Toronto — The kickoff to Peter MacKay's bid to unite the political right erupted in chaos Thursday as angry protesters confronted the Conservative leader and clashed with party supporters.
Mr. MacKay was speaking to reporters after a campaign-style speech promoting the proposed merger with the Canadian Alliance when a group of protesters barrelled through the crowd, demanding to know why their leader went back on his promise not to agree to a merger.
"I've got a picture here of you and I shaking hands and you promising me that we wouldn't do this," shouted Brandon King, who attended the Tory convention where Mr. MacKay was elected leader in May.
Mr. MacKay won the leadership after fourth-place candidate David Orchard agreed to support him in exchange for an agreement that there would be no merger with the Alliance.
Supporters rallied around Mr. MacKay, trying to drown out Mr. King by bellowing chants of "Yes" and "Peter" while holding up PC placards to obscure the protesters from television cameras.
"There's no way this should go through," shouted Mr. King, a massive man with braided hair and a cowboy hat whom Mr. MacKay's supporters had little luck restraining.
"They have a right to vote for or against it," Mr. MacKay yelled as he struggled to be heard over the din.
"Nobody can suggest this has been short-circuited or we have done an end-run; it's constitutional, it's legal, it's perfectly in the interests of Conservatives everywhere, and ultimately it will give Canadians a clear choice."
The deal's opponents, including Mr. King, weren't buying it.
"You should be impeached," he shouted. "You're an impostor. You have no mandate to end the party."
"Free speech is a wonderful thing," Mr. MacKay coolly replied as the protesters and his supporters wrestled behind him.
George Shepherd, another delegate who was at the May leadership convention, said Mr. MacKay made it abundantly clear that he wouldn't be entering into any merger agreements with the Alliance.
"Peter spoke eloquently about not being a merger candidate, and now four months later ... he's a traitor to our party," Mr. Shepherd said.
"He's a liar."
After the fracas, Mr. King complained that he'd been assaulted when he tried to confront the leader.
"I'm a delegate at the convention, and they were pulling me away. It was assault, absolutely."
Mr. MacKay was in town to promote his vision of the "new blue" and formally launch the Conservative Yes Committee, which will organize each federal riding in an effort to sell new memberships and implore Tories to get out and vote for pro-merger delegates at the end of November.
Those delegates in turn will meet by teleconference on Dec. 6, with a two-thirds majority needed to ratify the union with the Alliance, disband the existing PC party and create a new Conservative Party of Canada.
On Wednesday, Mr. MacKay announced that former Tory cabinet minister Don Mazankowski and former Ontario premier Bill Davis — who helped negotiate the merger — are to be honourary co-chairmen of the yes campaign, along with Tory Senator Pierre Claude Nolin.
Mr. Mazankowski and Mr. Nolin were on hand both for the clash with protesters and at the tony Albany Club earlier in the day, where Mr. MacKay urged Conservative supporters to get involved in order to make the merger happen.
"Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines and let others do the heavy lifting," he said in his speech, a copy of which was distributed by party officials in Ottawa.
"Now is the time for all those who share the goal of a competitive conservative alternative to step up and help make the new Conservative Party of Canada a reality."
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