The results were a surprise to many, as front-runner Peter MacKay was the stronger candidate, with more experience in government.

O'Toole replaces former leader Andrew Scheer, MP for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who in 2019 won the second largest vote count of any previous Conservative leader (6.15 million votes, just slightly behind Brian Mulroney's 1984 landslide win with 6.2 million).

Now, the CPC no longer has a western leader.

O'Toole represents the GTA regional municipality of Durham.

Courting Western votes, O'Toole made a point of kicking off his campaign in Calgary. He was supported by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

With only fifty Conservative seats east of Manitoba, O'Toole's power base, for the moment at least, lies in the Western provinces (with seventy-one Conservative seats). But in order to form the next government in Ottawa, the CPC will have to win more seats in the East. In order to do that, O'Toole will have to convince voters in Ontario and Quebec of his message. Substantial wins in the East could shift the current West-centric focus of the party, re-orient Prime Minister O'Toole's priorities eastward, and leave Westerners in the same marginalized position that they are in today.

Many Westerners abandoned any remaining hope of inclusion when Prime Minister Trudeau reneged on his 2015 campaign promise to end the existing plurality voting system prior to the 2019 election. Of course, had Trudeau enacted the promised electoral reform, he would have lost in 2019, since Scheer won the popular vote (CP 6,155,662 – LP 5,915,950 votes). The electoral system allowed the Liberals to win a plurality of seats with only 33% of the vote, thereby cementing western alienation and spawning Wexit. Under the plurality system Ontario (121 ridings) and Quebec (78 ridings) can potentially elect a government. With only 338 ridings across the country, a plurality of 199 seats invalidates the other eight provinces and three territories (with only 139 seats combined).

This inherent systemic inequality of national influence is the beating heart of Western separatism.

Where does O'Toole stand on electoral reform and proportional representation?

Against.

Although O'Toole's platform avoided the issue, he has stated previously that he is opposed to electoral reform. In a 2016 Huffington Post article “Electoral Reform Could Come At The Cost Of Our National Unity” he wrote, “My greatest concern stems from the fact that a move to Proportional Representation (PR) could actually undermine national unity.”

While O'Toole may not check the electoral reform box for marginalized Westerners, his “Action Plan for Alberta and the West” does address a number of other Western-centric issues:

• Fix Equalization. A province with an economy in recession and a skyrocketing unemployment rate should not be forced to send money to other provinces
• Stop the discrimination against Alberta in the Fiscal Stabilization Program
• Repeal Bill C-69
• Pass a National Strategic Pipelines Act
• Scrap Trudeau's tanker ban
• Implement a federal LNG export strategy.

Coming out of the gate, he is saying things that Westerners should be able to get behind; such as, “…the world still needs more Canada, it just needs less Justin Trudeau.”

O'Toole believes that the party must remain Conservative and not move to the middle politically, and is strong on the economy, resource development, and law enforcement. He supports continuing exploitation of the Athabasca tar sands and promotion of Canada's resource sector abroad, and opposes the Trudeau carbon tax.

Will it be enough to mollify Western concerns?

A DART poll conducted on February 24th shows that an alarming sixty-nine percent of Canadians believe “Canada is broken”.

Another recent poll by Abacus Data showed that only 13% of Canadians would vote for separation, with support being highest in Alberta at 25%. The same poll showed that 75% of Albertans feel that the province has been treated unfairly by the rest of Canada.

In a poll conducted by Northwest Research for the Western Standard in May; 45 per cent of decided Albertans surveyed said that they would vote yes (or were leaning yes) if there was a referendum on Alberta's independence, while 55 per cent said that they would definitely vote no (or were leaning no).

Complicating things for the CPC, in addition to growing Western discontent, is Western separatist party Wexit Canada, now led by former Conservative MP Jay Hill. Hill has considerable experience in government; having served as the MP for Prince George – Peace River from 1993 until his retirement in 2010. In 2007 he was appointed Secretary of State in the Harper Government, and then Leader of the Government in the House of Commons in 2008. Hill began his political career with the Reform Party of Canada (formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance Party), which was folded into the Canadian Alliance in 2000. Hill's credibility, both in Alberta and on Parliament Hill, makes Wexit a serious threat to the CPC.

The stage may thus be set for the next self-destructive Conservative Party implosion.

The Conservatives have a lengthy history of fractious division. In fact, the current CPC version is the result of the 2003 merger between the Progressive Conservative Party and Stephen Harper's Canadian Alliance, resulting from party discord over then newly elected PCP leader Peter MacKay's shady backroom “Orchard Deal”.

Disunity has led to numerous name changes since it's inception as the Liberal-Conservative Party in 1854 under founding-father John A. MacDonald, including; Conservative Party (1867), Unionist Party (1917), National Liberal and Conservative Party (1920), Progressive Conservative Party (1942), Reform Party of Canada (1987), Canadian Alliance (2000), and the Conservative Party of Canada (2003).

The stressors for change within the CPC are the loss of a Western leader in Scheer, the lack of commitment for electoral reform by O'Toole, discontentment across the West, and the glaringly viable option of Jay Hill and Wexit.

The threat to the CPC here is not limited to potential voter loss at the polls next election, but further that some CPC members may switch party affiliation to Wexit.

Wexit has committed to running 104 candidates in the next election, every riding in the West. Unless Western concerns are addressed by CPC, some of those Wexit candidates may now be Conservatives.

In the final analysis, Hill supports proportional voting, O'Toole does not.

O'Toole and the CPC face an uphill battle in the coming months, one which may well decide the future of the Conservative Party…and ultimately Confederation.