Steve MacLellan

OTTAWA — A senior Conservative instrumental in the party’s last leadership race says choosing a new leader at the upcoming convention in April is feasible, but would take a lot of work.

Dan Nowlan, who oversaw the 2017 leadership contest that ended in a photo-finish victory for Andrew Scheer, also says it’s disappointing that the party’s longtime executive director isn’t going to have a formal role to play in that process.

A new leadership race for the party informally started last week after Scheer announced his intention to resign. It was a move that wasn’t entirely unexpected, coming after months of both behind-the-scenes and very public pressure linked to his failure to win power in October.

But that all took a back seat to accusations that surfaced early last week that he’d used party funds to cover the costs of sending his kids to private school.