OTTAWA, Feb 3, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Canada's Conservative MPs voted by secret
ballot Wednesday to oust their leader Erin O'Toole, amid infighting over the
party's future direction and loss to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals
in snap elections last year.

  Forty-five Tory members of parliament endorsed O'Toole's leadership, while
73 voted to replace him in the caucus vote, the main opposition party said in
a statement.

  Wednesday evening, they chose Candice Bergen, an MP from the central
province of Manitoba, to be the interim Conservative leader until a permanent
replacement is decided at a party convention.

  O'Toole's ouster ends a bitter internal feud over his year-and-a-half
tenure and forces a third Conservative leadership race since 2015.

  "This afternoon I stepped down as leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition
and leader of the Conservative Party of Canada following a vote in our
caucus," O'Toole said in a parting video message.

  He also said he would stay on as an MP.

  O'Toole, 49, fell out with a section of the party for tracking too much to
the political center in the last election.

  He has faced a barrage of criticism from colleagues for shifting the
party's positions on carbon pricing, balancing the federal budget and
firearms restrictions -- sometimes seemingly on the fly.

  "This country needs a conservative party that is both an intellectual force
and a governing force," O'Toole said Wednesday in defense of the positions
he'd taken.

  "Ideology without power is vanity. Seeking power without ideology is
hubris."

  He urged partisans and others to "hear the other side, listen to all
voices, not just the echoes from your own tribe."

  In parliament, Trudeau -- who was participating remotely, as he is in
isolation with Covid-19 -- thanked O'Toole for his public service.

  "There is a lot we do not agree on for the direction of this country, but
he stepped up to serve his country and I want to thank him for his
sacrifice," Trudeau said.

  The Conservatives won 119 seats out of 338 in the September election, down
two from a previous ballot in 2019.

  Prior to the caucus vote, O'Toole this week denounced his critics, saying
the path they wished to take the party on was "angry, negative and extreme."

  "It is a dead end," he said, adding that "a winning message is one of
inclusion, optimism, ideas and hope."