Peter MacKay hired bodyguards for his family during Conservative leadership race, records show

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This article was published 28/07/2021 (1892 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA—Peter MacKay hired “emergency close protection” after threats were made against his wife during his failed bid for the leadership of the federal Conservative party last year.

Financial returns released Wednesday show MacKay has spent about $4.6 million in connection with his leadership bid — including $124,000 for security guards — and remains in debt almost a year after the race ended.

His return reveals that friends and family members helped pay for the security detail.

Former MacKay campaign officials told the Star Wednesday the decision to hire protection was made after threats against his wife, human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam, began circulating on social media and at one point escalated to photos of the MacKay family — including their children — with targets on their faces.

Afshin-Jam became the subject of renewed scrutiny during the campaign over remarks she made years earlier that Omar Khadr, the Canadian imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 for allegedly killing a U.S. soldier, needed to be repatriated to serve out his sentence as he was a minor at the time of the alleged crime.

That position — in line with international human rights rules around child soldiers — has never sat well with many conservatives, who opposed Khadr’s repatriation, and her comments were pushed back into the spotlight during the leadership race along with baseless accusations she supported terrorism.

MacKay declined to comment on the threats when reached by the Star on Wednesday.

He finished second in last year’s contest to Erin O’Toole, who focused on appealing to the party’s more conservative members while MacKay made a play for moderates.

It was a crushing loss for the man many believed was heir apparent after former prime minister Stephen Harper stepped down from the role following the 2015 election campaign.

Harper and MacKay formed the modern-day Conservative party in 2003 — MacKay was the leader of the Progressive Conservatives at the time, and Harper the head of the Canadian Alliance, when they chose to unite rather than continue to allow for a divide on the right.

MacKay sat out the 2017 leadership contest, ultimately won by Andrew Scheer, but after Scheer resigned following the 2019 election, MacKay jumped in.

He’d later peg his failure to win on running a leadership campaign as though it was a general election, as opposed to focusing on the party’s base.

Elections Canada records total MacKay’s campaign expenses at $5.27 million. That figure includes loan repayments, expenses incurred after the vote, and money that went to the Conservative party itself as a clawback on donations. MacKay’s campaign said late Wednesday subtracting all of that brings their total spend related closer to $4.6 million.

By comparison, O’Toole spent about $3.69 million on his own leadership race, his final records suggests and third-place finisher, Leslyn Lewis, spent $2.2 million.

Their records were released much earlier this year as campaign returns are supposed to be submitted six months after the contest ended.

MacKay’s financial agent had asked for an extension citing the complexity of gathering the required information during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fourth-place finisher Derek Sloan’s report is still not public.

He was kicked out of the Conservative caucus and the party by O’Toole in the months after the leadership vote, with O’Toole citing a pattern of destructive behaviour.

Sloan has hinted he intends to form his own party.

Lewis was acclaimed as the Conservative candidate in the safe seat of Haldimand-Norfolk for the next election, a spot left vacant by longtime party stalwart Diane Finley.

Elections Canada records suggest that as of the end of June, the MacKay campaign still had about $800,000 in unpaid bills and an outstanding line of credit.

In a statement provide to the Star Wednesday, the campaign said efforts are ongoing to pay down the remaining debt, and they thanked those who have helped with that process, naming former prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper in particular.

Though O’Toole and MacKay served in cabinet together under Harper, they’ve been at odds since the last leadership race.

O’Toole repeatedly attacked MacKay as being nothing more than “Liberal party-lite,” and accused him of wanting to take the party away from its “true blue” roots.

During a leadership debate, MacKay accused O’Toole of being a flip-flopper, and in favour of a carbon tax — one of conservatives’ most hated federal programs — despite O’Toole insisting he would never introduce one.

In April, he did.

In the aftermath of the leadership race, MacKay had considered a run for Parliament in his home province of Nova Scotia.

Some reports have suggested that offer was turned down by O’Toole, but publicly MacKay said he made the choice himself in order to focus on life in the private sector and his family.

Correction — July 28, 2021: This story has been updated from a previous version to correct that Peter McKay spent $4.6 million on his leadership bid, not the $5 million indicated by Elections Canada.

Stephanie Levitz is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @StephanieLevitz