{"id":61802,"date":"2017-01-03T20:57:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T20:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/fish-or-cut-bait-andrew-scheer-calls-on-kevin-oleary-to-join-race-before-conservative-all-french-debate.html"},"modified":"2017-01-03T20:57:31","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T20:57:31","slug":"fish-or-cut-bait-andrew-scheer-calls-on-kevin-oleary-to-join-race-before-conservative-all-french-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/fish-or-cut-bait-andrew-scheer-calls-on-kevin-oleary-to-join-race-before-conservative-all-french-debate.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Fish or cut bait&#8217;: Andrew Scheer calls on Kevin O&#8217;Leary to join race before Conservative all-French debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Conservative leadership hopeful Andrew Scheer is accusing possible candidate Kevin O&#8217;Leary of trying to avoid an all-French debate in two weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Scheer released a statement Tuesday urging the Montreal-born businessman to formalize his candidacy and participate in the Quebec City event Jan.17.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If Kevin wants to run, it&#8217;s time to fish or cut bait,&#8221; Scheer said. &#8220;It is not acceptable to stall or delay in order to avoid the French-language debate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">O&#8217;Leary assembles advisors for possible bid<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Conservatives hold first bilingual debate in Moncton<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He says it&#8217;s obvious O&#8217;Leary wants to get into the race and that he has an obligation to all French-speaking Conservatives to take part in the debate.<\/p>\n<p>Some Conservatives believe it is essential that Stephen Harper&#8217;s replacement has the ability to speak French.<\/p>\n<p>O&#8217;Leary doesn&#8217;t speak the language and has stated he doesn&#8217;t need to in order to communicate with Quebecers.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/66b5b_conservative-convention-20160527.jpg\" alt=\"CONSERVATIVE CONVENTION 20160527\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Montreal-born businessman and reality TV star Kevin O&#8217;Leary is considering a run for the Conservative party leadership. (Jonathan Hayward\/Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>The celebrity businessman and reality TV-show host announced before Christmas he has a group of advisers exploring a possible leadership run and is seeking public input through a website.<\/p>\n<p>The exploratory committee is due to report back to O&#8217;Leary early this year.<\/p>\n<p>The deadline to register for the leadership race is Feb. 24, with the winner chosen May 27.<\/p>\n<p>There are now 13 candidates in the running for the job with the withdrawal of Daniel Lindsay, a Manitoba radiologist with no political experience.<\/p>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/scheer-oleary-french-1.3919611?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conservative leadership hopeful Andrew Scheer is accusing possible candidate Kevin O&#8217;Leary of trying to avoid an all-French debate in two weeks. Scheer released a statement Tuesday urging the Montreal-born businessman to formalize his candidacy and participate in the Quebec City event Jan.17. &#8220;If Kevin wants to run, it&#8217;s time to fish or cut bait,&#8221; Scheer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-61802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}