québec
