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    • Don Martin: With Trudeau's return as a target, worst might be over for O'Toole

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    If bad leaders come in threes, this week鈥檚 storm of ugly headlines clearly lump Erin O鈥橳oole into the trifecta of disastrous Conservative leaders alongside Andrew Scheer and Stockwell Day.

    But the worst may now be behind O鈥橳oole as his party prepares to return to Parliament in five days to take aim at the real target, specifically Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

    Behind closed doors on Wednesday, the Conservative caucus adopted a crisis-what-crisis? view of the challenges being unleashed at their leader of just 15 months.

    Usually-reliable sources saying there was little sign that calls for an early review of O鈥橳oole鈥檚 reign are gaining traction among MPs or that his heavy-handed discipline of dissidents was considered unacceptably harsh.

    Granted, using voicemail to tell Senator Denise Batters she鈥檇 been booted as a Conservative parliamentarian for launching a leadership review petition was cowardly.

    O鈥橳oole should鈥檝e had the guts to look her in the eye when the knife went in and perhaps explain that she could return to the caucus if the leadership petition fails to attract enough signatures.

    But Batters is just a senator, after all, and the Red Chamber is no longer filled with napping appointees who mull sober second thoughts over what party leaders tell them to think.

    Now dominated by independents, albeit liberal-leaning Trudeau appointees for the most part, there鈥檚 almost no point in allowing appointed senators to parade the Conservative flag through the upper house anymore. They should all be thrown out of the caucus. But I digress.

    Perhaps the best news for O鈥橳oole on Wednesday were indications the so-called Civil Liberties Caucus of anti-vaccine defenders -- essentially Andrew Scheer loyalists and anti-abortion MPs engaging a new crusade -- has fizzled to the fringe. As one MP confided, 鈥渢hey were never really a thing anyway.鈥

    If so, that eliminates a major parliamentary migraine for O鈥橳oole once he鈥檚 back in the House because you just know Trudeau will be salivating to throw feathery tar at the entire party as dangerous defenders of vaccination holdouts.

    In the big picture, observers in the caucus room tell me at most a dozen MPs are suspected of being offside with O鈥橳oole鈥檚 leadership, but none are expected to go public with their views. As one former insider described it, they鈥檙e just 鈥榗hocolate soldiers鈥 who will melt in the heat of battle.

    Now, this is not to say Erin O鈥橳oole is suddenly basking in a caucus kumbaya love-in where he鈥檚 safe from a plank-walking until the next election.

    His polling popularity is abysmal and likely to dip even further amid the noise of the mutinous rebels. His moderation of hard-right ideological edges has created more true-blue enemies than Senator Batters. And without a probable election victory in sight, he doesn鈥檛 have cabinet considerations to dangle as a way to enforce discipline among the doubters.

    But a return to Parliament brings opportunities for an Official Opposition while waiting-around merely vacates space for internal mischief-making.

    If Trudeau returns from Washington this week without any face-saving gifts from President Joe Biden while Buy American protectionism ramps back up to Trump-like levels, well, that hands over high-calibre ammo for a Conservative attack in the House of Commons next week.

    (As an aside, I wouldn鈥檛 be surprising if Trudeau misses most of next week in the Commons to spread empathy and many millions of relief dollars around flood-ravaged B.C.. It鈥檚 arguably a justified mercy mission to this year鈥檚 worst natural disaster, but also delivers irresistible prime ministerial optics).

    And while curbing inflation and rebuilding broken supply chains are beyond the fix-it abilities of any prime minister, that doesn鈥檛 mean opposition parties can鈥檛 have a field day trying to connect public anger to Trudeau economic mismanagement.

    After a few very bad few weeks, Erin O鈥橳oole is now counting on his influential MPs to shame rebel MPs quietly into line and contain the infection of O鈥橳oole review fever to the fringe.

    The aim now is to target on Trudeau and stop the circled Conservative wagons from shooting inwards -- at him.

    That鈥檚 the bottom line.

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